What Are Stems? A Guide For Modern Metal Producers

You’ve seen the term floating around on forums, in tutorials, and in collab requests: “Just send me the stems.” But what exactly are stems, and why should you, a modern metal producer, even care?

Let’s cut to the chase: understanding stems is a non-negotiable skill in today’s production landscape. The lines between genres are blurring, collaborations are happening remotely, and the demand for polished, massive-sounding live shows is higher than ever.

Stems are your ticket to navigating all of it. They’re more than just a type of audio file; they’re a workflow philosophy that can streamline your process, improve your final masters, and open up new creative doors. Let’s break it down.

Stems vs. Multitracks: The Ultimate Showdown

First things first, let’s clear up the biggest point of confusion. Stems and multitracks are NOT the same thing, and knowing the difference is crucial.

What Are Multitracks, Really?

Multitracks are the raw, individual audio files straight from the recording session. Every single microphone, every single DI, every single synth patch exists on its own track.

Think of it like this:

• Drums: Kick In, Kick Out, Snare Top, Snare Bottom, Tom 1, Tom 2, OH L, OH R, Room L, Room R… you get the picture.
• Guitars: DI L1, DI R1, DI L2, DI R2, Quad L, Quad R, etc.
• Vocals: Lead Vox, Ld Vox Dbl, BG Vox L, BG Vox R.

These are the fundamental building blocks of a mix. They have no processing—no EQ, no compression, no reverb. They’re the blank canvas. This is where the real deep-dive mixing happens, and it’s why services like Nail The Mix provide you with full multitracks. You get total control to shape the sound from the ground up.

So, What Are Stems Then?

Stems are consolidated sub-mixes of these multitracks. You take a group of related tracks (like all your drums), process them, balance them, and then bounce them down into a single stereo audio file.

A typical set of stems for a metal track might look like this:

• DRUMS.wav (A stereo file containing the fully mixed and processed drum kit)
• BASS.wav (The bass guitar, likely with compression and EQ)
• GTRS.wav (All the rhythm guitars, panned, EQ’d, and blended)
• LEADS.wav (All lead guitars and solos)
• SYNTHS.wav (All keys, pads, and electronic elements)
• VOCALS.wav (All lead and backing vocals, processed with effects)

The key difference is that stems already have processing baked in. The EQ, compression, and effects from your mix are printed into the audio file.

Example: Free Trivium stems with Jens Bogren

If you want to see what world-class metal stems look like, our friend and legendary producer Jens Bogren has you covered. He’s giving away the stems for the Trivium song “Ember To Inferno.” And when it comes to metal producers, Jens is the absolute top of the food chain– so definitely don’t miss a chance to get your hands on these.

Get the free Trivium stems from Bogren Digital

Why Stems Are a Game-Changer for Modern Metal Producers

Okay, so they’re different. But why does this matter for making heavy music? Because the nature of modern metal has evolved.

Collaboration and Remixing in a Post-Genre World

Modern metal isn’t confined to a single lane anymore. Bands like Spiritbox are remixing Megan Thee Stallion, Falling In Reverse throws four genres into one song, and artists like PeelingFlesh are pulling from hip-hop.

If you want to send your track to an electronic producer for a remix or a rapper for a feature, you can’t just dump 180 multitracks on them. You send stems. They get your killer, processed drum sound in one file, your massive guitars in another, and can immediately start working without needing to know how you dialed in your GetGood Drums kit. Stems make these cross-genre collaborations fast and efficient.

Mastering: Giving Your ME the Right Tools

Ever sent a mix to a mastering engineer and wished they could just turn the vocals up a tiny bit? With a standard stereo mixdown, they can’t—at least not without affecting everything else.

This is where stem mastering comes in. By providing your mastering engineer with 4-8 stems instead of one stereo file, you give them surgical control. They can subtly adjust the balance between your rhythm guitars and the bass, or tuck the synths back a touch, all without compromising the integrity of your mix. It’s the perfect middle ground between a restrictive stereo file and an overwhelming multitrack session.

Building Unstoppable Live Backing Tracks

The standard for live metal production is through the roof. Audiences expect to hear all the layers from the record—the synths, the orchestral hits, the layered backing vocals. No band is bringing a 40-piece orchestra on tour. The answer? Stems.

