Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside the Recording Studio. I am Jody Whitesides, with me as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom! How are you today, Chris? Alright, we'll just I am doing okay. I am okay. I've been dealing with some health issues that I'm not going to bore our listeners with, but I am okay. Good phrase. Yes, let's do that. So what are we talking about?
piss off on that and we'll move forward. We are talking about sharing projects and whether you're going to be using stems or multitracks to do it and under what guises you would use one or the other. I think. Is that about right? Yeah, that sounds about right. And I know at least I am going Okay. to get on my soapbox about the definitions of stems and multitracks, but more about that in a minute. So what kind of Okay.
I would look at it from a standpoint instances would you find yourself when we're talking about sharing projects? What are some of the cases where you might do that? of when you're collaborating with someone else, generally speaking, when you're sharing a project,
Mm hmm. Yeah, I would agree with that. But also in the case other instances are probably a little bit more rare, but when you're collaborating with someone else, that's most often when you're gonna be sharing projects, right, when you're collaborating with someone else. Yes. where you are sending your track out to get mixed, or your song Yes. out to get mixed, right there, there are cases where you might Correct.
actually share if you're sharing the same DAW, there might be cases where you just send them the project file, I would prefer to not get a project file because it generally just means more cleanup work for me. But there are people that just want yeah, I you know, just send me the Pro Tools files or send me the logic file or any one of those thoughts that you might be sharing. But that would be another case where you're Yes. sharing a project. So yeah.
And generally speaking, as a mix engineer, as two mix engineers on this particular podcast, [silence] we are of the mindset, give us the multi tracks, not the project file. I'm just going to say that right now. I don't prefer to get the project file at all. Yeah. All right. And mainly because my new mixing DAW is generally one that people don't use for tracking so [silence] much yet. So. (chuckles)
This is true. Yeah. And I think it's also for me, it goes to the mindset again of having a clean slate of when you start mixing, right? [pause] I don't want to necessarily be influenced too much about what they have in their dough. Right. And I have to find out what things are, get rid of any automation type of thing. I want the multitracks. I can start from scratch and just get going from there. And I think it just makes the process a whole lot easier as opposed to, in my case,
getting a logic file from somebody. So I'm with you there. I want the multitracks right off the bat. Sure. But when it comes to collaborating, and we have mentioned this in the past, where you're working with someone else and what you would like to do is exchange tracks. One of the best things to do if you're working with friends or other That ideally collaborators is to know the DAW that they're working in and use the same DAW.
That way you could technically pass your project files back and forth. Yeah. It does get complicated when you do that. The unfortunate reality is that there was a system years ago that made it easy to collaborate over the internet. If you have the same DAW and it was called the rocket network. No, they had other DAWs as well. They had Pro Tools. They had Q base. Was that even, was that available in different tasks? I thought that was strictly a logic thing initially and I think...
Okay. I believe there were a couple of different DAWs that had it at the time. Obviously there weren't as many DAWs around at that point, but it was DAW to DAW. Yeah, because I think that was... I was still working with Cubase, I believe at that point. But Logic had the most complete implementation of it if you got their version. And it was pretty impressively cool. Well, that's your fault. [LAUGHS] Oh, that's where I got my start, you know. Sorry.
Yes. So, but yeah, so that was one of those things. And you would think that today, obviously, internet speeds and things are infinitely better than the word in the day of the rocket network. Yeah, it's not so much the recording process anymore. So, you know, we see some kind of solutions when it comes into sharing this are coming up now and propping up now that are sort of attempting to make that a reality again, I should say.
but it seems like it's a little bit more geared at this point for mix collaborations and giving feedback on mixes and things. Would you agree with that? So but that was an interesting concept but yeah excuse me. It was and what made it better in terms of exchanging files between collaborators is Yeah to have that sync yeah.
that you didn't have to worry about setting like a pop click at the top of every track that you're sending somebody to have the sink because it automatically synced the tracks Yeah. between the two people or the multiple people that were sharing the project file, so to speak, which was awesome. Nobody's done it since. Right? I wonder if Rocket Network has got like some sort of they must. Could very well be, could very well be, yeah.
