peter I bet this is EXACTLY what I’m missing. I’ll go back and check how I’m setting these stems up in Logic Pro X. I do remember bouncing stereo tracks to mono then back to stereo to get the pan option back, then choosing “output 1” as the output channel. That move right there might be where I’m goofing things up. I have a Focusrite 2i2 attached and this might be why I’m getting the Output 1 or 2 option for the track. Thank you for your help!
Mono Stems playing on both Left and Right channels
For the 2i2 interface, you should see 3 output options: stereo (named after the device), left and right
peter I’ve done some additional troubleshooting and I still have a problem. I’ve narrowed it down to playing the stems on the iPad. I went back to Logic Pro X, figured out where I was screwing things up and now I have stereo stems exported the proper way or stereo on both input and output. They even look like proper stereo wave forms with the audio only on the left or right channel depending on how the stem is panned within Logic Pro X. I’ve tried exporting these stems as AIFF, WAV and MP3 file types. When I play these stems on the laptop, they all play as expected. Stems panned hard right play from the right speaker etc. When I airdrop those files to my iPad, import them to ST3, they play as if they’re a combined stereo file, I.E. audio from both the left and the right channel when I have the pan slider all the way to the right. I get NO audio when the stem file is panned to the left. The same is true for all file types. It’s as if the process of airdropping somehow combines the stereo into a summed channel. It shouldn’t be doing that.
As I mentioned I would do before, I downloaded and installed the ST3 app on my laptop. I created a single multitrack song and imported stems into each stem slot. I started with one, when it tested good, I continued with all remaining stems. They all work as expected and I have channel separation as expected. These are the same files I’m airdropping to the iPad. I also tried a singe MP3 file with all stems combined into one file. This file, when copied into stem slot one plays all channels with the proper separation as expected. The Click and Acoustic only come from the right (they were panned hard right) and all other instruments, drums, electric guitar, piano etc., they all play from the left speaker, so as expected.
I saw what you were describing about the 2i2 from within ST3 on the laptop. I tried changing the sources from the laptop speakers, to external Bluetooth speakers and via the 2i2. I didn’t have to choose the Left or Right option because all file types worked with each source’s speaker option. On my iPad, it defaults to the Bluetooth monitors when they’re turned on and the iPad internal speakers when the monitors (or Bluetooth) are turned off. Both of those sources will play a summed version of every track I try to play, regardless of setting (Speaker, Speaker Left, Speaker Right).
I’m out of time to troubleshoot further today. Thanks for your suggestions.
Post a screenshot of the audio routing page.
- Edited
Scott Uhl is a great guy and posts a lot of valuable information
However his video on converting to mono and then converting back to stereo is for ability to pan a stereo track so you can have music on left click on right
If using multitracks
Highly recommend using stereo stems as provided by karaoke version . com as these are stereo tracks.
You can sum to mono on your mixer if necessary but note when Scott makes his tracks mono, the balance of the mix etc gets thrown out too and you need to rebalance instruments unnecessarily.
So in short, use the stems as they come from karaoke version
Upload to STage Traxx no conversions or making mono necessary
I was also initially confused by Scott's video (and I love all Scott's videos) as I on-boarded my band's backing tracks; mostly because the UI had changed since he made that video.
I realised things had becomes simpler in the Audio routing UI than what I had seen in his video.
I am using Multitrack Songs.
I have a stereo backing track
I have a stereo click track and band cue track were the click track is panned hard left and band cues panned hard right.
It took me a moment to realise that all I had to do was take 2 stereo channels presented from my mixer (Behringer X32) and route my stereo backing track to the first stereo channel, and my stereo click/cue track to another stereo channel. In the latter (clicks/cues), the hard panning meant I was essentially getting my 2 mono tracks just the way I wanted for routing to relevant band members' in-ear monitors.
No messing around with mono stems, or splitting a stereo stem, or taking a stereo stem with hard panned info and routing to hard-panned channels in ST.
