# Stem Mastering number two



## DOMC (Mar 17, 2010)

I just got some new tracks through with lots of stems. drums, vocals etc. Stay tuned for more as I start work on them tomorrow - will keep you posted with my workflow and thoughts on the stem process.


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

Great! Can't wait to hear all about it.

I have one question (well maybe a couple): I have heard more and more in the last years about mastering with stems. Is that more common now? I can't help but feel there is an element of "cheating" when a mixer hands out stems to the mastering engineer for him to make the ultimate decisions on instrument balance. What are your thoughts about that?


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

I can see the "cheating" point of view....however I can also see that it is a refreshing "power share" agreement, to borrow a term from politics (and what could be more political in audio, lol)

At the end of the day, the quality of the output should be more important than anything else....if the mastering engineer finds himself wishing he had more control, but the mixing engineer is saying "that's my mix, take it or leave it" then who suffers? 

The product, so ultimately the listener, that's who. :huh:


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

jonathanm said:


> I can see the "cheating" point of view....however I can also see that it is a refreshing "power share" agreement, to borrow a term from politics (and what could be more political in audio, lol)
> 
> At the end of the day, the quality of the output should be more important than anything else....if the mastering engineer finds himself wishing he had more control, but the mixing engineer is saying "that's my mix, take it or leave it" then who suffers?
> 
> The product, so ultimately the listener, that's who. :huh:


Yeah, I can definitely see that... when there is a problem mix, or when an artist has to wear more than one hat and acknowledges he might need a bit more help at the end of the process. But don't you think leaving such responsibilities to the mastering engineer will make for lazy mixing? Just as irresponsible recording engineers leave a lot for the mixing engineer to "fix"?

Stem mixing is a great tool for producers when they are not sure how the final sound might work. They're also very useful for later surround mixing. Stem mixing has been around a long time ago for doing a final mix for a film because nobody knows how music will play with other elements such as dialogue or sound effects... I'm just worried that this trend of stem mixing has gone too far. Or maybe it is just me and everything is changing...:bigsmile:

I say... if a mixer can't deliver a decent 2 track mix... well maybe you should be looking for another engineer (am I being too harsh?). Besides, am I wrong or mastering time is more expensive?


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## DOMC (Mar 17, 2010)

I for one have been working with the stereo tracks for this but was glad to have the stems for one of the 5 mixes. So I would always prefer stereo but only if I think I need it would I ask for stems. This one the drum stems helped me out. The drums sounded a little bit boxy and not "open and airy enough" I was unable to really get into them much as such much other stuff was going on (drum n bass old skool mix). Having the drum stems allowed me to split out the high end of the drums add a touch of exciting and gentle verb to help open them up a bit. and now they sit great in the mix and sound so much smoother and nicer.


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

chonc said:


> I say... if a mixer can't deliver a decent 2 track mix... well maybe you should be looking for another engineer (am I being too harsh?). Besides, am I wrong or mastering time is more expensive?


Of course.....if someone is delivering stems because they can't do a decent 2 track mix, then that's no good for anyone...I was thinking more along the lines of the mixing and mastering engineers both consenting to that process...

An example - it is getting more common for an artist (especially smaller artists) to have several tracks all produced and mixed by different people in different studios...the mastering engineer has to get all the tracks to sound relatively consistent across the whole album....in a case like this, then stems could come in handy to get some consistency across disparate tracks....


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

DOMC said:


> I for one have been working with the stereo tracks for this but was glad to have the stems for one of the 5 mixes. So I would always prefer stereo but only if I think I need it would I ask for stems. This one the drum stems helped me out. The drums sounded a little bit boxy and not "open and airy enough" I was unable to really get into them much as such much other stuff was going on (drum n bass old skool mix). Having the drum stems allowed me to split out the high end of the drums add a touch of exciting and gentle verb to help open them up a bit. and now they sit great in the mix and sound so much smoother and nicer.


That's really interesting actually - would like to hear some samples to show what you mean, if it's possible?


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

jonathanm said:


> An example - it is getting more common for an artist (especially smaller artists) to have several tracks all produced and mixed by different people in different studios...the mastering engineer has to get all the tracks to sound relatively consistent across the whole album....in a case like this, then stems could come in handy to get some consistency across disparate tracks....


Now, that's an excellent example!! I never thought of that situation. I guess sometimes stems are the way to go (other than the surround and/or film mastering). Thanks for clearing that up.

I understand the collaboration between mastering and mixing engineer... but I guess I would feel a little bit bad if a producer asked me for stems for mastering for no apparent reason...:huh:


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## DOMC (Mar 17, 2010)

one thing that has quickly come to the front with this is you need to be really careful with your phase and latency with stems especially lining up re-records through analog tape and gear etc. It can quite quickly get smeary


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## Greg Reierson (Mar 2, 2009)

Stems are becoming more common here as well. This is especially true of clients mixing their own music or clients who need performance or sync tracks. Fine with me as long as they understand the process will take a bit longer and probably cost a bit more. The results are usually quite good if I get good tracks to work with.

