Stems

Yacht rock and guilty pleasures sets are all the rage at the moment, especially coming up to the party and festive DJ season!

DJs looking for those sing-a-long '80s classics can now get tunes that are STEMS enabled — meaning they can utilise Native Instruments STEMS format — opening up the ability for DJs to really get their dancefloors going with creative STEMS mixing.

Kerri Chandler has shared the stems for his '90s classic ‘Get It Off’.

In a Facebook post, the deep house veteran explained that he was releasing all the parts of the track in honour of his late girlfriend.

“Not one year goes by when I don't wonder about Tracy and how things might have been if she were alive today,” he wrote yesterday.

Stems are the latest bit of tech designed to change the way DJs and producers play live. But there's been some divided opinion as to how their use is going to pan out. DJ Mag contacted two DJ/producers with opposing views to tell us what they think about stems...

Stems are basically the parts of a track broken down into different elements. Unlike regular stereo files, Stems contain four music components alongside a stereo master. Just like a four-track recording, drums, synths, vocals and bass elements play on different tracks. 

Point Blank talk you through bass management and plugin signal chains in Logic

When mixing your own music, bouncing down to a collection of key stems can help you avoid over-mixing your track. Committing to certain sounds and notes will allow you to focus on the mix and overall sound of the track. Or in the case of Rob Rox, you might get some stems from a client to mix from.

Native Instruments Stems is a brand new format allowing you to manipulate individual parts of a track within a single MP4 file. Loaded into Traktor or any Stem-compatible software, the MP4 can give the user access to drums; melodies, vocals, FX or any element the producer has decided to share. 

Check out the new Native Sessions workshop from Native Instruments designed to give you a heads up on the new STEMS Audio Format. Taking place this Thursday in London at the rather swish Studio Spaces E1 Unit 2, 110 Pennington street, E1W2BB