In the music world, the term “stem” refers to the audio files or a group of instruments. These instruments could be guitars, drums, and bass, vocal that are eventually combined together and processed to produce a song.

In essence, the process of stem mastering involves using multiple instruments. All similar audio files are grouped together and forwarded to the mastering engineer.

This is where the aspect of creativity comes in ! Using its expertise, the engineer applies mastering tactics and processes each instrument to deliver the perfect sound mix.

Stereo mastering is a rather basic process that involves only one stereo file.

The mastering engineer receives a single stereo mix and performs the required processing (equalization, compression, imaging, etc.)

In stem mastering, the engineer can easily tweak certain instruments according to the music criteria to arrive at the final mix. This is not possible if an individual uses one, whole audio file. Making changes in a single audio file would interrupt the settings of the other instruments.
In this case, having access and control over each stem gives a substantial advantage to have many trials and perfectly engineer the final music.

The producer can prepare alternate versions of a song using both methods but there is a slight difference.

For instance, if you want various versions of the same song (instrumental, vocal, remix), the mastering engineer can, with stem mastering, work on every stem and create alternate versions. It is a quick and hassle-free approach. In stereo mastering, different stereo files would have to be generated which requires more time and effort.

1. Bounce 8 separated stems / groups as following :  Kick, Bass/Sub, Instrumental, Synths/Lead, Fxs, Voice…

2. Keep all your processes activated on the stems (automations, filters…). In the case you have filter(s) on your master, you have to copy and past it/them to all the stems affected by the filter(s). No need to copy limiters or compressors as we don’t need them for the stem mastering.

3. Check that there’s no clipping in your stems.

4. Send and return channels are welcomed for the stems including FXs such as Reverb, Delay, Chorus… In this case, you have 2 separated stems : the original stem without Fxs and a stem with the Fxs only. It will allow our mastering engineer to have enough margin to work on your audio.

5. Bounce your stems in WAV/AIFF 24 BITS/44.1KHz with no dithering. You can check our article "Dithering : What you need to know".

6. Send us separated stems with a peak level between -6dB and -3dB.

7. Send us reference track(s) to let us better know what you’re looking for.

8. Name your files and compress it in a ZIP or RAR.