For a live show, you’ll export stems for everything you can’t perform live: synths, sound effects, extra vocal layers, maybe even some drum sample reinforcement. The FOH engineer gets a handful of clean, manageable stereo files that perfectly replicate your album’s polished sound, ensuring your live show hits just as hard as the record.

How to Create Killer Stems for Your Own Projects

Ready to start making your own? It’s all about setting up your mix session correctly from the start.

The Prep Work: Getting Your Session Ready

Good routing is the foundation of good stems. Before you even think about exporting, organize your session using busses (sometimes called groups or aux tracks).

1. Route all your individual drum tracks to a single stereo bus named “DRUM BUS.”
2. Route all your rhythm guitars to a “GTR BUS.”
3. Route your bass DI and any bass amp tracks to a “BASS BUS.”
4. And so on for synths, vocals, etc.

This not only makes your session cleaner but it’s the key to processing and exporting your stems.

Processing Your Busses (The Fun Part)

This is where you apply “glue” processing to make each group of instruments feel like a cohesive unit.

The Drum Bus

Your drum stem needs to be punchy and powerful. After balancing your individual drum tracks, use a bus compressor on your DRUM BUS to glue it all together. A VCA-style compressor like the Slate Digital VBC (FG-GREY model) or Waves SSL G-Master Buss Compressor is perfect. Try a slow attack (30ms), a fast release (100ms or Auto), a low 2:1 ratio, and aim for just 2-4dB of gain reduction on the loudest hits. This tightens up the kit without squashing the life out of it. For more ways to make your drums hit harder, check out these metal compression secrets.

The Guitar Bus

With modern low tunings, the guitar bus is where you can manage fizz and mud. After processing individual tracks with your favorite amp sims like Neural DSP Archetype: Gojira X or STL Tones, use a surgical EQ on the GTR BUS. A FabFilter Pro-Q 3 is your best friend here. Make a narrow cut to tame any shared harshness in the 4-8kHz range and maybe a high-pass filter up to 100-120Hz to keep it out of the bass and kick’s way. Don’t be afraid to try some creative saturation like the Soundtoys Decapitator or even a LoFi plugin to add vibe and character. For a deeper dive, explore these EQ strategies for mixing modern metal.

The Bass Bus (Taming the Low-End Chaos)

When you’ve got 8-string guitars fighting a 5-string bass, the low-end can turn into a swamp. The BASS BUS is where you fix this. A multiband compressor like the FabFilter Pro-MB or Waves C6 is a lifesaver. You can specifically target and control the sub-bass region (below 80Hz) to keep it consistent, while letting the midrange grind and clank cut through untouched.

The Export: Settings Matter

Once your busses are processed and sounding great, it’s time to export.

1. Solo one bus at a time (e.g., solo the DRUM BUS).
2. Export/bounce the track for the entire length of the song, from bar 1, beat 1. This is critical for ensuring all stems line up perfectly.
3. Export as a WAV file at the same sample rate and bit depth as your session (e.g., 48kHz, 24-bit).
4. Important: Turn off any normalization or dithering on your stem exports.

Repeat for every bus, and you’ll have a full set of pro-quality stems.

From Stems to a Pro-Level Mix

Understanding and creating stems is a vital skill. It’s the language of modern collaboration, mastering, and live performance.

But here’s the thing: you can’t create powerful stems from a weak mix. If your raw multitracks aren’t balanced, EQ’d, and compressed correctly, your stems will just sound like polished mud. Learning how to build that massive, punchy, and clear mix that modern metal demands is the real foundation.

That’s where you go beyond just knowing what stems are and learn how to make every track that goes into them sound incredible. It’s about seeing how pros wrestle with phase issues on a real drum kit, how they carve out space for an 8-string guitar against a bass, and how they automate effects to create moments.

If you’re ready to move beyond the theory and see exactly how world-class producers build their mixes from scratch using the raw multitracks, it’s time to go deeper. You can unlock your sound and learn to mix modern metal beyond presets. Nail The Mix gives you the multitracks from real bands and lets you watch the original producers mix them, explaining every single decision along the way. It’s the ultimate bridge from knowing the concepts to executing them at a professional level.