Stems & Tracks Are NOT The Same Thing!

[@aneveningwithebola2727]

Ugh, finally, someone said it! Last time I tried telling someone this, they started getting all defensive. Saying crap like "Sir, please calm down!" and "Dude, I'm just a waiter!" I'm sure the management at Denny's will be a lot more understanding after I show them this.

[@AshleyKampta2]

Rendering stems and tracks in REAPER is super easy using the Region Render Matrix. Make sure your entire song is enclosed in a region, and then you can select any combination of tracks and stems, and even render out the mix from the master output, all in one easy operation (as long as you select "region render matrix" as your source and "selected regions" or "all project regions" as your bounds). It's fantastic, and saves so much time! If you have multiple songs in your project, you can do a render of anything from any song with a few mouse clicks. It has literally saved me hours, compared to the workflows in the previous DAWs I've used.

[@Hocus_Tokus]

On this subject (as on many orher ones!) REAPER is incrediblly well designed and a time saver. It's easy to ser as many rendering templates as needed, add several different renders to a render queue and launch them all when wished (wether a coffee break or during night).

[@NackDSP]

STeM is an acronym, for “Stereo Masters” As found with WikiPedia: Definition of STEM in Recording: In audio production, a stem is a discrete or grouped collection of audio sources mixed together, usually by one person, to be dealt with downstream as one unit. A single stem may be delivered in mono, stereo, or in multiple tracks for surround sound. Maybe start with this and don't bury the lead.

[@tomkent4656]

I prefer to think of stems as stereo mixes, rather than stereo masters.

[@JustinLesamiz]

It's "bury the lede". FYI.

[@G_handle]

@@JustinLesamiz Yes it is...thank you.

[@zmmmzmmmz]

This helps me a lot, I thought it was a reference to notes and had only seen it used to dissect a track

[@macronencer]

I did a media music course about 16 years ago so I've previously encountered stems. These days, however, I'm on a different DAW (moved from Cubase to Bitwig). I'm more in-the-box now and I do my own mixing so probably I don't need to use stems any more but one thing that occurs to me is this: it's important to remember that rendering stems with effects included is all right, but ONLY if all the effects have a linear response. Reverb should be fine, but for example, if you're using bus compression (on multiple stem groups through the same compressor), you have to be aware that you won't get the same results by rendering stems with the compressor on and mixing them later, because compression is nonlinear. I expect this is the kind of thing you meant when you said "this topic goes deeper" :) It's one good reason to keep effects routing simple if possible.

[@AudioUniversity]

Well said! This is also why I said it’s usually best to not include master bus processing. If needed, you should probably side chain the master processing with a printed mix.

[@macronencer]

@@AudioUniversity Oh, yes! That sidechain thing makes sense - clever solution.

[@G_handle]

