Stem Mastering

Mixing can be quite an art when it comes to the ability to altar individual tracks and instruments. An art that can take many hours of trial an error to achieve a balanced mix...Stem mastering is a more intimate technique used in the music industry to achieve a higher level of control over the final sound and loudness of a recording. It involves grouping tracks into sub groups, or "stems," that can be processed individually before mixing down a new mix, to take to the final mastering stage and has become an essential technique in the modern music industry. Typically used to reach industry standards for RMS {Root Mean Square}, which is the rating of the amount of power that can be applied for optimal loudness. Stem mastering has become increasingly popular in recent years, its history can be traced back to the early days of recording technology but it wasn't until the rise of digital technology that engineers began to explore its full potential.

Traditional Stem Mastering was done for radio use. It would consist of a stereo mix down for reference, an instrumental track , a vocal track and sometimes an additional track with back up vocals. This was mainly done to assure the vocals would not be lost in the mix due to the heavy amount of compression that would be applied for broadcasting.

Today Stem Mastering is applied with more precision using sub-group renders, thus giving access to frequency ranges that are shared with multiple instruments. It gives the Mastering Engineer more flexibility and the ability to make changes to frequency responses before combining it back together for the final Mastering stage. Achieving a beautiful finished production with clarity and separation that stays true to your mix and will meet industry standards.