I FOUND IT!! It was a setting buried within my iPad that was converting the stereo files to Mono. I went to Settings>Accessability>Audio and Visual. Here, about 1/3 of the way down, there’s a Mono Audio setting. Mine was turned on! Once I turned it off, I played the combined stem track MP3 file and I can now hear channel separation on the iPad! Now to incorporate that into my mixer setup. Whew!! I was about to go nuts!! Thanks to all who commented. I appreciate your help and input!!
Oh, I didn't even know that there was a global mono override setting in iOS.
peter Me neither. I had some free time at work so I typed the stereo to mono question in a browser search window. When I found a possible answer candidate, I couldn’t wait to get home to try it. Sure enough things work like they’re expected to now. I was successfully able to use ST3 with backing track stems through my gig setup! Love the option to customize each stem’s volume. A few more songs converted to multitrack and I’ll be ready for open mic night!! Thanks for all the work you do on this software Peter!! It’s my Number One!! Cheers!!
peter Oh, I didn't even know that there was a global mono override setting in iOS.
Same here, but that’s understandable , who the hell would put this feature under , accessibility, audio visual, this surely belongs under , audio settings, APPLE WOULD! These designers have no idea of how to make things logical and should have no input to the layout of things , Apple need to have dumb average users design the layout which would than be much more logical.
3 months later
Wonder if you could help. I used the Scott Uch approach converting everything to mono then back to stereo which I now realise is a mistake . When I used the iPad I separated everything out into click hard right and all tracks hard left, should everything be panned into the centre not hard left as you’re not hearing the whole mono field or should I use the mono audio feature in the iPad settings. Any help would be great as I’m performing and the tracks sound a bit distant like it’s been compressed in the monitor so trying to find a fix for that. Any help would be really appreciated.
I'm not sure what you are asking exactly. Don't use the mono feature in iOS. If you want tracks to sum up to mono, select a mono audio output in Stage Traxx.
12stringDD When I used the iPad I separated everything out into click hard right and all tracks hard left, should everything be panned into the centre not hard left as you’re not hearing the whole mono field or should I use the mono audio feature in the iPad settings
I don’t really understand you problem, you say you pan click right backing left , so why would you mono these tracks on the device ? This would sum up the two channels and spit them out on both outputs, this is ok if you want click to be heard on front of house but you have no level control over this mix , it’s not a good idea.
Best practice is when you are in the DAW is do the hard panning there per channel then mute the right side and do the left channel mix with all instruments then mute right channel and set click to appropriate level then unmute all channels then export as stereo file , leave all device settings as normal and plug in to a mixer in to two seperate mono channels , now you have two options, if you are needing a simple setup where you want to hear the front house mix as well as the click in your monitors because you are controlling audio on stage then simply output your audio mix channel to both main outs then use the left out to the front house and the right out to feed the fold back , now you pan the click channel hard right and mix it in to the front house mix as desired , this gives you a simple way of operating and the flexibility to pan and increase and decrease volumes as needed with ease.
The other option is output your click to an auxiliary buss and mute it to the front house stereo mix , this is normally done if you have a sound engineer off stage as it gives him full control of all sound sources.
I run the first option cause I do my own mixing on stage and I want to hear the front house mix in my stage monitoring relative to my voice and my guitar, my backing is already perfectly mixed so I don’t need to fiddle on stage all night , I simply setup my mixes at rehearsal and then it’s just a matter of master volume control how loud do I want to be , my guitar has a volume control which I set half way giving me lots of headroom to crank it up when needed, my vocals are set the same way at mid singing volume so when I crank up my voice I have extra volume I can get just pushing my voice slightly more , all the backing songs are set to a standard where they increase and decrease in energy according to the song type needs, this then minimises tweaking when performing, it’s never let me down , and no surprises because all the homework has been done at home, a lot of operators sound like they like to leave things for on stage tweaking but that’s their choice.