Stem Mastering vs 2track Mastering

[Frost-RAVEN]

What are the pros and cons of Stem Mastering... Oh btw, hi guys, I'm back.

[deanlofts]

It is like doing a mini mix as well I guess.

[sleepy]

I'm not an ME, but I'd say that if the mixing engineer is doing a good job, then stems should be unnecesary.

[~X~]

I'm not the best at explanations, but ill try lol. the correct term is separation mastering. the only con is the increased filesize i guess. the stems will still sum to the same thing if it was one file; but because you have stems you can process a group/stem exclusively. this comes in handy if mastering affects a part of the track that needs to be fixed in the mix. just go to the stem that has that part and you can either fix it there, or you can apply the effect to all stems but that one.

[CPhoenix]

I would assume that having separated tracks would give an ME more options. And I'd also assume more options give a better chance for a great release.

[xXx_Dugan_Fire_xXx]

From the man himself: Delivery & FTP


Stems or Splits - The Gang of Four
Professional mixing engineers never get caught with their pants down when they produce the Gang of Four. This is even better than Vocal Up/Vocal Down and is not any more work.
Here's the key: You produce up to four synced stems. In a time pinch, you can produce only the first two or three.

Stem #1. TV (that’s instrumental plus chorus or background vocals).
Stem #2. Lead Vocal(s) (plus its reverb of course ---basically muting everything else).
Stem #3. Full Mix (that’s what I will use unless there is a problem, and it's also a reference to prove that #1 and #2 were made correctly).
Stem #4. Instrumental (by adding this to #1 we can reduce the chorus level. By subtracting this from #1 we can increase the chorus level. By subtracting this from #3 we can increase lead and chorus. And so on!

Synchronized stems are produced by running a separate mix pass from the same starting sample each time without changing any gains. You mute the tracks that you don't want to hear. That way any reverbs or other processing which were applied on the full mix remain on the stems. Don't be afraid if the vocal-only version has 1 minute of blank at the head, that's part of the design!

In mastering, the sum of Stem #1 and Stem #2 at unity gain = Full mix. If we want lead vocal down, we just take the level of Stem #2 down a hair. And through other combinations we can control instruments or all vocals. In mastering, if a vocal is sibilant, we can apply a de-esser just to the vocal track, which is less of a compromise than de-essing the full mix. If a bass instrument needs to come up, we can equalize the instruments without making the vocal any bassier. And so on.
Many mix engineers argue (correctly) that if they are using bus compression the stems will not reflect the same sound they got on the full mix. This is true, if you are doing strong bus compression, the interaction between the peaks of the mix and the individual elements will not be the same when using stems. In that case, a legitimate gang of four cannot be produced!

The gang of four protects you and your clients in many ways. It gives you archive options and alternative options. It gives you the TV mix the client forgot to ask for but requests six months later! It allows cleaning up dirty words without dropping the music out. Develop the discipline to do the gang of four. You won't be sorry!

[gmartina]

Your mastering engineer is really good?! Then, steams are excellent!

[krushing]

Mmm, steams.

[moses]

I ask for stems if the mix is fvcked up and the guy isn't able to do a better mix. Otherwise, I'm most happy the less work I have: I'm fine with the stereo sum.

[chris carter]

From the man himself: Delivery & FTP

Stem #1. TV (that’s instrumental plus chorus or background vocals).
Stem #2. Lead Vocal(s) (plus its reverb of course ---basically muting everything else).
Stem #3. Full Mix (that’s what I will use unless there is a problem, and it's also a reference to prove that #1 and #2 were made correctly).
Stem #4. Instrumental (by adding this to #1 we can reduce the chorus level. By subtracting this from #1 we can increase the chorus level. By subtracting this from #3 we can increase lead and chorus. And so on!

I see where you are going, but these are not "stems". Those are passes. Every mix engineer does a main (full) mix, a TV mix, instrumental mix, and a cappella mix. There may be others as necessary (like a clean mix, for example). But these are just separate passes, not stems.

Stems would be like:
1) lead vocal
2) backup vocals
3) chorus vocals
4) drums
5) bassline
6) keys
7) guitars

Or whatever... you can do whatever stems you want. The are all time aligned and the premise is that when you put them ALL together you get the final mix. If you nudge any of them up or down in volume you can change the mix.

Stems for television are done as standard because of the way television shows are produced. But for music they are largely a thing of the past. In the old days doing revisions and recalls on a mix were a total nightmare. Aside from teh difficulty of recalling the entire console and every setting on every piece of gear (much of which acted differently depending on the day of the week!) and not getting ANY settings wrong (which involved lots of prayer and throwing of chicken bones), it was INSANELY expensive. When the engineer finished the mix, the artist, A&R, everyone had to go into the studio and listen and decide right then and there if THAT was the final mix. If they waited and wanted a change a couple days later, it would cost at least a grand and sometimes up to $5k to do the revision. So as a safety net, engineers would sometimes print stems onto another multitrack deck in addition to the final mix passes on two-track. That way later on if someone decided all the drums needed to be lower, they could slap on the stem reel and just turn the drums down a dB and print a new two-track mix. Yes, there would be more hiss and they had to put back the highs from the analog tape, and the changes were limited to the stems, but it was a good comprimise between that and doing a full and insanely expensive recall.

However, these days we all use DAWs which have perfect recalability (provided the system hasn't changed, then things can sometimes get dicey) and the amount of outboard is less - and even that gets written down into the session file instead of on paper that inevitably gets lost. And pretty much everyone gives the artist, a&r, whoever a mix to listen to and take their time evaluating. If changes are needed, it's maybe an hour or even less, then a new mix to evaluate. The cost and hassle and imperfectness of revisions has been reduced by like 99%. As a result, people rarely do stems anymore.

Bottom line, if you have no confidence in your final mix, then sure, do stems and see if the mastering engineer can do some mixing. If you like the final mix, then what's the point? Besides, most things that people complain about with their mixes can NOT be fixed by giving stems to the mastering engineer.

Bottom line, if you aren't happy with your mix, do ask the mastering engineer to mix it from stems, just get a better mixing engineer. Duh.

I should point out that stems typically won't even go back together properly. Any buss processing on the 2buss will not translate to the stems; same goes for any tape simulation or whatever on the 2buss. If you do other bussing upstream, those will also screw with your stems. If you are running Slate VCC or Phoenix or whatever, on any busses, those will not translate. You see the problem. It's always a monster dilemma for mix engineers when they are asked to deliver stems whether to print them with 2buss compression or not. Because if they do keep the 2buss compression, the stems will not go back together properly. If they bypass the 2buss compression, then they stems will need 2buss processing again. That's just one example. But you see the clusterf*ck that occurs.

Bottom line, when clients (rarely) ask me to give stems I just shake my head.