Stems Part 2: In The Real World
(10 min read)
Welcome to part two in our series on using stems! If your mind was blown by part one and you’re thirsty for more, you’ve come to the right place.
In part one, we covered the basics of what stems are and talked about some of their many applications. For this next chapter, we spoke with creatives working in all kinds of media about how stems help them get more out of their production music and thrill their clients’ ears with the sonic possibilities.
This is kind of a Reading Rainbow moment... we’ve told you all about the power of stems, but we don’t expect you to simply take our word for it.
KAT BAKER
ELEMENT Productions
Kat Baker, ELEMENT Productions
Boston-based ELEMENT Productions is a full-service video content company that uses storytelling to engage audiences, build brands and deliver results. Editor Kat Baker specializes in documentary-style productions, counting clients like NASCAR, Welch’s, and the Department of Defense among her credits. According to Kat, having access to music stems comes in handy on a regular basis.
“I’ll be sitting in a room with my clients and they’ll be like, ‘we really like this piece of music, but at this one point the drums are really crazy,’ or there’s a clapping or whistling in the track that they just don’t love at a certain point,” says Kat. “And I’ve found that with the ability to get stems and make those subtle changes in the initial rough-cut editing, I haven’t had to go back and do more music searches, because clients will be like, ‘oh, I do like this track!’ as opposed to writing it off entirely.”
To serve each story to the fullest, Kat devotes quite a bit of time to diligently searching for the perfect musical fit for her projects—which makes her appreciate anything that streamlines the process.
I’ve found that with the ability to get stems and make those subtle changes in the initial rough-cut editing, I haven’t had to go back and do more music searches.
“The ability to have access to those stems to use in the rough cut, before we’ve even licensed anything, ultimately benefits me and my edits a huge amount,” she says. “Anything that saves me hours upon hours of music searching, I will pay handsomely for.”
DARREN HUMMEL
Conscious Minds
Darren Hummel, Conscious Minds
In his work as a Post Producer at Conscious Minds, Darren Hummel often gets hands-on with editing music for commercial spots and other productions. For Darren, stems are a creative tool, perfect for molding a track to fit the unique contours of each individual story.
“It’s incredibly helpful on the front-end, if we’re trying to evoke a certain ebb and flow of a story or hit specific beats at certain times that a stock music track might not have originally,” he explains. “And so, with stems, you can be like ‘let's drop the bass at this moment,’ and completely cut out the bass. And then you can bring the bass back up at another hard-hitting moment, and it feels like the music is going along with the story instead of just a track you put on to give it a certain kind of emotion.”
In addition to the creative possibilities that stems present, Darren finds them useful for creating different types of deliverables. For example, when clients request truncated teaser versions of a video for social media, he’ll often use stems of the music track to build a custom ‘short version’ that encapsulates the same feeling.
It’s incredibly helpful on the front-end, if we’re trying to evoke a certain ebb and flow of a story or hit specific beats at certain times that a stock music track might not have originally.
“It's really nice to be able to conform one simple track to many different lengths of deliverables and still get across the same tone,” says Darren. “Typically, we're doing a full version of a story and social deliverables demand a cut down version, like a teaser or something. So, if the full version has these rises and falls and a lot of different beats to it, and you want to embody that same feeling in the teaser but only have 10 or 15 seconds, then maybe you only include one line of the stems, like the piano. Or maybe there's a rise that happens where you slowly build on the piano, then the guitar, then the drums, then the bass, rising to a climactic end at 15 seconds.”
NEIL CLEARY
Team One
Neil Cleary, Team One
At Team One in Los Angeles, Music Editor Neil Cleary often works on ad campaigns for high-class, luxury brands like Lexus and Ritz-Carlton. Representing brands like that requires truly bespoke production, and you can bet that extends to the music. With his background in composition, Neil uses stems to custom-tailor production music to fit each unique project.
“It’s a degree of flexibility that’s really useful,” says Neil. “It's sort of the second level of mutability: you can edit the full track and squeeze parts together and shuffle them around, but stems allow you to go one notch deeper with customization. With a certain level of musical knowledge—or just musical awareness—you can get a lot of mileage out of stems.”
Making clients happy is part of Neil’s job, and nothing makes them happier than giving them more power. When clients (rightfully) get picky about little details, they’re often pleasantly surprised to learn just how much Neil can do with properly produced music stems.
With a certain level of musical knowledge—or just musical awareness—you can get a lot of mileage out of stems.
“I find, surprisingly, that the news is still getting out that stems are widely available, and I think creatives and editors are always happy to find that they are,” says Neil. “There's one specific story where a client said, ‘I really like this, except for this one sound.’ It was kind of a dubstep-y track, and there was a weird siren sound. Whereas they would have otherwise gone back to the drawing board, I said ‘well, hang on just a second. Do we have a stem that includes just that one sound?’ And lo and behold, we did. And we stripped out that sound, and the track sold.”
RANDY BOBO & STEVE KULTGEN
Independent Studios
Randy Bobo, Independent Studios
Sound Designer Randy Bobo started Independent Studios in 1991, and has been working with Sound Editor and Mixer Steve Kultgen since 1996, when he became the company’s first employee. Located just a few miles from The License Lab in Milwaukee, Independent Studios is a full-service post-production house doing everything from sound editing and mixing to color-grading and motion graphics. According to Randy, the flexibility that music stems provide is indispensable, given the endless revisions and tight turnarounds expected of his studio.
“Things get revised a ton,” says Randy. “We’re usually working with a creative group, and they’ve got to go back to their creative director, so there’s one level of approval. Then they take it to the account people, so there’s another level of approval; and then they go to the client. There are three steps, and they all want to put in their two cents. So there’s a lot of revision that goes on, and it’s always at the last minute. Our typical production schedule is end-of-day, so having stems as part of the package is great.”
As a sound editor, Steve uses stems often in his day-to-day work, cutting them as needed and riding their levels in the mix to gel seamlessly with the visuals and the rest of the production—even if clients don’t always notice.
There’s a lot of revision that goes on, and it’s always at the last minute. Our typical production schedule is end-of-day, so having stems as part of the package is great.
“They can make what we do more impactful,” says Steve. “We’ve done a lot of stuff where we’ll take the main track without rhythm and run with that, then bring the rhythm in for certain sections so it feels a little bigger—or vice versa, where you have that all going on and then you pull the rhythm out. Depending on what’s going on, I’ll ride the stems a fair amount sometimes. People sometimes think I haven’t changed anything at all, because with everything else going on, it just flows.”
Summing it up
These practical applications show that stems are incredibly flexible, increase the sonic possibilities, and allow for your own creative choices to come alive. When you spend a significant amount of time and effort on a search, you’re gathering options to present to a client.
Stems provide a powerful additional layer of options that can get you more mileage out of music you’ve already selected. From tweaking a single production music track to survive through endless rounds of revisions, adjusting edits for different platforms, to the simple and impactful act of saving time, stems are a flexible tool that many of our clients have found useful and empowering.
And if you don’t need stems today, keep this knowledge in your back pocket for the next time you present a track and the client doesn’t want that weird siren sound. Boom.
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