Quirks and Considerations in Ableton

Ableton Live is a very popular software program used for music creation. I really like using it for sound manipulation, and creative sampling: its built-in tools are very powerful in this area. As more artists put out their own home recordings, Ableton has been getting more popular as a standard music studio production tool. But, there are some quirks to this program that can easily cause issues in this regard, if you’re new to music production and don’t know exactly what to look for. This is because of how Ableton handles the automatic default assigning of stereo and mono tracks.

In Ableton 10 and higher, you can always make a stereo track mono (or vice versa) by placing a Utility plugin at the beginning of your effects chain, and selecting the “mono” button.

Why Ableton is an appealing choice for music creators

The nice thing about Ableton is that it takes some of the more annoying technical recording processes out of your hands, so you can focus on the creative side.

Instead of spending time lining up loop points precisely, just use Ableton’s built-in recording features to line all your sounds up for you in an easy, fluid manner, while keeping everything perfectly in time.

Hint: this is also a great reason to consider hiring a technical expert to work with on your project. It can sometimes help to eliminate these types of nitpicky technical distractions during the creative process.

Where Ableton falls short

The problem with making the recording process simpler, is that some of these technical items really are necessary to achieve high quality results. For someone using Ableton for casual songwriting demos and just having fun, this is less of an issue or maybe not an issue at all. If you’re demoing your music at home, and then re-recording your music elsewhere professionally before releasing it, same deal: your professional engineer should take care of the technical minutia for you during your studio sessions.

But, if you’re attempting to use Ableton to release professional quality musical work yourself, there are a few technical items that Ableton chooses to take out of your hands, that can really get you in a bind when it comes to a professional quality production. Particularly if you’re an artist who doesn’t have much professional studio recording experience; many Ableton users fall into this category.

How Ableton treats mono vs. stereo tracks by default is probably its biggest technical issue. Because, unless you know exactly what to look for, the Ableton developers have made it too easy to introduce unflattering phase smearing and thin-ness into your recordings.

How Ableton handles mono vs. stereo tracks, and why it’s not great

Ableton does not have mono vs. stereo tracks as a primary option for you to choose when you create a new audio track. For every audio track you add, whether it’s a track that uses just one microphone or multiple microphones, a stereo track is created by default. Ableton does this because it’s trying to take that decision out of your hands, in order to make your creative life easier.

Ridiculous, I say! Mono sources don’t just automatically sound better when played back in stereo. Usually the opposite, in fact!

If you stack up a bunch of mono sources that have been made “faux stereo” in a mix, it’s easy to get a phase-y, thin mix that is lacking clarity and focus. Something akin to a photograph that is out of focus, instead of nice and clear.

Most audio recordings, in fact, sound best when their phase relationships are complementary. The more unnecessary signals you add to a source, the harder that is to achieve. Treating everything as a stereo track by default can add unnecessary duplicate signals to mono sources that often don’t need them. You’re effectively turning what should be just a single audio track into a track that has an unnecessary copy being played at the same time.

There are times when this is appropriate; stereo tracks do have their place in the recording studio. But, their usage is more specific: typically you’d use a stereo track when recording an instrument that has a stereo output. Many synthesizers, for example have dual outputs that you’d want to record at the same time. Or, you’d use a stereo track when recording something like a stereo set of room mics on a drum kit, or a string quartet, or if you’re trying to capture the sound of the full band all at once with some area room mics.

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By taking the mono vs. stereo track choice out of your hands when creating a new track, Ableton has made the recording process simpler. But, they’ve also made it much less flexible, and prone to introducing phase errors that can lead to a lower quality end product.

Combine this with an artist mixing on a cheap set of headphones, with little professional recording experience, and the program is setting you up to create a mix that is completely out of phase. i.e. jumping back and forth between the left and right speakers with no center.

I’ve seen more and more of these coming through my mastering studio lately, and they require a remix before they can be mastered. That’s not fun for anyone. You spent a lot of time on your mix, and having to go back through and remix everything just to release your song is a recipe for lost momentum, and a failed release.

The simple fix for Ableton’s tracking issues

Luckily, there’s a very easy fix for all of this! Just throw a Utility effect on the track you’re working with, then click the “mono” button. You’ve now converted the default stereo track into a mono track. This should be done on every track that uses a single piece of source audio: a single mic, a single DI coming from a keyboard, your guitar plugged directly into your interface, etc. This will likely be the majority of your tracks.

You will have to do this manually for each track, but I promise it’s worth it! Any track that is a single source, i.e. a single microphone or mono instrument, should be treated this way. You should see this option available starting in Ableton 10.

Try playing around with this; it may be easiest to hear how the difference sounds when using headphones.

What if you want to go the other way, and add stereo information for an instrument that was recorded in mono? The best way would be to add another mic when recording that instrument. Making sure to adjust phase between the two mics, of course :-)

Or, you could try sending your mono track into a stereo reverb. This can create a stereo effect surrounding a single audio channel.

Or, you could try using a send without any effects on it: this will duplicate and split the mono signal manually inside the mixer.

Stereo tracks have their place, but they’re certainly not for everything by default, or even for most things during the recording process. Mono tracks also have their place, they’re used a lot more often, and they can add pleasing clarity and focus onto your recordings.

If you find practical technical information like this helpful, there’s even more of it in my field guide to home recording, and Mixing Cheat Sheet!