Settings, rebuilt: every routing decision in one place
Four scopes instead of one pile, a Stems page that finally answers "where does this track end up?", and several export bugs the rebuild uncovered.
Set your routing once, and every song you upload after that lands where it should — the right stem in the right group, that group on the right return, in every Ableton set you build.
That's what the rebuilt Settings gives you. Here's how it works.
Four scopes, not one pile
Everything sits under one of four headings, and the sidebar stays with you the whole way down.
- Band — how this band's songs get exported: stems, stem groups, template, returns, global tracks, set options, click and timing, app view.
- Account — members and billing.
- You — your profile, and your developer keys if you have alpha access.
- Labs — beta and alpha features.
The band you're editing sits at the top, and switching bands keeps you on the same page. Comparing two bands' routing is one click instead of a trip back to the band list.
Stem groups — the layer that does the real work
If you only read one section, read this one. Stem groups is where routing stops being a list of files and starts matching how your band actually thinks.
You get the built-in groups — Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keys, Lead Vocals, BGVs and the rest — and account admins can create your own. Name them whatever your team says out loud: Will's Guitar, Jason's Guitar, Programmed Drums, Tracks. If you're an account admin, click a custom group's color dot to set the color it gets in Ableton — the built-in groups keep theirs.
Then the part that matters: every group gets a destination. Pick the return track it lands on, and every stem in that group goes there, on every song. (One exception: on a custom template, a stem your template already assigns to a specific slot keeps the routing you authored.)
That one control is what makes the whole thing expressive:
- Three guitar groups, one return. Will's Guitar, Jason's Guitar and Live Guitars can all land on GUITARS, so front of house gets one fader, while you keep them separate for your own sanity.
- Or split one out. Send Programmed Drums to its own return and the drummer's loops have their own fader at FOH, without touching anything else.
- Feed a monitor. A return can take several groups at once, so a guitarist's wedge fed by Will's Guitar plus Click plus Cues is three sources on one return. Nothing about your song groups changes; the stems just get another send.
- Or keep it off the buses entirely. A group can route to a header track instead of a return — where reference material and talkback want to be. One caveat: it lands reliably on a single-song export, but not on every path — a built set can leave those stems on the song's group bus instead. Check the set before you rely on it live; we're fixing it.
Groups are shared across your account — one Will's Guitar, defined once. Which stems are in it is per band, and where it lands is per band and per template. So the same group can mean the guitarist's wedge on one band and a plain GUITARS send on another, and neither disturbs the other.
Set it up once and it holds for every song you upload afterwards. That's the difference between routing a catalog and routing a file.
Stems — every name, and what claims it
The Stems page lists every stem name across your uploads, how many files use it, and the group that claims it. It runs the same classifier your export does, so anything you've assigned or pre-defined shows exactly what your Ableton set will use.
You can claim a name before the audio arrives, too. Add stem name, type the name your stems come in with, pick its group, and the next upload that matches lands routed.
One honest caveat: where Pliris guessed the group from the name alone, the export also weighs the stem's original filename, so an auto-tidied name can occasionally land differently from the row. If one surprises you, assign it explicitly and the guess stops mattering.
Returns you can read
Returns puts names, colors, outputs and sources on one row each. Click a name to rename it. Click the color dot to set the Ableton track color. Dashed pills are inherited, solid ones are yours, and every return your template ships is listed — including the empty ones, so nothing disappears from the screen while staying in your export.
Every routing control shows what will actually happen: your override if there is one, otherwise the template's default, otherwise what the template file itself does. Gray means inherited, solid means you changed it.
Template → Reset to defaults clears every routing override for that template — return renames, colors, deleted returns, the lot — and tells you exactly what it will and won't touch before you confirm.
What I fixed while I was in there
Rebuilding these screens meant reading the export path properly, and it turned up real bugs:
- Internal routing was being destroyed. Playback Pro feeds its LTC RENDER returns into the LTC RENDER track, and Pliris was overwriting that with "No Output" — the one some of you reported as "my internal routing is dead". That track now arrives able to monitor what it's fed.
- Single-song exports ignored your settings. Building a full set honored your routing; exporting one song didn't. They agree now.
- Stem group destinations didn't always reach the file. A stem assigned to a group could export with no send at all.
- Per-band routing stayed per-band. Pinning a stem name on one band could change classification for every other band on the account.
- "Start muted" is honored on the built-in templates, including LTC and REF TRACK — turn it off and the track arrives unmuted. On a custom template it can still only mute: a track you authored muted stays muted even if you uncheck it here.
Where to start
Open Settings → Stems on your busiest band and read down the Stem group column. If every name sits in the group you'd expect, you're done. Anything that doesn't is one dropdown away, and the fix holds for every song you upload from here on. Then glance at Stem groups to confirm those groups land where you want them.
There's a full walkthrough in the docs: Settings and Routing.
Something not behaving the way you expect? Click the support bubble on any page — a real person reads every one, and you'll hear back within 24 hours.