How To Create Stems For EDM Remixes

[Jackle]

Thank you for your response in advance. I'm an R&B Funk artist / producer and I'm trying to determine the best way to export stems of my original tracks for EDM producers to use for remixing. I feel I want to keep all my original effects (compression, reverb, etc.) and offer maybe five stems (e.g. drums, bass, guitar, keys, and vocals).

My dilemma is this. I want the stems to be as turnkey as possible for EDM producers. These guys are used to working with sounds and loops that seem to sound like they are already mastered. So my mixing engineer and I are having trouble deciding whether to add mastering effects to each stem (e.g. limiters, compressors, EQ, etc.).

Here is one example I've found that sounds like each stem is 'somewhat' mastered: https://www.indabamusic.com/opportunities/christina-aguilera-your-body-remix-contest/details

Is there anyone that creates stems for EDM producers on the regular, and what is your process?

 

[Massive Master]

First, let's switch up the terminology a bit -- Something isn't "somewhat mastered" - You're either creating the production master or you're not. Now if it's somewhat crushed, that's another story. [/rant]

To that end -- What you have or don't have on the buss aren't "mastering effects" - it's buss processing like any other buss processing -- If they're there to somewhat crush, that's another story. [/sorry - thought I ended the rant]

To THAT end -- Do what serves the mix without relation to affecting the dynamic range that serves the mix. And if the point is to remix or modify from those stems, I'd argue to kill any and all buss processing. Those things are done in relation to the mix. If those stems don't represent the finished mix, those adjustments should be made down the line.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

This looks neither partially mastered nor crushed. Doesn't sound like it either. There's a lot of dynamic range between the isolated bass and the synth "bass" that comes in later.

I suspect that by the time things reach the "loop" phase, they're usually pretty-well mastered (i.e. the loop is a section of a mastered recording). But if it's mix stems, you can't really compress those. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to recreate the original song, and they're not really stems anymore, right?

 

[Btyre2013]

mastering is simply the final process, you should not be mastering samples just so they are loud enough, if it was me and I was sent 'mastered' samples, I would turn down the work or request you send me the uncompressed version.

 

[Jackle]

Thanks for the response everyone. So take a look at this wave form. I download all the tracks from the Your Body example (link above), then exported all those tracks (with no volume edits, etc.) to a single track, and this is the result. To me this looks mastered (or crushed if you prefer). What do you think?

Remember, these aren't stems for mastering. These are stems going to EDM producers.

 

[Massive Master]

Unless you're zoomed in vertically, no doubt, much (MUCH) too hot.

And yes, "crushed" -- Or "dynamically limited" (or "clipped") which is what's actually happening.

That all said -- is this only the case when summing? Are the individual stems within reason and this mad clipping is only happening when they're summed together?

Of course, even when summing them all together there should be generous amounts of natural headroom... But IME, a lot of EDM folks just don't get that... But whatchagonnado.....

 

[Jackle]

This is not vertically zoomed, and the audio itself actually sounds fine (i.e. like your typical overly compressed pop music master).

Each stem on its own looks more like what VomitHatSteve posted. Also, when all the stems are played together, there really isn’t as much clipping as it looks like there is. It clips just by a hair, maybe every 5-10 seconds.

I think EDM producers are just used to dragging and dropping stuff in and having it work, so I think I’m leaning towards having my stems do something similar to these Aguilera stems. Basically leaving the buss processing on (used for mastering) and soloing tracks for each stem. That’s my best guess as to how they did this.