Having control and confidence over your music stems and project deliverables is the key to efficient and productive digital music sessions with all types of collaborators in the music industry.
Various music industry professionals may request music stems, deliverables, or both from you. These include:
- Music supervisors
- Music producers
- Musician collaborators
- Vocalists/singers/topliners
- Content producers
- Media producers
- Mix engineers
- Mastering engineers
In this article, I’ll explain how to “bounce” and prepare stems and deliverables for your collaborators. But first, let’s delve into the essential details of music stems and deliverables!
What are music stems?
The term “stem” is often used ambiguously and sometimes incorrectly in the music industry. When many professionals request stems, they’re actually asking for individual tracks. This distinction is important, as a “stem” differs from an individual track.
To understand “stems” properly, think of the analogy of stems and branches on trees. If branches represent individual tracks, then stems are the points where these branches converge.
In real-time project work, these are often called “bus channels,” “buses” (or “busses”), or sometimes more confusingly, “groups.” A project may require grouping multiple audio pieces at various levels. On a mixer, you’re simply routing that audio through channels, grouping them to control multiple audio elements together. This serves utility purposes (like adjusting the volume of an instrument group simultaneously) or creative purposes (like applying delay to several instruments at once).
To grasp this concept technically, it’s crucial to understand how signal flow operates in music production.
Signal flow
The layout and routing of audio in modern DAWs (digital audio workstations) mirrors the path sound took through a mixing desk in the analogue era of music production.
In analogue music production, the typical signal flow for recording an instrument might look like this:
Instrument → Microphone → Pre-amp → mixing desk channel → insert → group fader → master channel → output to recording device (i.e. a computer, machine tape or DAT/ADAT)
The “insert” part of a channel allows you to route your signal through “outboard” gear, such as a compressor. This can also be achieved by connecting outboard gear to “patch bays” (external units that enable you to plug and unplug different processing units into a signal chain). You can then link “aux” channels to the patch bay, allowing channels to be sent through these aux destinations and back into the mixer as processed audio.
Channels are typically routed to busses via buttons, directing the total output through that channel. In contrast, they can be sent to aux channels via a knob (also known as a “pot”). This knob provides finer control over the signal’s distribution, determining how much goes to the aux channel and how much remains as the “dry” signal flowing directly to the master channel. The master channel serves as the final output before the audio reaches a recording device.
Understanding the analogue signal chain isn’t essential for sending stems to collaborators. However, knowing the origins of concepts and terminology used in your digital audio workstation can provide a deeper understanding of why things work the way they do. This knowledge can enhance your grasp of the underlying principles in music production.
Capturing stems
When preparing tracks or stems for our song, we’re essentially “recording” from a channel on a mixing desk. This process captures any processing done through an “input” or “aux” channel, not just the raw signal from the source (like a microphone or direct input). We record individual channels from the mixer, rather than capturing the entire “master” output of all song elements playing simultaneously.
When we send an individual channel’s output, it’s called a track (named after the process of “tracking” audio onto a physical recording medium).
When multiple channels are routed to a single “subgroup” channel and that channel is recorded, it’s called a stem. A stem might include all the percussion elements that were recorded separately, grouped into one. It could also be your left, right, and center guitar parts combined into a single stem. Another example is grouping your lead vocal with backing vocals into one stem. These groupings allow for efficient management of related audio elements.
So, for example, you might have the tracks:
- L (left) vox high harmony (panned 100% L)
- R (right) vox high harmony (panned 100% R)
- L vox low harmony (panned 60% L)
- R vox low harmony (panned 60% R)
- DT (double-tracked) centre vox 1 (80% volume)
- DT centre vox 2 (20% volume)
These individual tracks are recorded to separate channels and processed with panning and volume adjustments.
Your collaborator might not need all these separate tracks, especially if you, as the producer, have already done the essential creative work that defines the song’s sound. For someone like a remixer, having all this detailed information might actually slow down their process and hinder their work.
While collaborators or engineers occasionally request individual tracks, stems generally suffice for most situations. Nevertheless, it’s prudent to bounce both stems and individual tracks to ensure you’re prepared for any request.
