If they come in at around -12db then that is normall.
It’s a good idea to produce in such a way that your tracks in Ableton don’t go over -12db anyway so you get more headroom at the master output. There is no reason really to produce at louder levels 
I use utility plugins a lot for this. For example I will boost a signal by 12db to go loudly through an overdrive and then use another utility after that to lower the volume until it hits -12db again. This type of gain staging is good practice.