I’m looking for a way to exchange data between Ardour and other DAWs. I have a session with a number of tracks. Some tracks are stereo and some are mono. I used the stem export function, which resulted in all exported tracks converted into stereo.
This is not a major problem of course, but if it’s something you do frequently, as I do, it starts weighing on, because you have two options:
Send your collaborators needless stereo tracks, e.g. “stereo kick drum”. They ask you the question, “why are you sending me a stereo kick drum? Was this really recorded in stereo?” and so you look ignorant / unprofessional.
Manually convert stereo .WAV files into mono .WAV files each time you export. This is prone to human error, because you have to remember which track is supposed to be mono and which is supposed to be stereo. In time it starts weighing on you, because it’s a mind numbing repetitive busywork.
I can imagine a few possibilities to solve it, but ideally there would be a way to do it in Ardour.
Two different stem export passes, but my answer would generally be, I did it because my DAW does stereo stem exports, just drop one half of the file if needed. I don’t know many professionals that would really balk at that honestly, but hey, maybe my experience has been different.
Mixbus preserves the inherent mono- or stereo- ness of your tracks during stem-export, because the panner is not inline with the main signal flow, but rather part of the mixbus summing.
Mixbus can open your Ardour sessions directly, no conversion step is required.