# How do you export your stems



## mopsiflopsi (Oct 3, 2021)

I’m super new to mixing and am usually content with Staffpad’s playback, but for once I wanted to muck around with the mix of this one track I’m working on. My question is, how do you folks go about that? Do you export only dry stems with zero reverb and panning, everything at equal volume, and then balance and shape and position the sound in the DAW? Do you leave the compression on? Or does StaffPad automatically strip all those elements out when you choose to export as stems?


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## Jett Hitt (Oct 3, 2021)

I no longer do any of this. I’ve never really been able to make anything sound better than StaffPad. In the hands of someone like @Joël Dollié it is possible, but for most of us, StaffPad knows more than we do.


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## stevebarden (Oct 3, 2021)

I only remove the reverb. I leave all panning as is. I usually don't have compression on in StaffPad anyway so that's not a concern. I also create a separate version with the reverb removed.


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## mopsiflopsi (Oct 3, 2021)

Jett Hitt said:


> I no longer do any of this. I’ve never really been able to make anything sound better than StaffPad. In the hands of someone like @Joël Dollié it is possible, but for most of us, StaffPad knows more than we do.


Yeah I suspect I'm not gonna do wonders either. I just wanted to dip my toes in for educational purposes, experimenting on a piece where I have a stake in what it should/could sound like.


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## MadLad (Oct 3, 2021)

I also gave up. I'm working on a soundtrack for a new kickstarter videogame project and thought after I finished composing everything in Staffpad, I could just export the stems and mix it in Reaper. It just doesn't work. The mix is always wrong, sounds unpleasant and hurts my ears, especially with the reverb which I'm not able to reproduce in Reaper, even with plugins like EW Spaces II.

For some reason, exporting the stems also means for staffpad to get rid of any mixing it does to make it sound good in the app. More often than not, I've realized that sometimes two instruments would produce horrible frequency build-ups that are not present in the staffpad mock-up. After a while, it would really hurt your ears, no matter how you mix the two instruments and no matter how well it was arranged.

So yeah, I decided to mix EVERYTHING in Staffpad, make the arrangement as perfect as possible and then just export the mock-up with about 30% reverb and do all the EQing, de-essing and other small little things in Reaper. Usually, using a bit of volume automation and slight maximizing makes the master loud enough. I try to avoid compression as much as possible because it always seems to alter the sound too much, imo. It's especially wild with the basses, so I just use little compression, if any, a maximizer and volume automation.


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## Jett Hitt (Oct 3, 2021)

MadLad said:


> For some reason, exporting the stems also means for staffpad to get rid of any mixing it does to make it sound good in the app. More often than not, I've realized that sometimes two instruments would produce horrible frequency build-ups that are not present in the staffpad mock-up. After a while, it would really hurt your ears, no matter how you mix the two instruments and no matter how well it was arranged.


This is it, I think. There are clearly enhancements made by the playback engine that are not exported with the stems. I am guessing that StaffPad makes adjustments when multiple instruments are playing together, but when it is processing individual stems, these calculations aren’t made.


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## MadLad (Oct 3, 2021)

Doesn't someone here have connections to David William Hearn and could ask him if it's not too much trouble to include a stem export option that includes all these little adjustments? I'd just love to have the actual staffpad sound in Reaper but with the option to use plugins and effects and EQ, etc. on individual stems.

EDIT: I don't even care if that means the export of the stems takes 2 hours. In the end, this option would still save a lot of time and be less nerve-racking.


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## mopsiflopsi (Oct 3, 2021)

MadLad said:


> I also gave up. I'm working on a soundtrack for a new kickstarter videogame project and thought after I finished composing everything in Staffpad, I could just export the stems and mix it in Reaper. It just doesn't work. The mix is always wrong, sounds unpleasant and hurts my ears, especially with the reverb which I'm not able to reproduce in Reaper, even with plugins like EW Spaces II.


Have you tried exporting stuff one instrument at a time? Does that make a difference, or does it still lose that special magic thing that happens when instruments play together?


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## MadLad (Oct 3, 2021)

mopsiflopsi said:


> Have you tried exporting stuff one instrument at a time? Does that make a difference, or does it still lose that special magic thing that happens when instruments play together?


I didn't but I'm not sure it would make a difference. I could try someday but for now I'm just concentrating on the mock-ups until the project is done.


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## rsg22 (Oct 4, 2021)

Yeah I've wondered if selectively muting parts and exporting/rendering the entire project would make a difference - basically manually creating stems via mutes instead of using StaffPad's "export stems" feature...


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