Mastering from stems helps achieving precisely balanced results without affecting the creative mixing decisions.

With access to the stems, the mastering engineer can adjust:
– precise dynamics of individual stems
– spectral balance between stems
– (un)wanted resonances

delivery format

Prefered stem delivery format is:
96kHz 24bit WAV

Stems received from a mixing engineer are:
– groups of sounds (drums, lead vocals, backing vocals, synths, guitars, etc.)
– effects returns (delays, drum room, lead vocal reverb, etc.)

All the stems are exported with their appropriate processing and without gain normalization, so when you play all of them together into a stereo output, it will sound exactly the same as the finished mix.

However, the group playback of stems will be quieter, without clipping, and without any master bus processing applied.

additional data

To get as close as possible to the intended expression of the artist, it is very helpful to also supply:
– finished “loud” version of the stereo mix with all the processing from the mixing engineer
– the original rough mix from the artist, if available
– examples of the artist’s favourite songs of similar genre
– examples of the artist’s favourite great-sounding songs of other genres

a free review before mastering

Yes! I will review your stems before mastering free of charge.