# Stems best practices?



## IFM (Jan 4, 2020)

My situation is a bit different as I am not composing for picture but creating fantasy soundtracks for my label. I have been doing this for years and have always mixed as I go but never really bounced to stems. I am updating my template and time to update my practices, especially if I am going to hire someone to mix for this next album.

Right now I am mainly looking at dividing high and low frequency instruments as stems (strings Hi, Strings low, WW high, WW low, etc). Percussion...still deciding how to split that up if at all or just convert all to audio tracks.

There are a number of threads I found but didn't really hold exactly what I was after (I could have searched more deeply I guess).

Anyways I've looked at the BBC one from Spitfire and that is fairly complex. I don't separate my short and long articulations but rather balance them out in playing or on the plugin itself. I will have other synth, medieval, and various ethnic instruments.

Just curious what some of you like to do, that's all.

Thanks!
Chris


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## ed buller (Jan 4, 2020)

I can't fault the RCP method. Shorts and Longs Always separate. Your mixers will thank you

best

e


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## IFM (Jan 4, 2020)

Just found this thread which had some very helpful information.





Stems


I have spent a fair bit of time this week getting my project template to a point where it`s really well organised, and so far it`s miles tidier to look at and to work around. I was just wondering what you would recommend for the final stem mixes? I think I have too many so feel free to suggest...




vi-control.net


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 7, 2020)

I avoid stems unless an editor requests them, at which point it's specified how they would like them delivered.


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## Scoremixer (Jan 7, 2020)

It's important to differentiate if you're talking about mixed stems for final delivery to a label, or stems for delivery to a mix engineer (which would have been the 'multitrack' in times of old). The two have very different requirements!


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## JohnG (Jan 7, 2020)

Scoremixer said:


> It's important to differentiate if you're talking about mixed stems for final delivery to a label, or stems for delivery to a mix engineer (which would have been the 'multitrack' in times of old). The two have very different requirements!



@Scoremixer is right. The distinction is explored in some detail on this earlier thread:






Overkill? (STEMS)


Just started rebuilding my template to make exporting/deliverables easier and was wondering how many STEMS I should be creating. Clients usually ask for a split of the Hi/Lo and the Short/Long. Would this be overkill....? 1. Winds Hi Long 2. Winds Hi Short 3. Winds Lo Long 4. Winds Lo Short 5...




vi-control.net


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## IFM (Oct 7, 2020)

Long time but not an ancient thread. I'm building the template in Cubase now and read these various threads. Thanks @JohnG for the link. 

Since my two factors here are 1) Not being used in film, this is for an album, 2) may have live orchestra parts recorded, then it is how far do I want to take the splits.

Seems like a full Synthmaster would be ideal, splitting each library and instrument into long and short. Some libraries are wet, others dry, so I could replicate a similar folder structure in ProTools for delivery.

Example Master folder Winds-->VSL-->Piccolo Long, Piccolo Short, Piccolo Ornaments(runs, fx) and repeat that for each instrument. 

The downside of that is I'm limited to 64 stereo tracks on ProTools at 48k unless I go with Ultimate. 

Part of me also is thinking I should skip all the nonsense since I already balanced Long and Shorts in the phrase at the MIDI side to just keep it more simple like VSL Hi WW, VSL Low WW.


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## JohnG (Oct 7, 2020)

IFM said:


> Seems like a full Synthmaster would be ideal, splitting each library and instrument into long and short. Some libraries are wet, others dry, so I could replicate a similar folder structure in ProTools for delivery.
> 
> Example Master folder Winds-->VSL-->Piccolo Long, Piccolo Short, Piccolo Ornaments(runs, fx) and repeat that for each instrument.
> 
> The downside of that is I'm limited to 64 stereo tracks on ProTools at 48k unless I go with Ultimate.



Hi Chris,

How much and what to split is always tricky. For me, it depends on whether you really want the engineer to start from the ground up or you really like what you already have and want to see if the engineer can make it "the same but better."

Sometimes you want to give the engineer a lot of control and sometimes not that much. If you love what you have, how much time do you want to spend trying to get him to replicate something you might have spent hours on already (a delay-EQ combination, for example)?

Provided there's time, most engineers would prefer that we hand over everything super dry and spit out to a million tracks. I think the benefit of that is when you don't really know what you want the mix to sound like or you are unable to achieve your own vision, so you say, "I want it cloudy then gradually clarifying -- can you do that?" or some similarly general direction. That's when giving the engineer lots of control works best.

