Stereo Track Became Mono In Arrangement View When Recording

[fishmonkey]

if you are recording only a single input then the recording will be dual-mono, i.e a stereo recording with exactly the same signal on the L+R channels.

Hey Fishmonkey, I just needed to point out that actually this is not true, the recording from a single input will be a 1 channel mono file - like one would expect. I just tried it again to be absolutely sure and recorded from my mic through one input on my sound card in Session view and Arrangement view and I got a mono file. Live says so in the the audio clips, but I also checked the files properties itself and it is mono.... and I opened it in Adobe Audition... just to have a third source verify it and it is in fact a mono file.

That a mono recording gets recorded to stereo in Arrangement has never ever occurred to me.

As mentioned above, no, it actually stays mono.

But, like fishmonkey mentioned, the track meters are stereo and so will display the waveform on both left and right sides, so the question here would be.... if one really needs to know ... does the signal get converted to dual mono in the signal chain? or is it just that Ableton didn't bother to change the meter display to mono for mono tracks?

And if it does in fact get converted to dual-mono, at what point does the signal get converted to dual-mono? Right after the clip?

Although, really, I guess it's more academic than anything.... does this all make a huge difference one way or another in the sound?

hey Da Hand, you are quite right, i just checked and Live does in fact record a single input as a true mono file, not as a dual-mono file.

and from the Live manual:

14.2.1 Mono/Stereo Conversions
When a mono signal is chosen as an audio track’s input, the track will record mono samples; otherwise it will record stereo samples. Signals in the track’s device chain are always stereo, even when the track’s input is mono or when the track plays mono samples.

Mono is turned into stereo simply by using the identical signal for left and right channels. When a track is routed into a mono output, the left and right signals are added together and attenuated by 6 dB to avoid clipping.

[Stromkraft]

hey Da Hand, you are quite right, i just checked and Live does in fact record a single input as a true mono file, not as a dual-mono file.

and from the Live manual:

14.2.1 Mono/Stereo Conversions
When a mono signal is chosen as an audio track’s input, the track will record mono samples; otherwise it will record stereo samples. Signals in the track’s device chain are always stereo, even when the track’s input is mono or when the track plays mono samples.

Mono is turned into stereo simply by using the identical signal for left and right channels. When a track is routed into a mono output, the left and right signals are added together and attenuated by 6 dB to avoid clipping.

Nothing of what you mention here indicates the file itself that is storing the audio is a mono file. You seem to have made two tests with conflicting results, yet you claim without explanation Live both records and stores mono as mono, i e with one channel only, and not as dual mono, i e with 2 channels at lower volumes. How Live samples the mono input is irrelevant here as the dual mono clearly would come from post-processing it. The only interesting thing here is the resulting file Live creates from the recording.

So how does your recorded file look in Audacity? What data are you using beyond the visual to determine whether there is one channel or that there are two in the file?

[fishmonkey]

i didn't make two tests with conflicting results, my understanding about how Live records a single input was mistakenly based on the way that Live converts a true-mono file into a dual-mono file upon playback.

i opened the raw recorded audio samples in Fission, Adobe Audition, and Audacity. all show that the recorded file is mono.

as Da Hand mentioned earlier, you can also tell from the file sizes that the single-input recordings are truly single-channel audio files...

[Stromkraft]

i opened the raw recorded audio samples in Fission, Adobe Audition, and Audacity. all show that the recorded file is mono.

as Da Hand mentioned earlier, you can also tell from the file sizes that the single-input recordings are truly single-channel audio files...

I also opened my recording in Fission where it displayed like a one channel track. In Audacity and Ocenaudio it's two channels, where reverting polarity on one channel causes silence. To me that's proof this is a dual mono track.

This is a two-pronged situation as you say Live itself in your case displays a mono recording with one channel showing, unless I misunderstand, and in my case a mono recording displays with two channels.

This warrants the question on what Live version and OS you're on as well as your audio interface. So what is it?

[fishmonkey]

in Arrange view, create two audio tracks, one with a mono input, and one with a stereo input. record-enable them both and then do a short recording. what are the resulting sizes of the created audio samples (the raw samples in your Samples/Recorded folder)?

as far as i can see, Fission always displays a single waveform, even for a stereo file. if you use the inspector though, it will tell you whether the file is mono or stereo. i did not rely on the waveform displays when checking out the files in those editors, i used the inspectors. they all say that the files are mono (plus they are half the size of the stereo ones).

somewhere along the line in your routing or exporting, you are changing the mono samples to stereo ones.

[Stromkraft]

somewhere along the line in your routing or exporting, you are changing the mono samples to stereo ones.

No.

I record a mono source. That's it. There's no routing. There is no export. Why would I export anything? You're not making sense. Da hand and me already made it clear we're not doing any of what you suggest.