One thing to look out for is the way various systems deal with latency compensation. For example, the compensation may change when one or more channels are muted - which will cause the final stems to be out of sync. This happened just last week to a client who was mixing on an LE system. In his case, his drums and bass used different amounts of processing and the latency compensation changed based on which was muted at the time. We had to manually sync them. 


Greg Reierson
Rare Form Mastering


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

I was talking about this to an engineer that has worked with very known mixing engineers. He told me that one of this engineers didn't even thought about it, his deliveries always include stems. The reason why is that executives, producers and labels always ask for different mixes for different things (vocal up, no vocals, radio mixes etc). So he delivers a 2 track mix, and the stems for any adjustment that the client wishes to make afterwards. 
The thing is that if the client wants to do other mix of the tracks with this engineer, they will have to wait until he clears the schedule, and it will cost money$$.

I guess that with digital technology it has become more easy for mixers to do this workflow. This thread has gotten me to think about mix deliveries in a whole new way.


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## Kirill (Apr 14, 2010)

chonc said:


> Great! Can't wait to hear all about it.
> 
> feel there is an element of "cheating" when a mixer hands out stems to the mastering engineer for him to make the ultimate decisions on instrument balance


Agreed it does sound like cheating to me as well. I mean most of people can't mix these days and I mean it. I heard many tunes and it sounded awfully bad, if not horrible. But at the same time I think it works well from the POV when an artist doesn't have notta to perform a descent mix stem mastering would definitely help to make a good tracks. But still it's "cheating"...


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## Kirill (Apr 14, 2010)

Yeah that's very trues too, even though I believe all those other types of mixes should be performed by mixer rather than by mastering engineer. Even though I'm pretty sure a great mastering guy can perhaps perform a way better mixes...


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## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

Greg Reierson said:


> Stems are becoming more common here as well. This is especially true of clients mixing their own music or clients who need performance or sync tracks. Fine with me as long as they understand the process will take a bit longer and probably cost a bit more. The results are usually quite good if I get good tracks to work with.
> 
> One thing to look out for is the way various systems deal with latency compensation. For example, the compensation may change when one or more channels are muted - which will cause the final stems to be out of sync. This happened just last week to a client who was mixing on an LE system. In his case, his drums and bass used different amounts of processing and the latency compensation changed based on which was muted at the time. We had to manually sync them.
> 
> ...


Recommend Mellowmuse ATA to your client. I mix on LE and use ATA for delay compensation. It's easy as pie. Of course he/she could always use the timeadjuster plugin, but ATA makes it billions of times easier.


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## DOMC (Mar 17, 2010)

one problem I have been finding is people not exporting stems at similar lengths to original tracks and leaving it up to me to align them...ugggh so annoying


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## 1Michael (Nov 2, 2006)

I think one of the main problems is perhaps not a lot of engineers or mixers have a really good ear for sound.


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

Greg Reierson said:


> One thing to look out for is the way various systems deal with latency compensation. For example, the compensation may change when one or more channels are muted - which will cause the final stems to be out of sync. This happened just last week to a client who was mixing on an LE system. In his case, his drums and bass used different amounts of processing and the latency compensation changed based on which was muted at the time. We had to manually sync them.
> 
> 
> Greg Reierson
> Rare Form Mastering


I was not aware that there was a latency compensation only from muting tracks in LE systems... I thought that happened only when you deactivated plug-ins...

Anyway Astral gave a great recommendation: everyone mixing on LE should use Mellowmuse's ATA... no surprises with latency there!


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## chonc (Jun 9, 2009)

buggers said:


> I think one of the main problems is perhaps not a lot of engineers or mixers have a really good ear for sound.


That's kinda scary!!

Like saying: "Not a lot of surgeons have a steady hand"!!

I'd say, if you dont have a good ear for sound, why become a mixer in the first place?


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## ngarjuna (Mar 29, 2010)

chonc said:


> That's kinda scary!!
> 
> Like saying: "Not a lot of surgeons have a steady hand"!!
> 
> I'd say, if you dont have a good ear for sound, why become a mixer in the first place?


I think once upon a time the "gatekeepers" of the studio (engineers themselves) didn't just let anyone hop on the console; you had to bring people coffee and do a lot of edits and prove yourself as being ready.

Now almost anybody can buy sufficient equipment to fancy themselves an engineer. Some of them have the practice to have developed the appropriate skills but plenty don't. Also, without other old engineers around to mentor, it's a much slower learning process.


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