They must have some sort of like copyright or trademark or patent on the process that they used and it has not reached a point of public domain yet and nobody's willing to pay the licensing fee to start it up again. That's my guess. But there are companies that are kind of doing something similar-esque in that they're primarily Yeah. Yeah. working on feedback systems that are relatively close. They're just not perfect sync. One of those is session wire, which we currently use a little bit.
[ Pause ]
And there are a few others, but they don't do the same method. So what ends up happening is is for those of you that wish to collaborate from person to person, you have only a couple of methods to kind of get tracks from one to the other. If you're in the same town, it's fairly easy. You just pop everything on a thumb drive and whip it on over to your buddy's studio and plug that USB drive in and take all the files off and put them on his computer.
And then he opens it up when he's doing his thing. And if you're on the internet, you have a couple of different file sharing methods Yeah. where you can have a private server and you're exchanging files, which is the way you and I do it. There's also other things like Dropbox Yeah. that some people probably use or we transfer for the really big files, things of that nature that allow you to transfer Yeah. individual tracks as you're working.
But none of them really give you all that face-to-face time when you're instantly collaborating at the same time. I would, that would be the thing, to go back to have the rocket network and to have something like FaceTime or session wire going at the same time now would be pretty bad ass. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah If you ask me for sharing projects There is that yeah and absolutely like you mentioned you at this point and creating songs between people at this point.
(silence) (silence) You're sort of tied to the situation where you upload a gigantic file Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. (silence) Whether that's just a session file with all the audio and everything to Whether it's your Dropbox or you go through we transfer or if you have a private server like like we do and you you Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. (silence) Right.
collaborate that way Others as well now, I haven't really delved into it, but gobbler does a similar service where you can upload a session file and If I remember correctly it keeps track of which files have been updated and will upload those to the server So you can collaborate through that service as well. You're gonna come up against Issues whatever method that you're using that are not going to necessarily be ideal the thing that What are some of those big method issues?
Well, it's the, let's say that you're doing the collaboration aspect of it. Right. The immediacy, I think, during the creative process is just not there. Because unless you're sitting with a video camera like you and I have done in the past where we can talk, there's always a turnover of feedback to a certain idea. It's like, "Hey, what do you think about this guitar idea?" Or on FaceTime or something similar. And then you wait four hours until a person has downloaded it.
and he goes, No, I don't like that where that would have been, you know, a two second conversation if you're in the same room, right? Or on FaceTime or any kind of yeah, visual Yeah. medium, I suppose. Right. Yeah. If we're taking a step here in terms of the subject matter for today, when you are collaborating Yes, yes. The individual tracks. Yeah. on a project together, generally you are passing the multi-tracks to each other, which is the individual instrument files.
In some cases you might be passing just the MIDI data [BLANK_AUDIO] if you both have the same DAW and the same plugins in the same settings, you just pass that MIDI data and that's fairly quick or the audio version Yeah, right, yeah. of the instrument. So that comes with the whole point of the collaboration. [BLANK_AUDIO] When it comes to the mixing thing, you're definitely wanting to bounce out your multi-tracks, your individual instruments for the mixing engineer.
Yes, and also something that you're real big on as well, Yes.
as well and this is something that ends up biting just about anybody in the ass at some point is if you don't bounce your virtual instruments at the time of when you're done [ Pause ] tracking bounce that out and send it to them even if that person has the same plugins that you're using or virtual instruments that you're using for posterity that's good because we've both been through cases where it's like you go back and revisit an old session file and
then you realize, Oh, yeah, that that plugin manufacturer went out of business 10 years ago, and it's no longer available. Right. Well, and in the previous episode, we were talking about, So yeah. the creative use of doing loop things. And I mentioned the Fatmatic Pro. Mm hmm. I went and pulled that out. I was gonna do the Tuesday tip as an example of that. And of course, that plugin is no longer available.
The company that made it BitShift Audio, not BitShit, but BitShift, they pass it off to Isotope. uh-huh. Yeah. Isotope had it for a while, and then Isotope just EOLed it. It's no longer available, which is kind of sad because Isotope is fairly good Good. at keeping things alive for the most part. So that became a non-issue.
But the good thing is, is that I did actually bounce that drum track out that I had in that song from using the Fatmatic Pro, which is, yes, I've become the stickler that I am. Yeah, it's just a good habit to get into and with today's technology it takes you what? And I tell everybody bounce your shit out. If you lose your sounds, they're gone forever. If you don't bounce that out.
