What's a stem?

[rystro]

Sorry I'm a newbie... people talk of "stems" what are those? On the trees outside your studio?

[gainreduction]

A group of tracks.

Say drums, bass, guitars, vocals = stems from a mix.

[rystro]

So say... I create a folder track and keep all my percussive elements in it, it's consider a stem?

Or does it go a little bit deeper then that?

[gsilbers]

for music its a bounce of a song but only the drums, or bounce with only guitars etc.
thus, later u import the drum stems into another session and mix a stereo of the drums a stereo of the guitars , vocals and bass and fx. (sometimes though)
so stems are just stereo bounces of different instruments or group of instruments.

in post production is the diferent parts of the audio of the film. like a dialog stem or a music stem or music and efects stem or just fx stem. could be also a 5.1 stem of the music or effects or both.

kinda like a premix of an instruments or group of instruments

[Lownotes]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

for music its a bounce of a song but only the drums, or bounce with only guitars etc.
thus, later u import the drum stems into another session and mix a stereo of the drums a stereo of the guitars , vocals and bass and fx. (sometimes though)
so stems are just stereo bounces of different instruments or group of instruments.

in post production is the diferent parts of the audio of the film. like a dialog stem or a music stem or music and efects stem or just fx stem. could be also a 5.1 stem of the music or effects or both.

kinda like a premix of an instruments or group of instruments

Wouldn't a stem be a track?

[Bump Music]

A stem can be can be:

Accapella and instrumental = Two stems.

OR

ALL drums, ALL vocals, ALL guitars, Bass, = Four stems.

OR

Every single track = 60+ stems

The idea being, if you give me stems, I can playback your mix and have it sound EXACTLY as you mixed it (except for the 2-buss compression / eq)

When I produce and mix a track for TV, I submit stems to the FINAL mixer. The mixer who incorporates the sound design, voice over, location sound etc etc. That way, for example, if the client says: "Can we have the drums a little louder when the car crashes through the wall?" he's able to do it with stems.

The applications of stems is endless. From live performances, to tv & film, to collaborations etc etc etc

[Gear Tramp]

Originally Posted by rystro

So say... I create a folder track and keep all my percussive elements in it, it's consider a stem?

Or does it go a little bit deeper then that?

No, that's just a folder with percussive elements in it.

Let's say you have 8 rhythm guitar mono tracks that are panned L/R. If you create an internal bus and record those 8 tracks to 1 new stereo track called "Rhythm Guitar Stem", then you've got a STEM of rhythm guitars. 1 Stereo track to work with, instead of 8.

Some people will send stems to the mixer, some mixers will make stems as soon as they start mixing the song, and in mastering some people will send their mixes in both a stereo mixdown and stems (drums, bass, vocals, guitars, etc) so that the ME can make more advanced adjustments if the mix is ****ed.

[gsilbers]

Originally Posted by Lownotes

Wouldn't a stem be a track?

yep also. like in bussed tracks. but i think people refer to stems as the outcome and in a session before bouncing they would be called bussed drums or stemmed drums ... engineers would usually understand it.

[rystro]

Makes sense guys! I really appreciate the knowledge! Thanks for not killing me for asking a stupid question!

[Sigma]

simply it is a bussed group of tracks that are lifed off the stereo /surround mains out until returned to the stereo /surround mains out or sent out to another return point

in music mixing it is generally done for reasons of effecting the stem at it's retun point with a common eq/compression/treatment

a group assign while still in the stereo/surround mains out [ as in protools] is used when one wants to control a multi channel entity such as drums, multiple bkg tracks level wise..but not have them "joined" for common effects treatment

[colinmiller]

Originally Posted by Lownotes

Wouldn't a stem be a track?

No. The difference is that the stem, even if it contains nothing more than the original track did, is that the stem has gone through the mixing chain. That means it has been EQed, compressed, has the FX and everything from the mix on it.

And the goal is that you can playback all the stems at unity gain and the result will be the finished mix. Playing back all the individual tracks will just play back the tracks as they were before the mix. But the stems will sum to create the full mix.

The stems can be as spread out as every single track gets its own stem, or they can be groups. For example some people may put all the drums together in one stereo stem, while others might record each individual part of the drum kit as a separate stem. Either way, when played at unity gain, it will re-create the mix. The more stems, the more ability to change the mix after the fact.

When I finish a mix, I print out stems and not the actual mix passes. I don't print the mix passes until it's time for mastering. Too often are changes requested after the mix has been finished, or some part has to be added or changed. But when I bring up the stems, they play back and I can a/b between the stems and reference mix and not be able to tell any difference. Then when it comes to vocal ups an down, etc it's much easier to deal with, as well as making different versions of the TV mix as the artist changes their mind about what parts to leave out while on tour, etc.

Just my 2 cents :-)

[Lownotes]

Originally Posted by colinmiller

No. The difference is that the stem, even if it contains nothing more than the original track did, is that the stem has gone through the mixing chain. That means it has been EQed, compressed, has the FX and everything from the mix on it.

And the goal is that you can playback all the stems at unity gain and the result will be the finished mix. Playing back all the individual tracks will just play back the tracks as they were before the mix. But the stems will sum to create the full mix.

