Separation Mastering

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i agree with jeff robinson.

[RefD]

i agree with jeff robinson.

me too.

hold me, i'm scared.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

*holds ref*

these really must be end times.

[Stephen B.]

I've heard this approach generally mentioned as an alternative to making a whole slew of vocal up/vocal down/instrumental/less banjo/more gamelan mixes.

I laughed out loud--literally--at the more gamelan comment.

[Cellotron]

I agree with John Scrip's post - although to me going to stems should be only done to dealing with a mix that is really completely out of whack that for some reason (time, the mix studio closed, the individual track data lost, etc.) can not just simply be remixed. I think having stems as a "safety" available to the ME can be a valuable thing if the tracking and mix engineers are very inexperienced and unsure of their monitoring - processing the stems could help to avoid more extreme 2 track processing such as radically surgical eq's, multiband compression, and heavy M/S processing. And once in a blue moon doing things like just bumping up the vocal stem a half dB is a nice option to have "just in case".

STILL - for the vast vast majority of cases where the mix is done by a competent engineer I think stem processing just delays the decision making process and just unnecessarily adds cost to the mastering bill. In nearly all cases I much prefer to just receive a final stereo mix so that i can just get to work doing what I think I do best instead of doing "pseudo-mixing."

Anyway - to read an interesting case of a discussion of and then brief appearance by John Vestman on Brad Blackwood's "Mastering Demystified" forum check out -

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... 43a3ecc405

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[MASSIVE Mastering]

Mostly @ Jeff - One of the benefits (and again, I'd rather just work from a stereo mix) is that you can "counteract" the nastier parts of the mastering process (VOLUME, mostly).

Of course it depends on the project, but for the most part, I'm not trying to "change" people's mixes - I'm trying to make them "all they can be" while changing them as little as possible.

By having stems handy, if the client wants to really push (this) and pull (that), you can try to adjust the mix a whisker to better handle what they're trying to accomplish - If the vocals get swallowed with the desired compression, just inch them up a whisker.

There's a project I'm working on right now - I'd give almost anything to have the stems... Some tracks have been remixed *SIX TIMES* already and I have no idea if they're done yet. It'd be SO easy to just tap the vocals up (or down in some cases) to make everyone happy...

So in short, I don't WANT to *mix* the project - But sometimes, having the ability to manipulate the mix holistically to avoid changing it too much can be a good thing.