Well, no, if your track is three minutes long and you're doing it in real time, it takes A minute if it's slow to do it, you know, so just get in the habit of doing it. three minutes. Well if you choose to do it in real time that's of course true but still, okay, five minutes But yeah. every time if it's a long song, right? And then being able to pull that up in 10 years down the (sniffing) road is it's a simple task and it's just a workflow thing. So that is a good thing. What about Right.
Well, the other thing too that we should mention Yeah. about when you're gonna pass off your multi-tracks to a mixing engineer is, is that you should bounce out all the tracks starting from zero or one, whatever your first bar is, regardless of whether they're playing anything Yes. [laughs] for 20 or 30 bars. You should start everything at that zero mark. Otherwise, you're gonna give the guy something Yes. [laughs] or the girl something that's doing your mix where everything's misaligned.
And suddenly you get this mix back Yeah. Yep. and they're probably scratching their head like, I just going with what they gave me. It's like, they don't know if your timing's wrong because maybe you bounced it out in a format instead of broadcast wave format. And maybe their dog doesn't pick up the fact that there's a timestamp to it. You don't know. It's always a good idea. Start that bounce for your multi-tracks to zero or one, depending on your dog. So that they all start at the same spot.
[ SCH they all run at the same length and everybody's happy. One other thing that we probably should mention about collaboration, especially if you're between DAWs, ? .!! ] even if you're in the same DAW for that matter, your tempo should be set to the same tempo Mm-hmm. Yeah. for both projects on both sides of the equation or for however many sides of the equation if there's more than two or three people. yeah Same thing with your synchronization settings.
that can be a nightmare yes You could have the same tempo going, but if your synchronization settings are off, especially if you're working in film and TV type things, if you don't start your, oh, it's ridiculous. It's like the synchronization settings yeah can discombobulate everything.
So make sure that you're using the same template [ or the same project file that you start with, that both sides have the same sync settings, the same tempo settings, so that when you do bounce this stuff out, [ you don't get weird stuff happening [ when you put it back in on the other side, so to speak. [ ] Well, I didn't mention it, but you just did, It's just good practice to do that. And like you mentioned, obviously sample rate, given the tempo if you're sending it up.
[ and that's a good point too. Sample rate needs to be the same as well. Why is this track so fast? Yeah, because it's different, you know, sample rate or yeah. The sample rate's different. Now. I recorded it at 48. Yeah, and as we mentioned before as well is don't output to a higher sample rate because you've recorded at a lower one. What are you recording at? 44.1. What are you recording at? 88.2. And you?
I'm recording at 96. Well, shit, now I've got four different tempos going on for the same stuff. there is no benefit of doing that. If they say, "Oh, I need your files to be 48K," whatever, then you deliver that, but know that you're not making it better in quality-wise. If you're, "I recorded in 44 by output at 48." It's like, yeah, there's no benefit of doing that. No, there isn't technically speaking, you're right. You're -- Oh, sure.
However, that being said, when people were generally recording at 44.1 and video for film and TV were generally working at 48, you might up sample your stereo file, your master file at that point, just so they don't have to do some kind of strange digital conversion for them. You can always double check your, but it doesn't make your song file any better.
( ( 2.5% It doesn't improve the sound quality to record ) Yeah, no, that's why I said so if they want a certain format, but you've already tracked at a lesser sample rate and up sample to a higher sample rate. This is what you're trying to say. Yes, and it does make a difference. your song at a lower sample rate or even higher sample rate, just essentially give the person that you're delivering it to the sample rate that they require.
But it's especially crucial for like you said for like TB and video and all that kind of because they tend to live in the 48k world, right? So yes. I ran into it in an instance with a song that I delivered to a film that they used and the Yes. ... the the music supervisor contacted me the because the mix was done at two different tempos.
So not only did they have an MP3 version (No audio) that they initially gave the green light to, when it came time to me sending the WAV file, when they asked for it, I gave them the appropriate 48K, but the tempo was different tempo because of a request from the co-writer on the track wanted a different tempo to the song, which I disagreed with, but I gave him a version for him. And the funny thing is it got us the gig when we got into the movie.
