What to put in a stem and how.
Make a stem of one tonal entity.
Lead vocals, background vocals, drumset, percussion, FX, guitars, keyboards, pads etc. all make good stems.
Every stem is made of parts belonging together, that are not to be mixed or mastered separate.
Stems consist of tonally similar parts, that are already balanced together as one.
Parallel compression.
If you used it, you might want to make a separate stem.
E.g. „guit“ and „guit_pc“.
Reverb.
You might want to make separate stems for reverb.
E.g. „voclead“ and „voclead_rev“.
If your stems are named systematically, there is no additional charge to handle them.
The chance to make balancing easier and more efficient is even higher with stems so well prepared.
20230131 TG
