Stem

A submix of a group of related tracks, such as all the guitars, exported or processed as a single unit.

Stems sit between individual tracks and the final mix, letting a group of instruments be treated together: the whole drum kit can be compressed as one, or all the backing vocals balanced as a unit. They are also the standard way music is delivered for film, television and games, since the dialogue mixer needs to raise or lower the music without the individual tracks. A common alternative word, submix, describes exactly the same thing.

Example: Exporting every guitar part as a single stereo file for a film score delivery produces a guitar stem.

Stem

See also