Oh But the funny thing is, is the music supervisor contacts me back Good yeah within a few minutes after they laid it back in. I said, "Uh, this is at a different tempo. "Is there a reason?" (laughs) And of course I knew the reason and I told him, Okay, but but he presumably had also oh and he actually agreed with me over the co-writer in that the version that I sent him, which was the original tempo of the song, was better. So they ended up recutting.
Well, the interesting thing is, is they recut the section of the movie. Yes, because they liked the version that I sent them better Oh Jesus, really? Wow. That's extremely rare. that wasn't altered in the tempo. And the specific reason was the vocals sounded better. So, you know, it wasn't a massive recut. I mean, we're just, yeah, it's extremely rare. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I got lucky with that. Yeah. There's no, and the irony, the movie is called Lucky. Oh, well, there you go.
(laughing) So if you want to go find it, the movie is called Lucky. Yeah. the It's starring Colin Hanks, and it's the song in the center of the movie where they do like their collage situation. And it's called Happy When I'm With You. He liked the vocal better in the original tempo. And I got lucky. And that's all I'm going to say about it.
But you should always make sure that when you have these different tempos or the different values to a sample rate or whatnot, everything's clearly marked because I had literally forgotten Okay, yeah. that I had given an MP3 bounce of a, I didn't even make a wave version of that stereo mix. I literally gave the co-writer that version just for him to satisfy his whim. Not thinking about it. They do happen. These things do happen, but yeah. All right.
And you may not get as lucky as I got, so be aware. So yeah, don't count on being that lucky. Right, exactly. You're more likely to get, okay, change it back to the original tempo because we're having (laughs) Right, and that would have been an even worse thing all sorts of issues. because then I'd have to go back and figure out the tempo version 'cause I didn't even save like an alternate version for that 'cause I just, I disliked it. I just hated the way the voice sounded that.
So, and you know, that's why I got lucky. The music supervisor agreed. The voice sounds better in the original tempo. So we've talked about sharing tracks now, either the multitracks, we've talked about Uh huh. giving the actual session file. And, you know, the benefits of doing both there, perhaps. But one thing I wanted to mention that if you're sharing the actual session file, I would encourage to remove all sort of automation that you may have
written. If you're going that route. Yeah, yeah, obviously. When you're talking about doing a mix, right, not during the collaboration point. Yeah, if you're sending it to somebody to mix, not when you're collaborating, because at that point, who cares? You're just, you know, just writing. If you are doing it to somebody to deliver for a mix, I would get rid of all that kind of stuff just to make that Mm hmm.
person have again that like sort of clean palette to kind of start from and that's the way I would like to get them as well if you know if I have to start [BLANK_AUDIO] undoing or erasing a lot of data automation moves all this kind of stuff And you wonder why people wanna charge more for their mixing talent.
it's just one extra step for me that I don't really want to have to deal with And it's not just being lazy, but it's just like it's a lot of unnecessary work before I'm Starting to actually get into the song and mix it Yeah, yeah you're wasting their time.
There there is that yeah and last thing if you are RNA bouncing out the multitracks like you mentioned with you know virtual instruments or even any other instruments if they're just recorded in different bits of the song make a continuous file. I would very much encourage and I know you're going to back me up on this, Jody to not print any effects on that track, unless absolutely integral for the sound. Keep it. You got my back. I got your back.
Sure. Well, the other thing that goes hand in hand with this, I knew I could count on your buddy. But again, it's one of those things where you may have all that synth part sounds awesome. It's too bad. It's drenched in reverb because it just kind of gets drowned out now, where it might have sounded awesome at the writing stage. Leave those decisions up to the guy that's doing the mixing. Again, I'm talking about mixing, not in collaboration situations here. Mm-hmm.
if you're using things such as guitar amp sim plugins, obviously you wish to bounce the guitar stems or the bass stems if using bass amps emulation as well. bass tracks. Anytime you're using some kind of emulation Yeah. in that regard of the actual sound, you want to make sure you're bouncing that, sans your reverbs and your delays generally speaking. Right. And if you're in serious doubt about it, Right.
do a bounce with the extra effects outside of the sound and one without the effects in the sound. Yeah. It doubles your workload, but it may not double the mix engineer's workload. So there. And it can also give you an idea to send to the mix engineer where you go, ( well, this is kind of how I'm hearing this part. You know, I'm kind of hearing this massive delay bouncing all around or whatever, Mm-hmm.) but you give them a clean track, as it were, to work with.