I'll try again, but I will post in new discussion as this source format thing is irrelevant I think to the problem of the OP. Unless this affects the wave display. BTW, you're not addressing this part of the issue. When you got more time please elaborate on that part.

[Stromkraft]

OK, I did some quick tests with Loopback as one source and my audio interface as another. My results are completely conflicting with the previous and I've basically done the same thing, only I set up two tracks at once with one source, Loopback, and then switching to my Babyface in preferences. So four inputs in total:

• One with recording the stereo input from Loopback, with Firefox as the source and playing a youtube clip
• The same but just one of the channels
• One with recording the stereo input from my audio interface, the RME Babyface, with no actual sound going in.
• A mono track, not from the same stereo pair as the previous in the RME Babyface, with no actual sound going in.

The results?

The stereo recording displays as two channels in Live, in Ocenaudio and in Audacity.

The mono recording displays as one channel in Live, in Ocenaudio and in Audacity.

This what I expected before all this except I thought the mono source recording would be dual mono, but the files I recorded yesterday basically with the same inputs are still on my drive and the mono recording displays as stereo inside Live and is a dual mono file.

I also did a test with an internally recording of a mono source to another channel using the first as input, which became a dual mono file, also with Utility:mono slapped on the source. This is to be expected and could be the reason why I have assumed mono recordings would be dual mono.

Thanks for all this Da Hand and Fishmonkey. Unfortunately we're not addressing the issues of the OP: The display of mono sources in Live when recording from Session to Arrangement.

[Stromkraft]

Just when there was reason to think we had straightened this out I made another test. This time with Loopback only. I made three tracks with these inputs:

• The left channel
• The right channel
• Both stereo channels

I got some interesting results:
The left channel:


a mono source that displays as stereo inside Live and in Ocenaudio where as before the dual mono file characteristics is proven by extracting the left and right channels and reversing polarity of the left and pasting this as mix onto the right resulting in complete silence. It's dual mono!

The right channel:



a mono source that displays as mono inside Live and in Ocenaudio as well.

The stereo channels



a stereo source that displays as stereo inside Live and in Ocenaudio as well.

So how's that for conflicting results? Can you please see if you get something like this with recording the left in mono, the right in mono and both as stereo in three different tracks?

Is there something in all of this that we can bring to the questions from the OP? Are they related somehow?

I also did a superquick test with arrangement recording a session playing mono track. It stayed mono also in the Arrangement.

[Stromkraft]

I repeated the test with my Babyface with 6 mono channels and only the "1" is recorded as dual mono and displayed as stereo.

[Spring Colour]

Just when there was reason to think we had straightened this out I made another test. This time with Loopback only. I made three tracks with these inputs:

• The left channel
• The right channel
• Both stereo channels

I got some interesting results:
The left channel:


a mono source that displays as stereo inside Live and in Ocenaudio where as before the dual mono file characteristics is proven by extracting the left and right channels and reversing polarity of the left and pasting this as mix onto the right resulting in complete silence. It's dual mono!

The right channel:



a mono source that displays as mono inside Live and in Ocenaudio as well.

The stereo channels



a stereo source that displays as stereo inside Live and in Ocenaudio as well.

So how's that for conflicting results? Can you please see if you get something like this with recording the left in mono, the right in mono and both as stereo in three different tracks?

Is there something in all of this that we can bring to the questions from the OP? Are they related somehow?

I also did a superquick test with arrangement recording a session playing mono track. It stayed mono also in the Arrangement.

Hi all, my first post on the forum, so go easy with me

I know this is an old post but it comes the closest to what I'm trying to find out right now.

Been using Ableton for about 2 years now and today I experienced something very similar.
Using a roland duo capture EAD and Ableton 10.0. Have previously recorded vocal from input 2 as a mono signal no problem. Today, I recorded in without changing anything with my set up and I got just what stromkraft got on his Mono L track example above. So, I'm suddenly getting what appears to be a stereo sample when I know I'm recording from a mono source.

Has anyone come across this again and does anyone have any idea why or what has happened.

Thanks in advance.

[[jur]]

Hey Spring Color,
Stromkraft's left mono channel result is indeed unexpected and I have no explanation. Bug?
On your side, is it happening every time since you've "changed nothing" and got this result, i.e can you reproduce now?

[Spring Colour]

Hey [jur]

Thanks for the reply.

I can indeed reproduce it.

What I've found by doing a few tests is the following:

• It is happening (so far) only in one track of one set I'm working on.
  If I swap to input 1 on my duo in this track, it records as Mono as expected.
  If I open a blank new set both input 1 and 2 record as Mono
  If I open other sets it records as Mono.

Finally (which I think is the most interesting)

• If I duplicate the track in the "affected" set, then both inputs record as Mono.

I tend to go with your thinking of a bug and somehow the track/set has become glitchy (don't want to use the word corrupt as I love my Ableton too much) but didn;t want to jump to conclusions if there was a simple answer.