Stem Mixing - Any thoughts?

[TrevCircleStudios]

IMO stem mixing is worth doing in two situations:

1. if you are summing in the analogue domain and don't have enough ins for all of your channels (like if you are using a dangerous etc)

2. It may worth printing stems if you are likely be asked for further mixes (vox up, vox down, instrumental) etc and don't want to have to do a whole recall.

Otherwise due to the ability to group etc if you are ITB it's pretty pointless.

[modz1]

Originally Posted by TrevCircleStudios

Edit:

Otherwise due to the ability to group etc if you are ITB it's pretty pointless.

Totally agree with Trev on the above post and closing comment. If each 'stem' were taken into the outside world (for, say, warming through a superior valve desk/channel strips) then fine.. Likewise, archiving for remixes etc..

[Paul_Caruso]

Originally Posted by CharlieHugall

I find i end up using a combination of stem mixing and utilizing groups as you cannot insert over the VCA channels which are simply used as a group volume control (Neve VR, SSL E Series). - Group Busses enable batch processing i.e. compression/EQ/Verb to nicely gel stuff together and are also good for conjunctive use with a parallel compression as you can smoothly mix the main bus with the parallel.

On an SSL - you can't patch over the VCA but if you want to put a compressor over a drum group or something you can try routing to a pair of groups (1-32), float the send channels, patch the pair of group outputs to a compressor/eq etc and then route the output back to another pair of channels. OR if you only want to do one group, put a compressor over the back bus, route them there and run the compressor output to a pair of channels.

[EdRyan]

Stems are a good idea. Mainly for transferrign across DAW platforms for further mixing or mastering. I can see the point from an archive perspective as well, although I think that this point is less important.

I tend to do my stems as bass, kick, rest of drums and a whole vocal. The only problem is that because of the way I work within Logic, I have to be careful about things like sidechaining...

[FrankGIK]

I don't like taking stems from clients for mix work. Just the act of creating the stems involves an interpretive decision from the client, and I usually need a whole lot more freedom that they usually provide. I'd much rather have the raw tracks from the right marker.

Frank