In the digital realm, exporting a channel or track from a project is commonly called “bouncing” or “bouncing down”. This process is analogous to recording from a channel on a mixing desk but is significantly simpler in the digital domain. The terms “recording”, “printing”, or “rendering” are also used to describe this action.
When it is better to send music stems or individual tracks?
As a music producer, the first question to ask yourself is: “How does the processing at each stage of my signal chain contribute to my overall intended sound?“
Stems play a crucial role in preserving creative control. A significant aspect of being a producer involves orchestrating the interplay of multiple sounds. The unique textures that emerge from this process are a testament to the producer’s artistry in making these sounds interact.
This can be straightforward – if you want one layer of sound to be louder than another without compromise, it’s best to set that in stone. Group these two sounds and send the stem as a complete package. This way, your collaborator or engineer can’t easily disrupt your creative control. It’s also an effective method of establishing boundaries upfront without needing to explain your preferences.
Of course, this concept can become much more complex. As a producer, you might employ a highly specific effects chain on groups of instruments, which could be a significant part of your unique sonic signature. The way effects interact with groups of tracks (as opposed to individual tracks) can dramatically alter the overall tonal and sonic outcome. In such cases, you wouldn’t send individual tracks, as doing so would compromise the essence of your intended sound. A skilled engineer or collaborator will aim to enhance, not disrupt, the vibe that the previous person working on the project has meticulously crafted.
When it comes to stems, the first consideration is what’s important to you as part of your sonic “aesthetic”. If you’ve routed and applied effects to a group of elements in a specific way in your project, it’s likely an intentional choice that should be preserved in the song. In such cases, it’s preferable to send grouped stems for processing or for others to work around, ensuring your creative vision remains intact.
However, if you’re unsure about your sound processing techniques – for instance, if you’ve added a compressor to your drum bus based on a YouTube tutorial without fully understanding its effect – it’s better to send individual tracks. This allows a more experienced professional to work with the raw audio, potentially achieving better results than your grouped and processed stems.
For remixes and collaborations, it’s generally best to send individual instruments rather than individual tracks. For instance, it’s usually acceptable to combine a guitar part with three components (such as a central, left, and right take) into one stem. However, combining unrelated instruments like a guitar and a synth into the same stem would be less useful in these scenarios. That said, as a producer collaborating with others, I prefer having the creative freedom to play with individual tracks, as this is often an integral part of crafting my unique production sound. Therefore, it’s always beneficial to have an upfront discussion about working preferences before the project begins, and to establish mutual conditions regarding what each artist wants to contribute to the sonic aesthetic.
When to make music stems?
If there’s one crucial takeaway from this article, based on my experience managing thousands of commercial opportunities in the music industry that required stems, it’s this: whenever you finish a song, you should always, without exception, bounce your stems. Have them ready and waiting for when you’re inevitably asked for them.
Never consider a project complete until you’ve bounced your stems and securely stored them in a folder, ready to send at a moment’s notice.
Numerous commercial projects in the music industry, some worth substantial revenue, require stems to be ready at a moment’s notice. Many media projects (such as sync opportunities for commercials, films, or games) incorporate music at the last minute. If there’s any delay in delivering what they need, you risk losing the opportunity. I’ve witnessed cases where stems were needed overnight.
A frequent issue I’ve encountered when requesting stems is that artists or producers have misplaced their project file or lost crucial audio components after relocating files. By consistently bouncing your stems immediately upon completing your song, you’ll always be prepared. This practice ensures you won’t be caught unprepared when an opportunity arises, one that you might miss if your stems aren’t readily available at short notice.
Ready to elevate your demo?
If you have an EP or album you’ve been working on that’s almost ready for release, but you’re not quite confident it’s the best it can be, or you know it needs some extra polish to become a top-notch commercial product, you’d benefit from working with an executive music producer. This professional combines extensive music production skills with music industry know-how and artist development experience.
I offer executive music producer services for music producers, artists, singer-songwriters and bands.