Exporting stems with group FX
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 3:27 pm
Hi all!
I have a conundrum relating to exporting Ableton projects as individual tracks using the ‘include returns and master effects’ function in the export menu.
I have noticed that when it comes to exporting groups, the individual tracks of the group render with their own fx + the group fx, as expected.
However, if I take these rendered tracks and manually re combine them to create the group again, the combined sound is markedly different to that of the original group in Ableton (you can hear new frequencies and the wave form looks different to a direct render of the original group track).
Presumably this is because the sum of the processed channels is not the same as processing the sum of the channels.
If this is the case, does anyone have advice for how to render a protect as individual stems (no groups) to share with a non Ableton user? (I want to give this person all of the individual tracks so they have maximum flexibility to tweak the arrangement the project)
(NOTE in this example, the master channel has no FX / no volume automation in case anyone was wondering if that played a part)
One (floored) idea I had for this was to:
- remove all the group fx and render all individual tracks with ‘include returns and master effects’ function in the export menu’ enabled (so at least the return fx are printed)
- share the exported tracks with my friend
- when they have finished tweaking the arrangement, they then send the tracks back and I re- group everything as per the original project and apply the group processing
However… the only problem with this approach is that when I re-apply the group processing - it will be also processing the printed return fx which is not what was happening in the original project!
Any thoughts are very welcome!
I have a conundrum relating to exporting Ableton projects as individual tracks using the ‘include returns and master effects’ function in the export menu.
I have noticed that when it comes to exporting groups, the individual tracks of the group render with their own fx + the group fx, as expected.
However, if I take these rendered tracks and manually re combine them to create the group again, the combined sound is markedly different to that of the original group in Ableton (you can hear new frequencies and the wave form looks different to a direct render of the original group track).
Presumably this is because the sum of the processed channels is not the same as processing the sum of the channels.
If this is the case, does anyone have advice for how to render a protect as individual stems (no groups) to share with a non Ableton user? (I want to give this person all of the individual tracks so they have maximum flexibility to tweak the arrangement the project)
(NOTE in this example, the master channel has no FX / no volume automation in case anyone was wondering if that played a part)
One (floored) idea I had for this was to:
- remove all the group fx and render all individual tracks with ‘include returns and master effects’ function in the export menu’ enabled (so at least the return fx are printed)
- share the exported tracks with my friend
- when they have finished tweaking the arrangement, they then send the tracks back and I re- group everything as per the original project and apply the group processing
However… the only problem with this approach is that when I re-apply the group processing - it will be also processing the printed return fx which is not what was happening in the original project!
Any thoughts are very welcome!