My Two Cents on True STEMS. Stereo Mix = (Stem-1 + Stem-2 + Stem-3) True STEMS originate in the Film industry and were adopted into the Music industry. True stems are Exactly the Final Mix, divided into parts that Exactly equal the Mix if summed together at Unity. Stereo Mix = Stem 1 + Stem 2 + Stem 3 (or more*) This all started back during analog tape, and a Stereo Master would be recorded on a 2-Track Tape Machine. However an 8-Track Tape Machine could be used instead, and take feeds from (often) 3-Stereo Sub-Groups & the Stereo Master. So Tracks [1/2 Stereo Mix], [3/4 Dialog Stem], [5/6 Music Stem], [7/8 Effects Stem] A) on an analog tape machine there would be no way for the Stems to be a different length than the mix or each other B) you would bring these into an analog console on say channels 1-8, have All 8 at unity, Hard Pan odd & even pairs, and if you reversed the polarity on 1&2, the whole thing should Null C) whomever received this Mix plus Stems had/has the option of either using the Mix OR the Stems, but not both. The purpose of Stems, then and now, in Film, TV, and Music is the same. The Mix is the Mix, to be used as the final. But if some other purpose arises (say a film being sold to another market that speaks another language), an engineer can Keep what parts of the mix they choose, and augment or omit parts they don't. (IE: drop the Dialog Stem and overdub the film in another language.) If all that the downstream engineer received was the "Baked-In" Mix, then they'd struggle to Isolate the elements they wanted to manipulate, and likely do More damage to the original artists intent. The Mix is the Mix. That's what was signed off on by the Director, or Producer, or Studio, or Label, AT the time the production was completed. Providing Stems is a way to allow for limited manipulation, without handing over possibly Hundreds of Tracks in a Film (or a song for that matter), and starting from scratch. Now, as far as Mono Stems, and how to construct them in general. In my experience there is no 1 particular standard, especially now that KZbin exists. But however you output True Stems, a) they need to add up to the mix...Exactly, and b) you should clearly label/document What those Stems, are and how they are to be re-constructed into that Mix. (A note though: for a Mono Stem, it may seem obvious that you'd simply note that it was Mono, and a subsequent engineer would simple Pan a mono Channel to Center. However, you don't know the Pan Law of the subsequent engineer's system. Is it 3, 4.5, 6? If you don't know what that means, google it, KZbin search it, and you're welcome. When you come back, just note that if you print your Mono sources to a Stereo Stem, you are Baking in your Pan levels when they Hard Pan that now Stereo Stem on the subsequent system. If you don't, you could mix the Lead Vocal, or Dialog track to center on your system at one Pan Law, downstream they center up using a different Pan Law, and the Most Important Track in either your Film or Music is rendered significantly louder or quieter, relative to the rest of your mix! Yeah don't do that.) All that said, we have nearly unlimited tracks now, and my Hybrid Analog/DAW system is set up to use up to 8 Stereo Stems = the Mix. And a 5.1 Mix is basically the same as above: 6-channels of Dialog, Music, FX each, Hard Panned to their surround positions, at Unity gain, summing together to Exactly Equal the 5.1 Mix. (In this case, Dialog may be panned only to the single Center channel of a 6-channel Stem) Dolby Atmos is the next frontier..... Hope this is useful to someone. Peace.

[@svenisaksson3970]

Correction! The tracks or stems does NOT need to be the same length! The impostant thing is that they START at the same position. Take a song that starts with a gong, and has nothing else on the track. This track only need to be as long as is neccesary to cover the gong hit. It's actually preferable that the track is NOT the length of the full song. That way the recieving engineer can see dirctly that there is nothing else lurking on that track. On the other hand, if the song ends with a gong hit, the entire track (including the empty space) need to be provided. Remember, ALL tracks MUST start at the same point! The same is true for any track, even stems. Even a stem cab be mono, in some cases. For example, if the song contains a solo vocal, it makes no sense to record it as a stereo file.

[@G_handle]