And also, again, whether it's whether you're using amp sims on both guitars and bass (scissors snipping) But that's easy to do. and whatever you have, really consider giving them the DI guitar as well. if the guitar tone is not working in the mix. Now, you know, that that's. You don't really technically have to bounce that Yeah. unless it's got multiple comps and tons of different pieces Absolutely right. or regions inside the DAW.
Then it makes a good sense to bounce that individual stem out, or not stem, but bounce that individual multi-track out for that instrument. Okay. Yeah. That's how I would like to get files. That's how I like to give files when I'm doing that, when I'm done a session for you know recording some tracks where somebody and I always give them but here's the the full track here's the way I hear it sound there's no effects on it unless again integral for the sound and here's the DI and Right.
they're all starting at the same bar and they can pop them into their session and No, I think at this point, we should take a moment and give our sponsors a moment of hopefully they're happy so anything you want to share to that with sharing projects. Now it's something that is very, very important to our listeners time. And we're back. What are we moving on to now, Chris? me. We are going to talk. It is when I'm going to get on my Is this where you're going to get on your cloud?
Okay. Okay. soapbox here a little bit and I apologize, but I really don't. Okay. (lips smacking) But we're going to talk about the use of the word stem and Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. multitrack. They are not the same thing. And I think it's important for everybody that's collaborating that we use a certain language the way it's intended to avoid any kind of confusion or anything I recently posted on our social media feed,
Bob Clear Mountain stating the same thing. Don't send me the stems send me the multitrack I don't want stems when you're mixing. I want the multitrack and what is the difference? And he's referring to the fact that when he's doing a mix, not when he's doing something else, correct? Correct, he's getting a pop or a rock or any kind of track to Mm hmm. mix a song to mix. He wants all those individual files. And (silence) those are that's the multitrack you want all the individual (silence)
files. A stem is a grouped bunch of tracks generally in the same (silence) family. Like it could be a stereo track of drums, it could (silence) be a stereo track with all the percussion, all the guitars, all (silence) the synths, what have you. They're different things. Now Mhm! there are some mastering engineers that like to get (silence) stems as opposed to just a stereo file as well, just so Yeah. that they have a little bit more control over that. But knowing
the definition is imperative. And I see a lot of the blurring of those lines that people ask me, well, you want me to send you the stems? No, I want you to send me the multitracks. I actually had a conversation with an engineer who had recorded an Okay. artist that I ended up mixing and we were in different doors. And I was talking to him and I said, I can you please send me Okay. the tracks, the multitracks. Are you wanting to send you the stems? No, I want the multitracks.
I want everything individual. And it ended up with one of those relatively nightmarish situations where I got an audio folder and a Pro Tools file Sure. and it just said, "Here's the audio and here's audio 1, guitar 2." And they were just the regions of audio. they did not start at the same time. So that was a lot more work than it should have been. But that's because, you know, Were you charging by the hour so that it just started went to Ching Ching Ching Ching?
that would have been great, wouldn't it? Well, sure. But no, it was a different type of project here. But it was one of those things where some communication goes a long way. And I think that's important when we're talking about this. And it's very easy to say, Oh, it's just old guy yelling at cloud here, right? But, you know, if we don't have definitions of these things and they don't mean anything, then the communication within the industry deteriorates in my opinion.
So I think it's important. But maybe this is also the important step between the amateur and the professional Well, it could be, but at the same time, you know, and the hobbyist for that matter. Just thought of that old song. hobbyists grow up to be amateurs that end up becoming professionals and if they carry along the same sort of verbiage with them through their journey those lines get blurred even more. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys for some reason, just based on what you just said. Mama, don't let your hobbyists grow up to be amateurs Well, I think it is important just with the communication. who become professionals kind of thing. Throwing that in my head. That was just weird right there. Yes. All right, but why is it important, Chris? Please tell us. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So you avoid any kind of hassle because if people keep referring to multitracks as stems, [silence] more and more people hear that and they adopt that because they
think that's the right way of saying it. If you're hanging around, you know, collaborators and things that refer to it, it stems and nobody tells you that that's not actually an accurate description, you are going to sort of perpetuate that myth, if you will, by using the same language, because that's how you've been taught, you know, and it doesn't mean that, you Fud. Sure. know, there's anything bad with with using a wrong word, if you
don't know anything different about it. But to change how you're referring to something just better to your communication when it comes to other people that are using it more in the air quote, direct way or not direct way, proper way, or accurate way. So I think that that's where it's, it's a Yeah. real sticking point for me because there is a DAW out now.
