Question

Hello, new user here. I'm not a newbie with music or DAWs in general. But after many years of using other DAWs, I just jumped on the Studio One Pro bandwagon, and I'm loving it!

But I can not figure out how to export stems as a mono .wav file. I like to do a final mix with stereo and mono audio files, so that I have a defined mid/side mix to my final arrangements. All of the StudioOne3 tutorials that I've watched as videos, or have read, show you how to export stems from audio files that have already been generated/bounced.  I've noticed with audio tracks there's a mono/stereo button with each track that you can toggle that will put that audio track as a mono/stereo output. I see no such thing for an instrument/plug-in track that I want to bounce to a mono .wav.

I can not figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm sure it's simple, but I haven't found the answer yet from the manual or online. Any help would be much appreciative!

Thanks,

Dana

Answer 1

Hello Das,

When you export stems from Studio One the number of channels for each mixer channel are already set by the instrument.   If the instrument channel in the mixer is mono (most multi-output drum samplers have mono and stereo outputs where the Kick and Snare may be mono channels but the Overhead and Room channels are stereo) it will render those mono channels as mono audio files if the option "Preserve Mono Tracks" is on in the dialog.

If you can configure your virtual instrument (internally) to only ever present mono output into the Studio One console it will always only render mono channels.

The other options are to use a mono bus (switch the group bus to mono and send it there) and render the summed mono bus channel.

Of course you can always bounce any two channel audio clip(s) to true mono after the fact in Studio One by switching the track mode to mono, trimming the clip gain by -6 to account for the increase in gain when summing to mono, and hitting Control + B on the clip(s).

Answer 2

I think the simplest way to do this is to select all regions on your instrument track and bounce the track (CMD+B, or bounce mixdown (in the audio drop down).  After it's audio in your arrange window, use the mono button you mentioned. Make sure you mute, or disable your instrument track before exporting your stems.