Wrong actually. True STEMS originate in the Film industry and were adopted into the Music industry. True stems are Exactly the Final Mix, divided into parts that exactly equal the Mix if summed together at Unity. Stereo Mix = Stem 1 + Stem 2 + Stem 3 (or more*) This all started back during analog tape, and a Stereo Master would be recorded on a 2-Track Tape Machine. However an 8-Track Tape Machine could be used instead, and take feeds from (often) 3-Stereo Sub-Groups & the Stereo Master. So Tracks [1/2 Stereo Mix], [3/4 Dialog Stem], [5/6 Music Stem], [7/8 Effects Stem] A) on an analog tape machine there would be no way for the Stems to be a different length than the mix or each other B) you would bring these into an analog console on say channels 1-8, have All 8 at unity, Hard Pan odd & even pairs, and if you reversed the polarity on 1&2, the whole thing should Null C) whomever received this Mix plus Stems had/has the option of either using the Mix OR the Stems, but not both. The purpose of Stems, then and now, in Film, TV, and Music is the same. The Mix is the Mix, to be used as the final. But if some other purpose arises (say a film being sold to another market that speaks another language), an engineer can Keep what parts of the mix they choose, and augment or omit parts they don't. (IE: drop the Dialog Stem and overdub the film in another language.) If all that the downstream engineer received was the "Baked-In" Mix, then they'd struggle to Isolate the elements they wanted to manipulate, and likely do More damage to the original artists intent. The Mix is the Mix. That's what was signed off on by the Director, or Producer, or Studio, or Label, AT the time the production was completed. Providing Stems is a way to allow for limited manipulation, without handing over possibly Hundreds of Tracks in a Film (or a song for that matter), and starting from scratch. Now, as far as Mono Stems, and how to construct them in general. In my experience there is no 1 particular standard, especially now that KZbin exists. But however you output True Stems, a) they need to add up to the mix...Exactly, and b) you should clearly label/document What those Stems, are and how they are to be re-constructed into that Mix. (A note though: for a Mono Stem, it may seem obvious that you'd simply note that it was Mono, and a subsequent engineer would simple Pan a mono Channel to Center. However, you don't know the Pan Law of the subsequent engineer's system. Is it 3, 4.5, 6? If you don't know what that means, google it, KZbin search it, and you're welcome. When you come back, just note that if you print your Mono sources to a Stereo Stem, you are Baking in your Pan levels when they Hard Pan that now Stereo Stem on the subsequent system. If you don't, you could mix the Lead Vocal, or Dialog track to center on your system at one Pan Law, downstream they center up using a different Pan Law, and the Most Important Track in either your Film or Music is rendered significantly louder or quieter, relative to the rest of your mix! Yeah don't do that.) All that said, we have nearly unlimited tracks now, and my Hybrid Analog/DAW system is set up to use up to 8 Stereo Stems = the Mix. And a 5.1 Mix is basically the same as above: 6-channels of Dialog, Music, FX each, Hard Panned to their surround positions, at Unity gain, summing together to Exactly Equal the 5.1 Mix. (In this case, Dialog may be panned only to the single Center channel of a 6-channel Stem) Dolby Atmos is the next frontier..... Hopefully these ramblings are useful to someone. This was my reaction to this comment, and that it has 32 Thumbs Up atm. But I think I'm going to copy and paste it in its own thread. Peace.

[@svenisaksson3970]

@@G_handle That rant has absolute nothing to do with what I said.

[@G_handle]

@@svenisaksson3970 Ohhhh...you're right. I forgot to correct your correction. You said, "Correction! The tracks or stems does NOT need to be the same length! " "It's actually preferable that the track is NOT the length of the full song." I said, Wrong actually..... The rest of the rant explained why, and the actual Purpose of what I now call True Stems. Stems are for the Next Engineer to have an identical starting place to pick up the mix, but with limited yet invaluable control. True Stems when summed together, are Identical to the Mix. Including in length. Don't take it personal, your not the only one in the KZbin comment sections to be dead wrong about something. Or to leave a Correction that is incorrect to a video that was actually correct.

[@LanceThomasRecordProducer]

Thank you, this has been driving me insane for years. I can now just send them a link to your video to explain, instead of me chewing someone's head off...

[@AudioUniversity]

Please do!

[@afi6061]

💯

[@kimoKSG]

Thank you very much for explaining! Also thank you for adding subtitles on your own. I tend to watch almost everything with ST and most of the time theres only the KZbin generated ones.

[@AudioUniversity]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kaleidophon]

Glad someone’s pointing this out. It winds me up when terms start losing their meaning.

[@casswithteeth]

Excellent knowledge and descriptions. We appreciate you so much!

