Stems

[JustTodd]

Just saw a Tweet from Official NI stems to drop on Aug 3. Hopefully new Traktor update inbound as well!

[Notanon]

Stems page now states it will be released on the 3rd of August. Not long to go now.

[silliwilli]

So Stems are now availble to buy...however I see no Traktor update a yet to handle them and when I import one into a track deck it just shows as a normal one track music file.

Also...anybody know how beat gridding will be handled? Just beatgrid the overall song?

[O.D.]

It will only show up as separate stems on hardware right now from what I understand.

[ImNoDJ]

Heres a quick STEMs with F1 review I put up at NI.

Heres my quick STEMS report after a couple of days using them with an F1.

Bought the Systematic Records Best of Part 1 stems album, which was 8 tracks for $16. No complaints there. Lots of lovely Techno and Techhouse sounds. I already owned a few of the tracks in mp3.

The stem deck loads normally, there is no visual feedback on either the screen or the F1, it looks just like a normal track deck in the Traktor GUI.

Press play. I remember how annoying it is that NI didnt put a Play button on a dedicated controller for a deck that has a play button.

The 4 stem tracks all start and stop together with the main track. The buttons on the F1 light up as VU meters with the activity of the tracks. The left column is the main drum track, so the lights of the last two buttons bounce up and down with the beat. It looks pretty cool with the bright colours on the F1 flashing in time. Cues and loops work like a normal track.

You can control individual volume with the F1 sliders, the bottom non rgb buttons are used to mute per stem.

Theres no individual waveform for each Stem on the Traktor GUI. Many have complained about this. I dont see the problem, but im not one that watches waveforms anyway. Im not sure I understand what information a kick drum loop is going to give you, you can still see breaks and drops in the main waveform if necessary. If this is essential, then the D2 and S8 controllers have it anyway.

In practice, its fun, just like remix decks are. I had a better time playing and mixing them into tracks than i thought I would. Stems are just simpler, more immediate to use, and less to keep track of. It feels like just the next attempt for NI to recoup the marketing money they have put into remix decks, but they seem to have got a lot of labels on board this time.

Per sample (stem), there is far less control than remix decks. In remix decks you have 64 cells each with individual pitch lock, sync, fx sends, and most importantly individual transport control. In stems you just have 1 track with cues and loops like a normal track, but you can isolate up to four individual parts of the track in real time.

Its actually a misnomer to call them stems. The four tracks are submixes of several tracks. So the drum track has an arbitrary amount of the main drums, the pad track might have other incidentals and keyboards etc. In practice the parts that ive most wanted to be solo have been solo so it seems to work out.

In mixing i seem to be using them so I can tease a bassline into or out of a track, or just to layer a lead over another break. Im highly dubious that live remixing is something that I want to hear or do that often. Electronic music is as much about precise production as anything else, and to discard that production fairy dust just to be able to isolate drums and basslines might not be moving forward.

I would probably buy a small number of stems if my fave producers used the format well, Ill see how much I enjoy playing with the ones Ive got currently.

[Raver Ste]

They look good, they would be perfect for jumping genre to genre.

[csurfleet]

I'm also interested in these for multi-format djing and shifting around bpms. Got an F1 so I'll get started at the weekend and see how it goes

[tekki]

4 tracks aren't enough why could it be much much higher and then it depends how how big it crunches the file size down. I can't see it working with any of the music I use and make, proper techno, to much reverb and delays being sent to sends. The only thing I'd want is to get rid of vocals on some tracks , maybe.

For what I heard, is that stems are MP4 containers in which you can define up to 5 tracks, this would correspond with dolby 5.1? (dunno)
I think that NI found out, that using 4 tracks is the way to go as far as acceptable cpu loads go. Hence 4 tracks.

[Stewe]

For what I heard, is that stems are MP4 containers in which you can define up to 5 tracks, this would correspond with dolby 5.1? (dunno)
I think that NI found out, that using 4 tracks is the way to go as far as acceptable cpu loads go. Hence 4 tracks.

It also opens up a video mixing possibilities in Traktor...

[Dystinct]

Is there any word on how to create your own stems?