How to Export Stems Quickly in Cubase? Plan Ahead!

A few have asked how I go about exporting stems, hopefully this might be useful to some fellow composers!

[@ResonantInfinity]

Watching your work and thought process is absolutely fascinating. There's a level of craftsmanship and absurd attention to detail involved in each of your tracks worthy of every possible praise. Keep up the outstanding work, it is a genuine delight to delve in your videos!

[@Iegacyfilm]

Always a treat when a new video from Blakus appears in my subscription feed.

Thanks for the insight! Will definitely use this technique!

[@Larsmannetje66]

Very usefull! Thx for sharing this!

[@YannisFyssas]

Excellent video thank you for doing that! I agree that sidechaining and compression on busses is not easily or accurately handled when doing stems. (for reference I mix pop/rock/post Greek folk...) EXAMPLE: Kick is sidechained to the bass and ducks the bass guitar's attack to add a bit of kick tick without cranking the kick in the mix. The vocal is sidechaining acoustic guitars to carve out some mids from the guitars so the vocal isn't so loud in the mix. The drum bus compression (and parallel compression/distortion) is simultaneously gluing all drums and rounding out some of the transients from the kick and snare so they don't rip your face off. Then everything goes through the master bus which has like 8 plugins stacked all doing something but designed to have everything running at once to work/compress/dynamic eq everything properly. It's all find if you are exporting dry files for a mixer to mix your tracks, but what about when you are the mixer and need to archive your mixes? ...is there is really a way to bounce mix stems out so the mix can be tweaked down the road after 1/2 of the plugins don't load...? Any thoughts?

[@DestroyingTheDevoid]

One of the many reasons I love Cubase! haha

[@steveturner3348]

Excellent tutorial I got exactly what I wanted thank you

[@ricky_playz6469]

Love these music

[@karelpsota]

The outro music made my day ;)

[@ananth725]

Very useful. Thank you.

[@LukeTruanMusic]

Great video Blake! What are you using to stream the audio from Cubase through OBS? It sounds amazing! I also noticed in another video that when you are streaming/recording via OBS you were able to play in real-time with minimal delay. Are you using something like voice meeter? Cheers!

[@ChumUnicorn64]

Love this.

[@jaikumarsivalingam]

Thank you, Blakus!!!

[@zofo264]

Excellent tutorial - I'm not clear where the reverb was being set for each stem. Was it on each stem group? Thx!

[@keith-marvk-harrisii8666]

How do you add metadata to the mix down such as ISRC codes, CAE codes, contributors and other information?

[@MrShredguitar]

Those french horns sound crisp! Which brass library was that?

[@YannisFyssas]

Do you have a mega default orchestral Cubase session - where all the Vsti are pre loaded, bussed, etc ? would this be a basis for writing new scores as needed?

[@PoundSound]

Great video Blakus! Interesting you also use Instrument tracks instead of Racks & MIDI. I noticed in the old videos you use to do it the other way. Do you mix your mic positions from within Kontakt these days?

[@Blakus]

Instrument tracks allows Cubase to distribute cpu load to multiple cores a lot more efficiently. I still use multiple outs from a single kontakt instrument so that I can separate the mic positions in Cubase.

[@hotz730]

Thanks for sharing

[@gabrield.cstoica1832]

Very good...thanks.

[@joaquinsantos7765]

Where do those other reverb channels are routed? (9s Braam verb, Blackhole, Brass ER, etc..)

[@burnmic]

6:17 "..sorry if it's too small..... ....deal with it." that cracked me up haha. I'm a big fan Blake, you're a real talent.. and this video came at just the right time, as stemming has fast become a real pain in the backside as I've never setup a template to take advantage of batch exporting - a creativity killer indeed! Quick question for you sir, do you always route all strings to the generic "strings" bus? Do you ever get asked for "high strings".& "low strings" or "shorts" & "longs" within that group? I'm thinking of adding those groups to the template too, but wanted to know from your experience in the industry whether this is even worth doing? again, thanks for the detailed video and explanation - the part around routing duplicate reverbs to the groups was the magic ingredient I had failed to get my head around, so thank you!

[@Blakus]

Thanks Mic! Splitting it even further into high/low groups is probably a good idea, especially if you are required to split stems to that level often! Glad you found this helpful!

[@a3xgamer656]

Hay it’s Alex from year 3 I heard you made the music for melted

[@ricky_playz6469]

It’s me Bulletproof Spider jr

[@HalValla01]

6:18 The real Australian came out for a second there

[@nicksaya]

Will send fx get printed? And do you have to have the effects in solo defeat? Or are you routing the effects back to the final stem bus for instance the reverb for the strings is not going out the main output is it going out the string stem bus?

[@Blakus]

Effects are routed back to the appropriate final stem bus.

[@WilliamMorrisMusic]

Man I wish you could batch export the entire chain including the master bus in Cubase.

[@Blakus]

It would be nice, although it would create inconsistent results. Compressors and some other effects wouldn’t react the same with individual stems running running through them as opposed to the full mix. Eq would be fine, and maybe reverb. It is possible to set up some side chains to key dynamic processors etc, but it all gets a bit messy.

[@serenitystoreuk7501]

Good point about the compressors. It would likely effect all insert effects

[@yeppy013]

Do you use any mastering plugins on each of the SUM stems? Do you also use the same limiter on each of your main Strings, Brass, etc. or no plugin at all on those stems?

[@Blakus]

I usually have light mastering on each stem including light limiting.

[@yeppy013]

@@Blakus Thank you for the response!

[@CjPusha2000]

Hey, guys! Could you suggest, what NI Kontakt libraries for epic drums & percussion does Blakus use? Because I can't "catch" them during stream. I really want to find powerful epic drums, maybe, you use some kind of them. I will be grateful if you write me names of these libraries. Or, Blakus, will be grateful for your answer :)

[@yeppy013]

I’m curious what your output is set for each of the group stems. Is it your stereo out or perhaps a masterbus output?

[@Blakus]

Mine are just routed to Stereo Out.

[@DmitryLubenskiy]

Thank you

[@scartabellomusic]

I know you have the hardware Bricasti, but what Reverb plugin are you using these days? Still Phoenix?

[@Blakus]

Check out Seventh Heaven.

[@99MUZIK]

Nice!! What is the specs on your computer?

[@Blakus]

You can see details about my specs here blakus.com/studio

[@TotCarloMusic]

is Any of this possible in 10.5 Elements?

[@schiribeats]

doesnt seem so

[@ricky_playz6469]

You should make a awesome music video of the godfather

[@thomasnowalinski8473]

hi mr Robinson

[@mankessy_tz2627]

Well

[@tolgatokoglu]

Brasslar neden marcato çalıyor :/

[@schiribeats]

*video starts at **4:27*

[@smickers86]

was gonna make a joke about this not being quick AT ALL, but yeah

[@schiribeats]

@@smickers86 lol

[@schiribeats]

"Quick Video" 10 Minutes

[@bellringrrakascaleywalez3240]

4:23 (for whoever else doesn't need a full walkthrough of the project and just wants to export stems quickly)