[@clicks59]

Great video, Kyle. I often import tracks into Pro Tools that were recorded using Reaper. The time stamps along with the file size are helpful for sorting, especially if you are going to mix an entire session that’s broken up into pieces. If a plug-in is an important part of the track, the track should be copied then printed with the plug-in applied, in the event the track(s) might be mixed on another machine that doesn’t have that particular plug-in. Both copies should be included in the audio files folder, if the tracks or session are going to be shared. I used to use Reaper but converted to Pro Tools while attending audio engineering school. Both are great DAWs. Reaper is an unbelievable bargain and can do most everything Pro Tools can do.

[@umbertofreitas5918]

Thks, clear and direct to the point, as usual

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!

[@robgracia509]

thank you for clearing this up i was calling tracks stems when i would ask for them so thank you very much

[@djshakyshaun5366]

A WELL NEEDED VIDEO!!!!!!! THANK YOU

[@BlazonStone]

YES YES YES YES thanks, I have had to explain this so many times to so people using "stems" incorrectly in the last years

[@Bashanvibe]

Thank you for explaining this!!! I’ve always wanted to know the difference!!!

[@CreativeIsolation]

Recently heard a big time producer had a stink over the misuse of “stems”. Being a self taught audio guy, I just went with the common parlance. Glad to know the proper meaning of the words. So if technically tracks are the individual lines for each mic input, what would you call the final stereo output you send to be mastered and ultimately shared to the world? (Since so many people call each song a “track” on an album.) Or is this a case of the word having two meanings?

[@AudioUniversity]

I think track makes sense for the final published song, because it’s a “track” on the record or a “track” on the CD. I’ve mostly heard the pre-mastering but post-mixing version referred to as “the mix”.

[@CreativeIsolation]

@@AudioUniversity thanks for the response.

[@Leo9ine]

It's called... a song! We all forget that's what we're actually working on here

[@mabee2486]

@@Leo9ine I don’t think anyone forgot that haha .

[@mezu-e]

But my snobby music teacher said only music with lyrics are songs @@Leo9ine

[@dvdrtrgn]

So stems are mini mixes.

[@Bville-E]

You are correct 💯%

[@Dang...]

Thank you! This is another excellent and helpful video by you. Keep up the great work. And...Reaper is the bomb!

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks!

[@Iwantapplez109]

1:40 It's good practice to include a DI version with an amped version. Some peopel won't evne touch a project if it just has an amped guitar, because it gives them less contro lover the sound. Having a DI gives them full control over the sound, and if you think you might have a good amped sound, the engineer could also think of something better as well as cleaning up the guitar from noise to make it a bit tighter.

[@ag_the_musician]

Very thorough explanation! You did a fantastic job breaking it down! I agree with all of this!

[@GrootsieTheDog]

And to complicate things: A "track" is wlso referrd to as an entire song containing all the tracks...and stems...🥺

[@genuinefreewilly5706]

Its perhaps the strongest feature of Reaper, the rendering engine. Many ways of creating tracks and stems. Once in a while I will render out sampled 'items' hundreds or thousands at a time when I am feeling organized (kind of rare).

[@BlazonStone]

Cubase makes exporting stems with fx sends automatic and super easy, no need to manually soloing stuff to rendering everything. Cubase is super great at making stem export effecient and easy! You can do everhting with one mouse click basically if you have the right settings in export options.

[@robotbarbarian]

Thank you for this video! I recently resurrected an old PC. I’m going prepare my Reaper projects to bring over to my Mac and further work on them in Logic. Being that my projects were recorded mainly MIDI and .WAV they should be compatible. From what I’ve heard Reaper is cross-platform. So does that mean I can take a .RPP file, made in Reaper on PC, and open in Mac? Second question: If I’ve recorded several takes on one track, what is the Reaper function to sum them into one? Or does that happen in the stem export process? Also - can you send a MIDI track as a stem?

[@Yokai.Wakukhan]

Gliding gracefully across swaths of information

[@lcuxi]

I may be wrong but “track” generally refers to anything that is recorded on a support, be it tape, vinyl or digital. It’s different from the “channel”, which means the electric routing of a signal eg inside of a mixing board. At the output end of each channel you can have a tape machine or digital recorder, then when you press record you obtain a track. So you have a track when “tracking” (multitrack recording) instruments, or when you re-record your mix, and even when you export stems. I think that stems are a specific kind of tracks that group multiple channels and routing busses.

