how to export stems for
Stem Mastering?
Originally published: October 20th, 2024
Read time: 3-Min
Set yourself up for success by learning how to export stems for stem mastering.
If you are not yet familiar with what stem mastering is, you'll want to refer to our 'What is Stem Mastering' blog first. The purpose of this blog is to help ensure that your submission process to us here at Release Mastering or any online music mastering service is as smooth as possible.
Send wet stems
Wet stems simply means with the effects/processing applied. If you have added EQ, compression, reverb etc during the mixing process, those should remain active during the export (otherwise what was the point of mixing them). In certain circumstances, you may also be asked to provide dry stems (these are stems with all processing bypassed) but as standard, you should be sending wet stems.
Wet stems
(Effects active)
dry stems
(Effects bypassed)
export region (shown in purple)
Consistent export regions
The export region for each stem should span the length of your full track. i.e. if your piano only plays for 20 seconds between 1:30 and 1:50 you should still export the track from 0:00 to the track’s end.
This ensures that when the stems are dropped into the mastering project they are all aligned where they need to be.
Failure to do this not only causes a headache for the mastering engineer but also means that you may experience timing issues in the final master as your engineer will have to manually place each stem.
The final stems should look like this:
Rough mixes are the best reference tracks
When submitting your stems for mastering it is also typical to submit a rough mix. This is an audio file that provides the engineer a point of reference for how you envision the track. For example, are you looking to drive the kick and bass hard? Is it intended to be more vocal-forward? etc.
Remember: It's called a rough mix for a reason - it does not need to feel or sound polished, that's what you're hiring the pros for!
The stem mastering series
