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MASTERING WITH STEMS - REAL AND ARTIFICIAL
One of the "latest techniques" used in mastering today is the use of
"stems" during mastering. Stems are really sub-mixes of
instruments used in a mixdown. To make stems the mixing
engineer will first mix the tune. The mixing engineer will
then turn off all channels except for the one's that would be used
for the stem that was being created. For instance, to record a
"Drums" stem, the mixing engineer would mute any channel that didn't
have drums and record the stem. The engineer then may turn off
all channels that don't have lead or background vocal parts to make
a "Vocals" stem. The engineer would repeat this technique
until there were four to six stereo stem tracks that, when combined
at the same level, would make the mix that the mixing engineer
wanted.
If it
seems like a lot of work, it is. The big advantage of
providing the mastering engineer with these stem tracks is that
processing can be applied to, for instance, the drums that doesn't
effect other instruments like the vocals.
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Bob Sr.