[@AudioUniversity]

I think you’re right. “Track” can mean a lot of different things.

[@lcuxi]

Thanks for your reply, and great video as always!@@AudioUniversity

[@tomalexiou9573]

Thank you for this informative video!

[@AudioUniversity]

Glad it was helpful!

[@afi6061]

Hurray! Finally...

[@NewDerseyBeats]

Nice 🙌

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for your work on this video, @NewDerseyBeats!

[@hoossembechiri6136]

U r the best ever bro ... We beed also rooting pa système and other sound system rooting cables ...gear etc...

[@DSane206]

I've been trying to explain this to people for years. Nobody listens. 🤷‍♂

[@bscott33]

Top notch video.

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks!

[@jasonjayalap]

My takeaway is that, in practical terms, sending tracks is for daw to daw transfer. If it were the same daw, youd send the project. Sending stems is... At least rendering down by instrument, but beyond that it's case by case how those stems are rendered.

[@AudioUniversity]

Well said, Jason.

[@Bradleybrookwood]

I have the SM7DB microphone. I've noticed that there is a cable hanging out from the microphone. What is that cable for and can it be removed and can the microphone still be mounted without the cable? and will the microphone work just fine without that cable?

[@matzer8846]

Well done ... thanks a lot for untangling that knot in my music brain 🧠🎶

[@DoyleFM]

The only wish I have for this video is I wish a little audio had been played with each example. I mean, I get it; probably the most noticeable difference would be the mono audio versus stereo, but it would've still been nice to get a sample. I'm an FM radio weekend DJ but have been fascinated with audio since I was a kid. I didn't go to school for radio so some of the dialogue here is a little bit over my head. Technical note you might find interesting: I'm proficient in audio editing & processing using dinosaur software. Gradick Communications has utilized Adobe Audition 1.5 since before I started working there in 2005. We tried upgrading to 3.0 but it wouldn't suite our needs. So rather than try the succeeding Audition software, we went with the old "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. 1.5 serves our needs flawlessly. 👍🏻 Very interesting video & commentary. 👌🏻 🇺🇸

[@Emily_M81]

TIL. Thanks for sharing, I'd been using the terms interchangeably because so many before me yadda yadda yadda XD

[@Pooter-it4yg]

The confusion comes because an entire generation has grown up working at home rather than with studio engineers and thinking stems means something like branches of a tree rather than a contraction of "stereo masters". "Stems" are stereo bounces of "sections" or "groups" called eg "drums", "guitars", "keys", "BVs", etc. When working with someone who mentions "stems" always clarify exactly what they mean and if in doubt just deal in tracks. You can scramble eggs but you can't unscramble them. But genuine stem work is actually for very specific purposes - purposes you're unlikely to be working under. Eg partial mixes to picture or audio presentation, performance backing tracks where some musicians may or may not be present. In these situations someone isn't interested in detailed management of your strings or horn arrangements, they just need to duck or ride the whole lot to fit everything else.

[@Bradleybrookwood]

What audio interface are you using to record your audio in this video? Do you use the SM seven DB microphone? What do you think of the SM seven DB versus the original SM 7B? Also how good are the preamps in the solid-state logic audio interface? Does it have zero latency as opposed to any of the scarlet interfaces? i'm looking for an audio interface that doesn't require any companion apps to run it and all you would have to do is just plug and play and it just works no matter what operating system you use whether it's macOS or Windows or Linux. I also want an audio interface that has only buttons and knobs and no touchscreen because I'm totally blind and I need an audio interface that is geared towards accessibility for people who are vision disabled or totally blind such as myself.

