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Preparing for outside (proper) mastering. Stems?.
Hi ,
I’m preparing an album to take to master at some studio. Talking to the guy he mentioned a summing console and how it adds up some analog flavor to the final result. So I’m preparing about 6 stems per song. I‘be never done this and I don’t know if it’s even considered mastering… is it?. Does anyone have any experience with this?.
My guess is that it’ll be better in case a stem/instrument needs some fixing, independent compression and eq, etc… but isn’t that mixing?. It’s sort of a hybrid between mixing and mastering?.
I’m soloing each instrument/group, like: drums, bass, guitar 1, vocals… And I’m bouncing the result, that includes reverb and other sends, which sort of worries me cos I don’t know how these sends are going to add up.
Anyway, just wanted to hear you out 🤓
Comments
Most mastering engineers, myself included, usually prefer just the stereo mix down. There is a place for stem mastering, but I wouldn’t assume right away it’s going to be better for your song. Usually I’ll ask for stems if I hear an issue I can’t fix in the stereo mix down, but that’s pretty rare tbh.
Best thing to do is talk to the person who’s going to be doing the mastering and see what they think after hearing your music.
Also usually stem mastering typically costs a good bit more than stereo mastering. So you might be paying for more work than your songs need.
Happy to answer any other questions you might have.
Mastering is generally about improving overall balance, consistency across all finished (mixed) tracks.
But there could be issues which are difficult to handle, when there is only a single mixed track provided at this stage (stereo imaging, frequency overlaps etc). Hence why a mastering engineer will ask for stems instead - it’s easier to fix these issues and offers better end result.
Imo if you have a very specific sound in mind (by that I mean f.e heavy compression is part of the sound, instead of general mixing tool; or f.e you like your instruments to be ‘too wet’ in reverb etc) you may send him/her your stems as they are in your preferred final mix. But generally I would rather send a fairly dry material along with couple of reference tracks (what type of sound are you after).
Fresh ears and experience is what this stage can benefit from the most.
I mentioned the analog summing console. Any experience with that?. Apparently running the stems through that will add some nice analog coloring. If that’s true and noticeable, it might be a big plus. As well as adding analog eqs and maybe compression over a few tracks, might add up and give it a nice sheen. That’s what I’m hoping anyway, I have read contradictory comments about summing. Might be one of those things where people swear they can definitely hear while others can’t. In these kind of scenarios I’m usually of the “if I’m not sure I can hear it I won’t bother” kind. The album is a 3-piece trio basically recorded live in a studio, it’s based around a cigar guitar box with loads of fuzz so it’s supposed to sound dirty and hot. That’s why I’m curious about the analog summing…
I mixed it so I do have a specific sound in mind. What I’m expecting from mastering is a sort of professional reassurance, if that makes sense as well as, as you say, fresh and objective ears. I don’t have pro monitors and listening environment so even if I had the knowledge I wouldn’t trust myself to make a master that is balanced and plays nicely in different listening environments. You know, the kind of thing where it sounds great on your stereo, your phone, but you take it to your friends house and it turns into an embarrassing mush.
Regarding the “fairly dry material”, you’re probably right but it’s not the case. I’ve exported the stems with reverb, delay, etc… so that’s it. Also I’m pretty sure bouncing 5 diff stems where each has sends to the same reverb bus is not the same as the interaction between those elements on the reverb bus will produce a different result…
Another conflicting matter I encountered was sidechain ducking… Use case: if I’m doing the bass, it won’t duck to the kick when exporting the stem. There’s probably a way/s around this, at least for Logic, you can have a silent bus (no output) set to “safe solo” to use as sidechain src, I don’t know if that’d work when soloing, though… anyway since we’re doing stems that could probably be done at mastering. Right?
I have to say there’s probably a lot more uses from stemming besides mastering. It’s a way of committing and moving forward with a mix and helpful in having some sort of order as to what to do when.
That‘s your main problem and it‘s up to you to estimate how close you can approach your original idea of the sound... even if it doesn‘t sound exactly like that in place.
If you know your environment well (according to reference tracks) it‘s a bit like blind flying, but may work out nevertheless.
Analog summing with a resistor based matrix won‘t do much (if anything at all) to your sound, works just like a proper DAW mix engine (imho).
But if the summing unit includes high quality transformers, then it can indeed have a vast influence.
I‘ve switched my personal monitoring from the Audient ID22 to a pair of vintage „headphone amps“ with Haufe transformer output.
An even more stunning effect was adding 2 Pikatron transformers to the headphone outs of my BOSS ME5 and use that path for recording. The result was mind blowing...
(the ME5 has a great headphone signal, but it‘s line out fed to a DAW is just pale in comparison. The Pikatrons simply fake the headphone coil impedance and that does all the magic. The circuit for line out and headphones is identical in the ME5, same opamps.)
Iron rules... and you may indeed expect some flair or sheen if transformer based summing is used. These little cubes are expensive, at least 50bucks per channel in single quantity.
I head asplode.
@JohnnyGoodyear short version:
You can do a reasonable mix under sub optimal conditions if you know your gear well.
Analog summing on cheap gear (say $500) is equal to a proper DAW mix.
A transformer based summing unit can indeed enhance things in a great way.
I wouldn't say it's not worth it, but I truly believe you can get most of the sound of these magical analog summing boxes in the digital realm too. In my experience, most of the time the effect of summing boxes is subtle at best, or more typically not really audible.
Ditto with analog processing like EQing and Compression. There's definitely some tiny differences compared to digital options, but I think these days in the right hands digital tools can get you most (if not all) of the way there too. I sold all of my analog mastering gear years ago when I realized how close digital could get me with a MUCH easier workflow (from a mastering perspective).
I still think defaulting to stem mastering is going to bring up more issues than you will likely solve. Like you said, you'll have issues with effects busses and side-chaining that you just don't need to deal with when it comes to just sending the stereo mixdown.