Combining Midi and Audio recorded from an External Synth

[Ben Basic]

I just got my first external synth. I can control it with Ableton Live midi via Ext. Instrument, as well as record its audio output into an Ableton Live audio track. I want to be able to unplug my external synth and still be able to hear what I recorded on a single midi track (like I do when I compose midi with an Ableton instrument i.e. no audio track involved). Is there a slick way of doing this?

[TLW]

You could load a software synth and point the MIDI track at that. Though that would make having the hardware synth pointless because you wouldn’t be using it.