[@nikholub4311]

Great video! But I would like to correct you on one point. "selected tracks via master" render function in repaer includes all send fxs as well. So you don't have to render the master mix with soloed tracks if you need to get stems with fxs. Conversely, if you need to get stems without any send effects such as reverb, delay, etc., you need to mute all return tracks before rendering selected tracks via master.

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for that!

[@Trinityshogun]

thanks for sharing this lesson.

[@AudioUniversity]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JackieGajjar]

Very helpful brother ❤

[@jayarecordsofficial]

thankyou mate !

[@justin.johnson]

Kyle is that microphone a Gefell?

[@nacholibre9929]

great video

[@Rob-rk7eb]

Thanks this is helpful

[@Orvulum]

The easiest way is to just have all individual tracks starting at the same time; that way you don't have to worry about them being the same length

[@JohnPaulBuce]

thanks

[@Khronosremix]

thank you, verry helpful ❤

[@artysanmobile]

And yet, the dry lead vocal is a frequent request when asking for stems. I agree with your headline but there are a few exceptions.

[@gumbilicious1]

That microphone makes you look gigantic

[@AVDRE]

Lol I was thinking the same thing

[@WillKenyon]

I feel like this was a direct callout at me

[@jedidiahgirio]

I blame the DAW manufacturers for this misunderstanding. It's not just stems and multitracks. Studio One has just came out with ATMOS in their more recent update but its being called Spatial Processing. While this is kind of true to what they are shooting for, it's going to be a problem for the new mixer when they hear other mixers talking about Spatial Processing in the mixing stage, they're going to be thinking they're talking about ATMOS.

[@jarfullofgravity]

Stems, tracks, mults…reddit hates when these are misused.

[@Dr-Curious]

It wont change anything. When the DJs arrived in pro production, they didn't have a clue what anything meant, and so propagated all sorts of false terms. I literally have had them calling rhythm guitars "lead guitars" and more. People I work with, including major label guys, will all have different ideas. You have to specify what everyone wants when they ask for stems.

[@misterbonzoid5623]

Not dash; underscore.

[@HOLLASOUNDS]

I would not export tracks, because I made the sounds with the effects I wanted and dont want some one else changing it. Im ok with stending stems and can devide sounds up if they want for example each individual melody or want drums split up.

[@Rhythmattica]

Redefining the definition of what really is stems, Proves that in a world of KZbin, There are those that redefine it , by not knowing....Sad.

[@intoxicode]

Although this is definitely true Good luck trying to find tracks these days since everything is just stems on mp3 pools anymore...

[@banparlous2552]

Stems are by frequency range

[@martywhite2988]

Omg.

[@CSGATI]

So one sound is a leaf a stem is a branch and the whole thing is a tree.

[@alexanderkeffer2107]

There’s also a difference between stems and straight stealing people’s music… some people don’t know this lol

[@alexanderkeffer2107]

Because nowadays you can literally pull stems off of KZbin…

[@katyg3873]

Stems stands for stereo masters

[@StuffBudDuz]

Metronome click and background "music" are SUPER ANNOYING. Had to stop watching. This would have been a GREAT video without those annoyances added in. They serve no useful purpose and add no value to your video.

[@Aona_Music]

Aint no way people are actually confused over this

[@endoflevelboss]

"Dee-ay-double-you".... Dude its pronounced "door"... Otherwise you might as well call it a Digital Audio Workstation.

[@jasonjayalap]

I love avante-garde comedy

[@endoflevelboss]

@@jasonjayalap DEE AY DUBBL... sorry I fell asleep because that took so long to say 🙄

[@matthewprather189]

No r in DAW

[@atp19xx]

"Hold the DAW" - Hodaw

[@endoflevelboss]

@@atp19xx Thomman offered to sell me FL Studio. I declined so they offered me Ableton. I turned that down because I've got no time for these DAW to DAW salesmen.

[@aledum1815]

Cheers.

[@AudioUniversity]

Thanks for watching!