And I'm not going to mention it, but if you're using the DAW, you know, which one it is, where it refers to exporting all the multi tracks as stems. So that blurs the lines even more. That's where, you know, people like you and I get to get on our soapbox for about half an hour and talk about this stuff. I believe that there is a reason for the definitions for that fine line, that line between clever Do you agree with me or do you have an opposing view?
Is it really just me being an old guy, yelling at a cloud here, trying to hold onto something that maybe isn't relevant anymore? Because that might very well be, I don't know. Yeah. and stupid if you were to refer to spinal tap between stems and multi tracks. Yeah. There is that and they come important to things like film and TV. So in this past week, as an example, I've been hanging around on a film set and the Mm-hmm. [ Pause ]
director was kind enough to listen to a song that could very well be quite appropriate for the film as they're shooting it. he in between their setup times, if you've ever been on a film set, there's a lot of time where there's some downtime. And the director, it's just, he pulled his phone right out. Said, is it on Amazon Prime? 'Cause that was his service of choice. And I'm like, yes it is. So he looks up the song. He literally started playing it right then and there. [ Pause ]
He's like, oh, this is really great, man. I will do what I can to help you get it to the music supervisor. I make no guarantees that they would put it in this film, but I will at least get your foot in the door. And I was like, great, thank you so much. That's awesome! Yeah. [ Chuckles ] Yeah, no, it's highly unheard of. Guy's like super sweet, he's a really nice guy. So he did immediately turn around after saying all this, and he goes, you do have the stems, correct?
And I said, but of course I do. Mm-hmm. And I knew exactly what he meant because there are times when they're going to mix something Sure. for a film of this nature, and they're going to want to alter the mix a little bit if it doesn't fit something correctly. So, yeah, I have the stems. Mm-hmm. I don't have a problem with it. I also have the multitracks. I also have the stereo masters as well. So I have all versions that I could possibly need Right.
for the particular song in question, and it's not a problem. But I could not imagine that if he was talking Yeah. to somebody that didn't know the definitions, and he said, "Do you have the stems?" And they're like, "Uh, I don't know." Yeah. Yeah. I could imagine at that point had somebody said something like that because either one, they didn't know the terminology, or something else, he might not have been as willing to say, hey, you know what?
I will help you to get your foot in the door with the music supervisor. So knowing the definitions of where your music is going to go or where your client's music is going to go to help not only you and your client for that matter is a big deal. And I think a lot of people pass it off Because it because maybe they're blowing smoke up other people's butt Could be that about what they do.
And maybe that's where some of the blurred lines come from when you got some guy who's in a small town Yeah, because it let's say that who hasn't necessarily done anything on a big scale in say a New York or a Los Angeles or wherever else a music capital of the world might be. It can make a big deal. [BIRDS CHIRPING] Exactly. You know this this director in this case. He asked you do you have the stems and you go? What does that mean now?
With that answer you've already become a headache to him Like this is not something that I want to get involved with and you might drop the ball on that, you know So but there is a reason why presumably why he asked for stems [CHUCKLING] No, of course not. He did not want multi-tracks and that's because in that industry film or TV They are not gonna want a music mix with 100 plus tracks They're gonna want these groups cuz like They wanted as simple as possible.
Yeah, so no, I love this track Jody, but there's just too much guitars possible. They take the guitar stem and just lower it to their taste and you still get your song in there Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. So that's how they tend to operate because they have (Laughter)
So many other layers of audio that they have to deal with. It's not just your song It's dialogue and there's fully and there's you know effects and all this kind of stuff that they have to deal with which gets up to and Ridiculous amount of tracks and now if they have to worry about wait was the acoustic guitar track 385 or was it 422, you know, it's
Or was there a group of them that were all like mashed together through 10 different tracks that yeah, it becomes a mess and you don't want the recording and mixing engineer for the film to go off in a mess of a tangent. But that's also, you know, but the idea here is also, and I think it's an important one Or if you are the mix engineer, once if you're doing a mix from multi tracks, you should be creating stems as well.
