Stem Mastering n00b

[Laneismusic]

So I guess I've been completely blind to other types of mastering haha.

Seth on here helped me out with getting all my tracks ready to be mastered in stems. So I gave it a go the other day and I was really liking all the control you have over every part of the song.

BUT I was just doing dumb stuff.


ex 1.- got the guitar track and I wasn't sure what to do to it to have it "mastered", so i plugged ozone up to it and messed with the multiband dynamics and exciter. i got them sounding good... until i put everything else in.

So what i'm asking is, what things do you guys do to each instrument while stem mastering? and on the stereo out do you have ANOTHER chain??? so confused

 

[Aaron Smith]

The "benefit" of stem mastering is really just having the ability to independently adjust the volume levels of each stem, but all processing should still be done to the entire group on the master bus. Of course, you CAN individually process the stems, but that would be considered mixing, not mastering...so if you're finding that you need to tweak things individually during mastering in order to get them to sit together properly, then your mix just simply isn't ready for mastering.

If a song is mixed well, then I would argue that there is no need to master it in stems.

 

[Seth Munson]

When and if I do any processing to stems its really light EQ, automation, maybe compression or clipping if its for someone else.
I do all of that stuff on my mixes way before stems.

Edit: Oh yea and just because your guitars sound good on their own doesnt mean they will sound good in the mix. tweak your guitars while listening to everything else.

 

[waltz mastering]

If a song is mixed well, then I would argue that there is no need to master it in stems.

+1.4k

 

[tempe]

Can someone clarify how you would go about sorting your stems, I'm assuming it'd be fairly obvious. One stem for drums, one for bass, one for guitars, one for other mid range stuff such as synths and one for vocals? I was thinking it would make more sense to make a drum and bass stem, but i find the biggest problem with my masters is somehow fucking the low end so I thought having more flexibility over it would make more sense.