Do you stem mix your recordings?

[Remoteness]

Stem mixing has become my favorite way to mix nowadays.

I'm sure many have done it with their workstations, but have you printed stems to tape?

[Jules]

Well on a DAW you can print "back to tape" (the DAW again)

I have some advertizing chums that do it.

I have toyed with the idea, say a Genex that can internaly mix stems & taking it into mastering..

I think there is some cheap Fostex unit that is "ideal" for this but few folks know it...(????)

Hmmm that's got me thinking...

Pah! grudge

I was just getting into 96k STEREO mixes, I dont have an 8 track 96k recording capability just yet!

How does it come in handy for you Steve?

Any 96k units exciting you for this purpous?

[Remoteness]

Yes, stems are a great way to master. Many folks do two stereo stems, one for music and one for vocals. I like to split up the band a bit and add a stereo audience stem.

I've been using DA*8's as my stem master. 16 or 24 bit @ 48K. I have not been in the situation to need 96K, but a simple way for me to deal with it would be to use two DA98HR's. I've been toying with the idea of buying an eight track two inch head stack for my MTR. If I had the balls, I would do it now. But I think I want to wait until the Studer 2" prices drop some more and get a head stack for it. Or maybe there will be that cherry Studer A827 for 3000 bucks at the next auction.

For me, it comes in handy as a quick remix tool. If you just need to adjust the balance between the stems, it's done in a pass or two. If you have to remix the guitars or something, there's no need to setup or remix the entire track. You just lock up the stem master to the multi track and remix that stem. No computer necessary. Just the machine you recorded it on and a mixer. It's also cool when you got only one killer reverb and/or compressor, etc., and you want to use it on different instruments. So, let's say you have only one ST8, you now have 4 ST8's. One for each stereo stem with different settings as per your needs.

A usual live stem mix would include, Tracks 1/2 = Drum mix. I have done Drum/Bass stems, but lately I've got into the drum only thing; Tracks 3/4 = Band mix, which includes bass, guitar, etc. If there are a lot of extra instruments tracked, I would then do a band mix on 1/2 and the string, key or whatever mix on 3/4; Tracks 5/6 = Vocal mix; And Tracks 7/8 = audience or room mix. Each stem mix is printed wet and compressed just like you would do in a stereo final mix session. If you had all the toys at hand, you could use your console's buss outputs and print all eight tracks simultaneously. I prefer to mix this way on most of my big budget live recording events.

[Jay Kahrs]

I pretty much never do it. The closest I'll get is having submixes while I'm doing FOH. I'll have a drum submix, vocal or BGV submix and maybe an instrument submix with everything but the bass in it.

BTW, I know a guy who has a 2" 8-track A800 for sale. It started life as a 1" 8. It's a little more then $3K though. He wants to replace it with a Alsihad rig. He also replaced his Harrison with an Amek Big. Ah well.

[Remoteness]

Exactly, submixes while mixing FOH is the closest to it. And an important part of making live sound, sound good.

Get a phat drum mix going, with an open/airey vocal mix, add the instrument submix, less the bass plus a stereo bass submix and you got yourself an awesome 8 track master mix that you can re-balance and/or layback on it anytime anywhere.

Is there a head report or additional information on that 2" 8-track A800?

[Jay Kahrs]

I'll send you an email about it.