What do I do then? Just ignore the Group and buses? What would you do? I am not as experienced as you - I just want everything I should have!
Just suggest what makes sense- so I get it right!
Thanks dude!
I would ask myself the question: What do I want to achieve.
Let’s have a look at a “traditional” and basic mix:
You have audio channels and they are all mixed to one master out.
If a mixing engineer knows that they want or need to print out stems they would insert Groups. Each Group represents one stem. A group is a submix. On an analog desk they would be called “bus” and in other DAW they are also called “bus” but in Cubase a bus is something slightly different, for a good reason.
In Cubase Pro we can chose to export the signal that is send by any of the group channels. Where it would go to the Master Out during playback, the signal is instead printed into an audio file. All the routing inside the project is taken into account.
In fact, any output of any channel can be printed into an audio file, not only the groups.
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Thanks Johnny! The answer then, for example, is that if I click a bass track then Cubase will assign its inserts, sends, groups automatically and so
I don’t need to tick FX, groups, etc in the EXPORT audio multiple section - just the instrument, audio, vocal tracks I want?
Honestly, I am running out of ideas how to explain the concept to you.
Maybe somebody else has a better idea than me.
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Thanks for all the valuable information from those who have responded to the original question here - your time and suggestions are much appreciated and make this forum both interesting and valuable to me.
I usually make 4 stems to make mastering more flexible.
Following Bob Katz’s recommendation I make a full mix, instrumental, lead vocals only, instrumental plus back vocals.
Quoting Katz
Stems or Splits – The Gang of Four
Professional mixing engineers never get caught with their pants down when they produce the Gang of Four. This is even better than Vocal Up/Vocal Down and is not any more work.
Here’s the key: You produce up to four synced stems. In a time pinch, you can produce only the first two or three.
Stem #1. TV (that’s instrumental plus chorus or background vocals).
Stem #2. Lead Vocal(s) (plus its reverb of course—basically muting everything else).
Stem #3. Full Mix (that’s what I will use unless there is a problem, and it’s also a reference to prove that #1 and #2 were made correctly).
Stem #4. Instrumental (by adding this to #1 we can reduce the chorus level. By subtracting this from #1 we can increase the chorus level. By subtracting this from #3 we can increase lead and chorus. And so on!
In mastering, the sum of Stem #1 and Stem #2 at unity gain = Full mix. If we want lead vocal down, we just take the level of Stem #2 down a hair. And through other combinations we can control instruments or all vocals. In mastering, if a vocal is sibilant, we can apply a de-esser just to the vocal track, which is less of a compromise than de-essing the full mix. If a bass instrument needs to come up, we can equalize the instruments without making the vocal any bassier. And so on.
Synchronized stems are produced by running a separate mix pass from the same starting sample each time without changing any gains. You mute the tracks that you don’t want to hear. That way any reverbs or other processing which were applied on the full mix remain on the stems. Don’t be afraid if the vocal-only version has 1 minute of blank at the head, that’s part of the design! It’s also possible to set up your DAW to record all the stems at once as submixes, using the busses, recording into tracks in the DAW. This can save a lot of time, as you can even punch into your record to fix a small section, and then consolidate the capture at high speed.
Many mix engineers argue (correctly) that if they are using bus compression the stems will not reflect the same sound they got on the full mix. This is true, if you are doing strong bus compression, the interaction between the peaks of the mix and the individual elements will not be the same when using stems. In that case, a legitimate gang of four can never be produced! That’s a decision you should not make lightly, because if a slight alteration of the vocal mix is necessary, it has to go back to you to remix, it cannot be done at the mastering house.
The gang of four protects you and your clients in many ways. It gives you archive options and alternative options. It gives you the TV mix the client forgot to ask for but requests six months later! It allows cleaning up dirty words without dropping the music out. Develop the discipline to do the gang of four. You won’t be sorry!
Make your life easy just mute what you don’t need and make 4 exports, not a big deal, Cubase is exporting fast, at least for me.
It sounds like you’re still struggling to understand the concept here.
Open the Mix Console. (Studio > MixConsole, or press F3)
Any single channel you can Solo, you can also Export.
If you have to click Solo on more than one channel to get the result you’re looking for for your export, you will need to rethink your routing strategy.
Honestly, export the mix down (output of your Stereo Out) and master your stereo file. Forget about stems. It’s not really for mastering anyway.
Thanks Mlib!
Hi Mlib,
Actually, I’m doing a class in EDM and they recommended one export say Six stems but each time I exported a set of tracks to make 6 stems, when I assembled them in a new mastering project it all sounded different, so I lost confidence that all the effects were being applied.
Anyway, I tried exporting one stem as you suggested and just applied minimal compression and it sounds good. So you are right if the mix is right, you can get a good result from mild compression on one stem. I bought the Amek Mastering Compression in a sale and I have to say it is a good buy.
I have tried it on my phone and on my studio Kali speakers and changed vol levels back in the original mix - and then re-exported it - which is easy if it is one stem - and finally got it into a zone where it sounds pretty good on both systems. Anyway, just thought I’d keep you filled in!
Personally I never master my own work. The mastering engineers I have worked with would not accept stems, only the stereo mix. I know there are engineers that will do mastering work on stems, but I’m a bit old school in that regard.
I’m glad you reach an end result you’re happy with.
PS. The reason the sum of your stems sounds different than your stereo mix is likely that you have dynamic processing (such as compressors, expanders, limiters, etc.) on your stereo bus and/or group busses. In those cases it’s pretty much impossible to break those busses up into stems that will null with the stereo mix.