Pro Tools limitations -- I am really enjoying Ultimate but no wonder; I hadn't updated since version 9.x from over 10 years earlier. IDK what version you have or whether you have AVID / PT interfaces (which impacts what you can do as well), but going from 9.x to 2018 Ultimate more than doubled my Delay Compensation, which was the main advantage for me.


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## labornvain (Oct 7, 2020)

Scoremixer said:


> It's important to differentiate if you're talking about mixed stems for final delivery to a label, or stems for delivery to a mix engineer (which would have been the 'multitrack' in times of old). The two have very different requirements!


The best way to differentiate between the old and the new version of the word stems is to reject the latter.

Language doesn't work unless we all agree on the a meaning of words. Are we really gonna let the ignorant redefine our language?

I'm not a pedant and generally embrace the evolution of language. But it has become clear to me that confusion over this topic is impairing communication.

There is a simple solution, however, and that is when people misuse the word stems, simply correct them.

The word stems has, and has always had, only one meaning: The mixing of subgroups of tracks and exporting them as single audio files.

We already have a word for exporting individual audio tracks. It's called exporting individual audio tracks.


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## IFM (Oct 7, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Hi Chris,
> 
> How much and what to split is always tricky. For me, it depends on whether you really want the engineer to start from the ground up or you really like what you already have and want to see if the engineer can make it "the same but better."
> 
> Sometimes you want to give the engineer a lot of control and sometimes not that much. If you love what you have, how much time do you want to spend trying to get him to replicate something you might have spent hours on already (a delay-EQ combination, for example)?


Thanks. I've already been mixing for years so honestly, it's going to be more of a "please see if you can improve this". With that being the case stems and not a ground-up approach will be better.


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## JonS (Oct 7, 2020)

Regarding stems, I am floored how good VSL’s MIR Pro sounds on individual instrument and group bus tracks that lead into stems both as an AU plugin inside DP10 and inside VEPro. IMHO MIR Pro makes the Spitfire, OT, Cinesamples, VSL and Cinematic Studio Series libraries sound so much better instantly!!


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## JohnG (Oct 7, 2020)

JonS said:


> Regarding stems, I am floored how good VSL’s MIR Pro sounds on individual instrument and group bus tracks that lead into stems both as an AU plugin inside DP10 and inside VEPro. IMHO MIR Pro makes the Spitfire, OT, Cinesamples, VSL and Cinematic Studio Series libraries sound so much better instantly!!



Interesting. Certainly helps the Vienna stuff enormously.


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## JonS (Oct 7, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Interesting. Certainly helps the Vienna stuff enormously.


I strongly recommend trying the demo of MIR Pro, all these CSS, OT and Spitfire libraries come alive regardless which mic mixes I am using.


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## IFM (Oct 7, 2020)

JonS said:


> I strongly recommend trying the demo of MIR Pro, all these CSS, OT and Spitfire libraries come alive regardless which mic mixes I am using.


Hmm I'll have to check that out!


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## JonS (Oct 7, 2020)

IFM said:


> Hmm I'll have to check that out!


MIR Pro really surprised me how potent it is. I noticed Alan Meyerson raving about it and figured what is all the racket about? Now I see why Alan loves MIR Pro. For those with DP, it works incredibly well inside DP10 or VEPro. I’ve become completely addicted to MIR Pro and will now have to figure out how to implement it throughout my template. I thought 💭 MIR Pro was really only for the VI series, boy was I wrong. I’m surprised VSL is not singing it’s praises from the rooftops more. I don’t see using EW Spaces anymore, and MIR Pro is substantially more sophisticated than AltiVerb yet very easy to use. Even when I use the Tree and Ambient mic mixes all my OT, CSS and Spitfire libraries are sounding so much better the moment they go thru MIR Pro. The only draw back is MIR and the Roompacks are not cheap.


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## IFM (Oct 7, 2020)

JonS said:


> The only draw back is MIR and the Roompacks are not cheap.


There is MIR PRO 24 which gives your 24 lanes of audio which might be enough. Everything else (surround, etc) is the same.


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## JonS (Jan 5, 2022)

Henrik B. Jensen said:


> Hi @JonS -
> 
> Would it be possible for me to hear some examples of OT, CSS and Spitfire run through MIR Pro?
> 
> I've always been intrigued by MIR Pro.


Write VSL sales and ask them for a 30 day demo so you can demo MIR Pro yourself with all your sample libraries and studio gear!!! That's what I did!!


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