MIDI and Audio in a single track?

Ok, I am a noob to Reaper and absolutely loving it! I have used every other DAW software out there, and I cannot believe the value that Reaper represents! Its not displaced my primary DAW, though I have a feeling it might.. In any case, I am having one issue. Is it possible to set a channel to both receive MIDI input from a controller keyboard AND the audio from the audio input? I like to mix in the box, so I would need both active at the same time. When I select an audio input for a track, the midi input stops receiving and vice-versa. I can accomplish what I want by having two tracks for each device...but thats just a little less elegant (though acceptable, I guess). Thank you for your help.

I think the easiest way to do this would be to record your two tracks, then implode them to takes. Right-click item procssing, implode. Steve

Welcome to the forums! Can you elaborate a bit on what you want to do with the controller? You can't record MIDI events and audio simultaneously on a single track but AFAIK using MIDI CC to control track parameters or a plugin should be possible anyway.

Ok, let me clarify.. I have a keyboard controller and a number of physical synthesizers. What I want to do, is have a single track that can receive the MIDI data and route the audio through at the same time. This is before I care about having the track recorded as audio - I just want to work with the MIDI and have audio routed in through reaper as well. If your familiar with it, Ableton does this with 'External Instruments'. With a single device, a track can accept MIDI (and playback MIDI clips) but has an audio input tied to it. Make sense? Right now, the way to do this in reaper seems to have one channel for the MIDI IO and one for the Audio Input. What I want to know, is if this is the only way to achieve this in Reaper. I have no external mixer, just an audio interface with 24 inputs. I am one of those rare dinosaurs that work with a big MIDI rig.

how about using "ReaInsert" fx plugin to bring in the audio directly from your synth on to the same track you are recording the midi from. This way you can monitor the audio as you record the midi. If you then want to record the audio in you can render track with fx (make sure you go into options and choose realtime render first) hope that helps!

This worked like a charm! Exactly what I wanted. Thank you very much! I cant believe how much functionality Reaper has built into it. You would think it would cost many times what it does. It even runs reasonably well on my netbook (for MIDI anyway). Totally in love with it.