NORTHERN LIGHTS 04 - Stems

Preparing for an Atmos mix!

As I write this post, I am printing stems for “Northern Lights,” a song that originally appeared on The Droge and Summers Blend Volume Three. You may be wondering what stems are. According to Wikipedia, stems are ‘a discrete or grouped collection of audio sources mixed together, to be dealt with downstream as one unit.’

Traditionally, stems would combine each element of an instrument. For instance, all of the drums would get sub-mixed down to a stereo pair. Then all the guitars. All the keyboards. All the vocals. And so on. This is a common practice in film scoring as it allows the film mixers downstream of the music mixer to adjust certain instruments to avoid sounds competing with dialog.

The excerpts I’m sharing below are just that. You can hear a sample of each grouped collection on its own. And “Northern Lights” has many layers of ear candy so it is interesting to listen to the pieces separated out from the din of the mix.

The stems I’m printing today are much more involved. I’m creating this batch for an Atmos mix. “What is Atmos?” you ask. Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations.

Atmos is one version of what is referred to as ‘immersive music’ or ‘spatial audio.’ Dolby’s competitors in this space include Sony 360. It’s analogous to the VCR vs Betamax battle of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dolby Atmos appears to be winning the war handily.

If you’ve seen a movie in a theater in the last ten years you have likely experienced Atmos. Atmos for music is a more recent development that seems to be taking off as major labels and big tech companies are pushing for its adoption.

One interesting aspect of Atmos is that you can experience a ‘binaural’ version of the immersive mix with headphones. So far, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Tidal offer streaming in Atmos. Other streamers are sure to follow.

I’m far from an expert on all of this. I’m just learning. Lucky for me I’m working with a team from Amazon Music who are handling the heavy lifting and technical side of things in their brand new state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles.

For the creation of the Atmos mix, I am printing many more stems than I did with the old-fashioned stereo mix. Since you can spread the sounds around so much, it is advantageous to print the instrument and its effects—like echo or reverb—as separate stems. With “Northern Lights” all that ear candy means a ton of stems.

I’m not sure when the Atmos mix will be released. No doubt, readers of this newsletter will be the first to know. Until then, you can check out a handful of excerpts from the stereo stems here.

GUITARS

HARMONICS

LOOPER

REVERSE PIANO

STRINGS

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Now that you’ve heard some of the elements that make up the mix, here is the fully-realized track in all of its glory.

FULL MIX

Photo by Vincent Guth on Unsplash

Peace & Love Songs,

Pete