Stings, stems and mixes aha!

[daveydad]

A library is needing this from me. Can someone clarify what stings and stems are? Thanks!

"We need edits of around 5 to 10s stings, a shorter mix and stems of the main mixes"

[andygabrys]

Well they have left it up to you in a way as in the same number of words they could have specified exactly what they want but.....

Sting - short edit of the end of your tune with a few seconds of the tune then a hit and ring out (like the button ending on a tune). Some people like a long ring, some like both that and a short "shave and a hair-cut, six bits" bam and you are done. Typically used to go out to or come back in from commercials in programs (aka "bumpers") or when one scene finishes and they cut to another character.

Shorter mix - typically 60 sec, 30 sec, 15 seconds as these are typical lengths of commercial spots on TV / radio, with 30 likely the most common. Usually you aim for a complete ending including reverb ring out / fade out in this time or a half second shorter. Edit you main piece down.

Stems - unfortunately a little vague - means constituent parts of the main mix. If it's for TV this would be "minus mixes". Like take the full mix and mute the lead instrument or melody to get an "underscore" or "narrative" version. Or mute everything except for bass and drums for the "DnB" version. So many different combinations can be done and these are very useful as these less "obtrusive" minus mixes often compete with dialogue a lot less. Usually you make all these stem mixes with all your mastering plugins active as well.

OTOH, If you are making a set of "stems" for a publisher especially one that intends to be able to remix the track later for special client uses, then Stems might mean a "drums" stem, a "bass" stem, a guitars stem, a keyboards stem, a lead vocal stem, a BG vocal stem etc. usually you just solo certain groups of tracks and bounce again with all your mastering plugins still
Active. The idea is then that the publisher can put up those stems in a new session, make a few tweaks and have a new mix. Don't worry if th sum total of all those tracks is over digital 0.0 dB. The re-mixer is going to be smart enough to pull all the tracks down as much as needed to have a clean mix. The main thing is to keep the sound the same as your original
Track.

This is all in my experience, and naturally won't cover every scenario but I HTH.

[daveydad]

Thanks Andy! You're right on!. The stems they want are individual files of each instrument; I assume to remix later. These are all Christmas tunes signed exclusively to a UK library recently.

[Russell Landwehr]

Be careful about your stems. If your songs use any licensed "loops" you can't send those as stems by themselves unless the company you are sending them to also purchase the loops from the same place you did.

Russell

[daveydad]

All stems are my creations!

[mobster85]

Thanks for asking this David. Great question.

[denalihighway]

Do you guys send your stems with mastering plugs on or off? (the mastering plugs you would have used on the original, full track)

Thanks

[daveydad]

In this case, I left mine on.

[eeoo]

To me stems means the separate tracks that form the whole mix that would give the end user the ability to do a re-mix. In this case i Imagine you'd give them un-mastered tracks other wise they would be slamming their master buss too hard, right? But if you're talking about alt mixes like an ambient mix or just guitars or bass and drums etc etc etc, than you would want to keep your mastering chain the same as in your main mix. And i do that simply by muting tracks.

eo

[denalihighway]

Hmmm...thanks.

Well in this case the stems requested were stuff like:

- mix without drums
- just drums
- mix without lead melody

and others like that...