Daw + hardware synth's creative workflow

[Bippo]

Since I started incorporating external keyboards (instead of relying only on vstis) I have an ongoing dilemma and would like to see how people prefer to approach that.

I create music inside a daw, and occasionally when creating a track in a certain key, it will be eventually moved to a different key in order to suit the vocalist.

So far it was a convenient process, I recorded midi with vstis, so just dragging the piano roll a few steps up or down is ezpz plus theres no need to manually turn each midi track to audio track. But now I'm starting to use sounds from external keyboards so basically I need to chose between working with audio vs working with midi.

Recording audio guarantees a quick creative process, just hit record and play, but then there's the "risk" of having to rerecord all the parts later in case of having to transpose the key.

With midi there's no risk, because you have all the performances saved and can manipulate them in any way you want (changing the key/tempo/preset sound etc..) but it requires a less "straightforward" approach, like having to route each instrument to its relative midi channel and eventually render each midi track to an audio track...feels a bit more "calculated" and less spontaneous, but can save time later if needes to transpose the tracks.

How do you view that process? Do you prefer to just hit record and play or that you prefer the more meticulous midi way?

[roman.i]

If your external instrument has a midi input and presets, then it shouldn't be a problem. Record the midi and save the preset. Record the audio later.
Some daws have a better integration for external instruments implemented as an External instrument plugin, and some external instruments have a full control from a computer plugin. So it depends on which instrument you have, but all of them have this additional step from midi to audio.
Also, regarding the transpose, I think you can just tune the pitch by semitones to fit the key.