macOS app  ·  multitrack & stem pre-flight  ·  for mixers

Stems arrive messy.
Sessions shouldn’t.

Drop a folder of multitracks and MTrack Inspector tells you which “stereo” files are really mono — dual mono, panned, hard-panned, near-mono — which are real stereo, which have flipped polarity, and which are silent. Then it writes a clean set of WAVs, with the pan in the file name, and sends them to Pro Tools on new tracks with the pans already set. Originals are never touched.

Drag & drop a folder Dual mono · panned · silent Process & send to Pro Tools Originals untouched WAV · AIFF · FLAC · CAF · OGG · MP3
MTrack Inspector — illustrated from the development build. Replace with a real capture before launch.

The problem

Forty-five files. Half of them lying about being stereo.

Artists send multitracks from Logic and friends, which happily export stereo files even when the source was mono. A stereo track with one side active, or a mono signal sitting slightly to the left, is a mess in Pro Tools: twice the voices, phantom width, pans you have to rediscover by ear. Checking each one by hand is the first hour of every mix. MTrack Inspector does it in the background while you make the tea.

INSPECT

A verdict per file, with the numbers.

Every audio file in the folder is scanned. The Image column shows what’s in it at a glance — a dot for a mono signal and where it sits, a bar for real stereo (wider bar, wider image), arrows when the balance moves over time, a filled-and-hollow dot for flipped polarity, a dotted line for silence. Click a row and the panel underneath explains the verdict with the measurements. A Silence slider sets what counts as silent (−60 dBFS by default), so a quiet room-tone stem isn’t mistaken for an empty one.

PROCESS

Clean WAVs, named so the pan survives.

Process turns dual mono and panned mono into real mono — Bass DI_mono.wav, Gtr_L23.wav (23% left), Keys_R100.wav — keeps real stereo as it is, skips silent files, and converts anything else to WAV at the source sample rate and bit depth unless you choose otherwise. Change the action per file or untick one to leave it alone. Everything lands in a _MTrack Processed folder next to the source, with a report and a pans.csv. Nothing is ever written over an original.

Into the session

Process & send, in one go.

Tick Send after processing and the button becomes Process & send. With a session open, the files are handed straight to Pro Tools: every mono file on its own mono track with its pan already set, in folder order; every stereo file on its own stereo track after them; all audio copied into the session’s Audio Files folder. No import dialog, no panning by hand from a note in a file name.

⬇︎

Drop the folder

Multitracks, stems, a client’s whole “final_FINAL” folder. WAV, AIFF, FLAC, CAF, OGG and MP3 out of the box; M4A, AAC and WMA with ffmpeg installed.

▦

Check the verdicts

Scanning runs in the background. Sort, click for the reasoning, adjust the silence threshold, change an action, untick a file. Almost-mono files keep their channels by default and show an estimated pan.

→

Send to Pro Tools

Mono tracks arrive panned, stereo tracks after them, audio in the session folder. A folder you processed earlier can be sent later with one click.

Measured, not claimed

Conversion you don’t have to listen for.

When a stem has to change sample rate on the way in, the conversion is done by libsoxr at its very-high-quality setting — the SoX resampler, 28-bit precision. Measured on a 44.1 → 48 kHz pass:

0.007dB
Tones level-matched to within 0.007 dB after conversion.
−0.01dB @ 20 kHz
Flat to the top of the band: −0.01 dB at 20 kHz, −0.04 dB at 20.5 kHz. Linear phase.
−175dBFS
Worst spurious or alias product in the converted file. Nothing to hear, nothing to meter.
~1600× realtime
A three-minute stem converts in well under a second, in the background.

See it work

A real 45-stem folder, into a session.

The fine print

Specifications.

What it isA standalone desktop app (not a plug-in). Drop a folder; the scan runs in the background.
ReadsWAV, AIFF, FLAC, CAF, OGG, MP3 · M4A, AAC, WMA with ffmpeg installed
VerdictsDual mono · panned mono (with estimated pan) · hard-panned · near-mono · real stereo · moving balance · polarity flipped · silent (adjustable threshold, −60 dBFS default)
WritesWAV, at source sample rate and bit depth unless changed · pan in the file name (_L23) and in pans.csv · report · everything in _MTrack Processed next to the source; originals untouched
Conversionlibsoxr VHQ (28-bit); see measurements [TODO-SPEC: 16-bit output dither — confirm added]
Pro ToolsProcess & send / Send to Pro Tools via the Pro Tools scripting connection: mono files on mono tracks with pan set, stereo on stereo tracks, audio copied into the session. Pro Tools [TODO-SPEC: minimum version with scripting support]
SystemmacOS [TODO-SPEC: min version · Apple silicon & Intel · signed/notarised status] · Windows 10/11 [TODO-SPEC: planned]
Licensing[TODO-SPEC: cloud-managed activation planned — activate, view and deactivate machines]
PriceAnnounced at launch — get notified See below
LICENCE
MTrack Inspector
£39
VAT handled at checkout.
  • macOS app, drag and drop
  • Process & send to Pro Tools
  • Free updates through v1.x
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