The stems can be as spread out as every single track gets its own stem, or they can be groups. For example some people may put all the drums together in one stereo stem, while others might record each individual part of the drum kit as a separate stem. Either way, when played at unity gain, it will re-create the mix. The more stems, the more ability to change the mix after the fact.

When I finish a mix, I print out stems and not the actual mix passes. I don't print the mix passes until it's time for mastering. Too often are changes requested after the mix has been finished, or some part has to be added or changed. But when I bring up the stems, they play back and I can a/b between the stems and reference mix and not be able to tell any difference. Then when it comes to vocal ups an down, etc it's much easier to deal with, as well as making different versions of the TV mix as the artist changes their mind about what parts to leave out while on tour, etc.

Just my 2 cents :-)

I always understood the original term to come from the film industry (post-production): they would use different sounds (stems) to come up with a finished soundtrack. We're those pre-processed as well?

Maybe it evolved when it moved over to music?

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by Lownotes

I always understood the original term to come from the film industry (post-production): they would use different sounds (stems) to come up with a finished soundtrack. We're those pre-processed as well?

Maybe it evolved when it moved over to music?

thats why i said music but really same concept i believe and don't qoute me there were music ..dailog..foley/efx stems and they were broken up into sub stems..when i did songs for film sometimes they asked for a bass stem a drum stem a pad stem a lead stem and a bkg stem etc

[T_R_S]

It's what Ashlee Simpson used (ABUSED) on Saturday Night Live.

[colinmiller]

Originally Posted by Lownotes

I always understood the original term to come from the film industry (post-production): they would use different sounds (stems) to come up with a finished soundtrack. We're those pre-processed as well?

Maybe it evolved when it moved over to music?

In post stems are even more important. Because even thought the film is mixed and finished, you wil need to have it in various languages. And they don't want to have to do a mix for every language. So they just replace the dialog stem. And in some instances the music may not be able to be used in some places or situations, so they don't want to have to remix the whole thing. With stems they can just replace part of the music stem. So though they are all mixed together at the same time, they are printed to various stems which sum together and make the final mix, but can be seperated after the mix process. Only those stems will be more than 2 channels each.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

yep also. like in bussed tracks. but i think people refer to stems as the outcome and in a session before bouncing they would be called bussed drums or stemmed drums ... engineers would usually understand it.

I disagree

if you SUBMIX a bunch of tracks - it is a submix.

a stem is a part of the finished mix. You add all the stem (mixes) together with all faders at zero to get the final mix.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by gainreduction

A group of tracks.

Say drums, bass, guitars, vocals = stems from a mix.

no

this is wrong.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by colinmiller

(A) stem, even if it contains nothing more than the original track did, is that the stem has gone through the mixing chain. That means it has been EQed, compressed, has the FX and everything from the mix on it.

And the goal is that you can playback all the stems at unity gain and the result will be the finished mix. Playing back all the individual tracks will just play back the tracks as they were before the mix. But the stems will sum to create the full mix.

The stems can be as spread out as every single track gets its own stem, or they can be groups. For example some people may put all the drums together in one stereo stem, while others might record each individual part of the drum kit as a separate stem. Either way, when played at unity gain, it will re-create the mix. The more stems, the more ability to change the mix after the fact.

(snip)....
Just my 2 cents :-)

THIS IS CORRECT.

[cchord59]

sorry wrong thread

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by colinmiller

No. The difference is that the stem, even if it contains nothing more than the original track did, is that the stem has gone through the mixing chain. That means it has been EQed, compressed, has the FX and everything from the mix on it.

And the goal is that you can playback all the stems at unity gain and the result will be the finished mix. Playing back all the individual tracks will just play back the tracks as they were before the mix. But the stems will sum to create the full mix.

The stems can be as spread out as every single track gets its own stem, or they can be groups. For example some people may put all the drums together in one stereo stem, while others might record each individual part of the drum kit as a separate stem. Either way, when played at unity gain, it will re-create the mix. The more stems, the more ability to change the mix after the fact.

When I finish a mix, I print out stems and not the actual mix passes. I don't print the mix passes until it's time for mastering. Too often are changes requested after the mix has been finished, or some part has to be added or changed. But when I bring up the stems, they play back and I can a/b between the stems and reference mix and not be able to tell any difference. Then when it comes to vocal ups an down, etc it's much easier to deal with, as well as making different versions of the TV mix as the artist changes their mind about what parts to leave out while on tour, etc.

Just my 2 cents :-)

yes that's one example of stemming and the one that i did for the film stuff

the other is breaking off as i put in my first post

QUOTES

Stem-mixing is a method of mixing audio material based on creating groups of audio tracks and processing them separately prior to combining them into a final master mix. This technique originated in the sixties with the introduction of mixing boards that were equipped with abilities to assign individual inputs to a sub-group faders and then manipulate each sub-group (stem mix) independently from the others. This technique is widely used in recording studios to control, process and manipulate entire groups of instruments such as drums, strings, or backup vocals, in order to streamline and simplify the mixing process. Additionally, as each stem-bus usually has its own inserts, sends and returns, the stem-mix (sub-mix) can be processed independently through its own signal processing chain to achieve a different effect for each group of instruments. This technique is also practiced with DAW in a similar way where groups of audio tracks may be processed and manipulated digitally through a separate chain of plugins.