Yesterday I was reading Bitwig's Manual, It stated Bitwig only deals with Stereo tracks. Further research thought me that Ableton only deals with stereo tracks aswell.

I'm kinda baffled actually that all these years I used plugins in Ableton for Bass for example that I had to put a utility plugin after it? Or is this not the case?

Also, I use plugins such as Geist, they have seperate ouputs, 8 for stereo and 8 for mono. When i want to route for example a Kick into Ableton, and want it Mono, will it make my recording Stereo? Will the Utiltity plugin actually help with this and print the audio file to Mono?

I've noticed in Logic you can chose wether you're busses are mono or stereo. Also, with some AU bass plugins in Logic you can choose if you want them in either mono or stereo, what's the deal with this? Why do AU's and VST's differ in this?

Can anyone explain my nooby-ness?

Thanks.

 

Ableton Live pretty much processes everything as stereo. For example:

If you create an audio track and record from only 1 mono input, Live will record the information and store it as a mono audio file; but any effects or plugins that are added will behave as if it is a stereo track, Keep in mind though, even though it is coming through on 2 tracks; as long as both sides are identical, it is a mono signal anyway.

Also, if you drop a mono sample into a drum rack or sampler instrument, it will still come out as mono, but any other effects will treat it as if it were stereo. If you would like to ensure things remain mono, use the Utility effect to either set the stereo field to 0% or set it to get signal from only the left or right channel.
In Logic you can choose whether you're busses are mono or stereo. What else to explain? For more help
https://www.ableton.com/answers/learning-to-use-utility-effect-width-function
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=182785
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Technically Live and Bitwig are stereo only but practically you don't have to worry about that.