Stem Mastering

Sage Audio offers two types of mastering services, standard stereo mastering, and stem mastering. The same high fidelity mastering process is employed in both services; however stem mastering gives the engineer more flexibility in dealing with problems that exist in the mix. All non-mastered tracks will benefit substantially from our standard mastering service, however if you are not completely confident in your mix, then stem mastering will provide our engineers more options to give you the best master possible. If your're currious how your song will sound after mastering we offer a FREE PREVIEW of our standard mastering service to all new artists.

What is Stem Mixing and Mastering

There is a lot of confusion in the audio community about what stem mixing and mastering is. In its most basic form it's the process of creating a final master song using multiple tracks. Normal mastering requires only one stereo track file, however when mastering from stems there are normally 4 through 8 stereo tracks used. The tracks consist of consolidated instruments and vocals. So you may have one track which contains all vocals, one that contains guitars, one for percussion etc. Mastering from stems gives the engineer much more control over the final sound of the master as he can isolate individual frequencies better and fix problems that might be impossible to fix with a single two track file.

Should I Master from Stems

There is much debate on whether or not it makes sense to master from stems and if there is a quality difference between standard and stem mastered songs. The short answer is that it depends on a number of factors, and will be different for each song. Well mixed projects most likely do not need to be mastered from stems, and all mixes will benefit substantially from a standard stereo track mastering service. If your mix is not completely right, or there are significant mixing issues then stem mastering will produce better results. In general the better your mix is the less it will benefit from stem mastering, however stem mastering always gives the mastering engineer more flexibility to deal with issues that may be present in the mix.