And it's not hard to do. It's just extra work, but it's good extra work to do. [silence] where you're handing it to a mix engineer that you're giving them the control of it. Now it's up to them if they feel that they need to downsize the track count or something. [silence] Where they got, okay well we got a verse bass going on here and then the synth bass takes over but it's a similar sound to the choruses or whatever it doubles up. They might want to just
kind of hand those down to like one track instead. So but that gives them just more manageable mix in a track count, but at least that's according to that mix engineer's workflow so that they can deal with your mix in the best way possible. So there are cases where Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, other examples for why this is good, too, in film or TV, especially Sure, yeah. is that maybe there's dialogue going at a certain point where your lead vocal is suddenly going to be a problem.
Yeah. Yeah. But they love the song sonically speaking. And there's a portion of the song where if they cut it in just right, makes it operate extremely well for their movie or their TV show. And giving them the stems allows them to turn the lead vocal on and off. [BLANK_AUDIO] Maybe they just want the backgrounds. Who knows? Maybe a character in the film, if it's integral to what's going on, and they're going to sing to this song, Right.
they lower the lead vocal and bring up the backing vocals a little bit. And it's almost like a karaoke thing. So there's all kinds of reasons why you're going to need stems and they are a [BLANK_AUDIO] Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO] different use case from the multi tracks. [inaudible] Yeah, because it makes, again, that person's job a lot easier. (silence) Because like you said, they love the song, but the vocal version of it just doesn't work in this case because it gets in the way of the dialogue.
All right. They can just mute the vocal stem, right? I suppose I haven't to go through all the multitracks in doing that. So yeah, same thing with library work where a lot of times you, you, they Mmhmm. [ Pause ] request different mixes and different versions of all this kind of stuff. But that's muddying the waters a little bit too much.
but it's you know the difference between multitrack and stamped is huge and I would implore everybody to please start using the same definition definition Know that difference. Shall we move on? yeah I think we've kind of put a bow on that I think as far as like if anybody has any Sure. questions they just hit us up on social media or shoot us an email and we'll try to add to it All right. I spend and we spend so much time talking about gear and new plug-ins and So let's move on to Friday.
Finds Chris. What do you got for us? for us. - Hmm. Hmm. hardware and this and that but this week I discovered a new band a new band for me at least it's a band a British duo I think called Royal Blood and their album called Typhoons. And I had never heard them before. I thought it was fucking (silence) Hmm. Sweet. great. So that's my that's my pick for my Friday Find. It's a band called Royal Blood. They just released a new album and it's it sounds really modern. It's just
great pop rock type of songwriting in a very very modern sense. But it's I would encourage anybody to go check it out. It's really really cool. So I have some music for my Friday find what about you buddy My pick for this week is that Pro Tools has just got updated mm-hmm to be able to run on the M1 silicon chips from Apple. well done Abbott So if you are a Pro Tools fan and you are looking to fast forward your life into Apple silicon. Yes, you are now capable of doing so.
very cool very cool awesome awesome You will now have at least two DAWs to your belt that can do the M1 stuff natively. That doesn't mean all your plugins will be able to do it too, but at least you have Logic, which is already capable, and Pro Tools, which is my pick of the week, are capable of doing it now.
So there it is. Yeah. All right. So while we've got your attention, we'd like to ask you to go to the website and leave us a review at inside the [ Pause ] recordingstudio.com/review, or you can just go to the website inside the recordingstudio.com and sign up for our email list. you will get a special little bundle of plugin presets from Chris and I for our two favorite non-DA platforms. In addition to that, you'll get weekly reminders about our Tuesday tips that come out every Tuesday.
And we'll make sure that you don't miss any future episodes of the podcast. [ Pause ] Plus, if you send us an email at goldstar at inside the recording studio.com with the word multitrack, you'll get something cool back in your inbox. And if you have a topic of suggestion for us to explain in a future episode, contact us via the contact page on our website and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode. And with that, I think it's time to say, Have a good one, Jodi.
see you next week, Chris. [BLANK_AUDIO] Have a good one Jody! Very fast buckling Graphics