Stems vs Tracks What's the Difference? | FAQ Friday - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

hello everybody hope you're doing Marvis lee well we're back with another back Friday I hope you're all doing marvelously well please as ever hit that subscribe button if you haven't already subscribed it's also nice when the like button is hit because it lets us know you like the video and of course if you haven't yet please go to produce like a pro com sign up for the email list get a whole bunch of free goodies and of course you can try out the 14-day free trial of the Academy which is freaking awesome it's growing super rapidly and everybody in there is amazing and helps each other out okay we've got a bunch of questions this week and this one is one that has been coming across my desk that sounds very official I don't have a desk I sit at a couch or in a chair but you know it sounds like coming across my desk now this is a question that comes up a lot what is the difference between stems and tracks okay so this is a huge one I'll tell you why it's a huge one because a lot of people up-and-coming use the word stems and they use it as sort of a euphemism for tracks however stems technically are when you bounce tracks together so if somebody says to me I really want to get some stems from you for a live show what they're saying is they maybe want to take all of the keyboard parts which could be panned all over the place and could have pad and some strings and a synth part bouncing backwards or forwards and they want it to be stemmed out ie created as a pair of stereo tracks which they then could trigger or have play along with a click at the show the same can be done with stereo guitars that is the stem of the guitars this is what for years and years and years has been referred to as stems now I have noticed I mean I see in questions people ask about stems when they mean individual tracks so be really really careful because somebody once asked me to get the stems and I literally stemmed the whole album I took the album and we did stereo drums we did stereo guitars keys backgrounds you name it we made all of these tracks so they could open them up in a live situation and have maybe eight stereo files eight stereo stems so we sent it again a phone call week later and it says we opened up the tracks on the computer this is exactly what they said the tracks on the computer and they're not individual stems I mean the the phrasing itself was a contradiction we opened up the tracks but they're not individual stems how about we open up the tracks and though there wasn't any tracks there was only stems so I know what tends to happen is we take a word like that and it becomes a euphemism and it means maybe tracks individual tracks to some people however a lot of people that have been recalling for a while will not understand when you say please send me the stems they may well send you like eight stereo files all bounce together so it's worth understanding the difference even if you're communicating with somebody that understands you mean tracks when you say stems another dance music guy maybe another dance music girl that you're working with and they say send me the stems they probably do mean it's just the stereo keyboard this stereo this but they don't mean bounce together make sure you understand the difference because if you don't understand the difference and somebody is really specific about stems they want to combine tracks then you might send them individual tracks and then the opposite when they want individual tracks you might send them combined tracks so traditionally tracks attracts their independent individual elements stems are bounced together incorporated stereo files all various different instrument groups hopefully that all makes sense all right so we've got a couple of questions here about working collaborating with other people it's something that's really really big in the produce like a pro community so many of you get together inside of the community and then start collaborating and it's not just the obvious things like one of yous a producer one of you is a songwriter you know and one a muse a mixer or somebody else is a mastering engineer the great thing is is so many of you are multi-instrumentalist you know the guitar player or a drummer a singer obviously a songwriter a percussionist I don't a keyboard player we have a couple of people that are really amazing with string arrangements so the point is the collaborations can really be quite intricate inside of the Academy we've had people do we've got a different drummer with a different bass player a different guitar player like taking our pre-existing tracks and adding elements to it it's absolutely fantastic so with that in mind this is a great question number two I've been hiring pros to record my album with me we are in different countries recording in home studios or on the road deals are basically worked out in facebook Messenger and email do I need to be providing or requesting contracts what a marvelous question yes and no I had a lawyer once tell me this which may or may not be 100% accurate but it's a it's a good point they said if it's in an email it's as good as a contract now that isn't entirely true however if you don't have a contract with somebody and you've stated some terms of business in an email and it did god forbid get to a court case maybe the only proof you have is that email that you print out so got to be careful I would say try to get everything you can in writing you know keep it keep it positive keep it you know open beget as much as you can in writing the reality of doing contracts is they cost money if they're done with a a reputable high quality lawyer is not cheap and nor should they be because they should be protecting all the parties each party shall have sewn will air beep and be feel protected and get what they need out of a situation however there's nothing cheap nothing inexpensive about that whatsoever even a quote unquote cheap lawyer still might be most of the budget on her recalling of the song even today I do one of songs with people and if I was to use a lawyer on like a day's recording it could completely eat up any potential of having any profit from it whatsoever so I have contracts that I can adjust I am fortunate enough to have an amazing producer manager and that producer managers also do contracts however I would never want to put a good lawyer out of business if you do have access to a lawyer not just in this situation but pretty much in any situation use them got access and you can afford it or you have a great relationship with a friend as a lawyer check something out it's a wonderful thing and you do want to protect yourself however what you're specifically talking about here is musical collaborations and you've got to be able to find a happy medium you've got to make people feel rewarded you've got to make people feel inclusive you've got to make them feel like they are important so you don't want to talk down to them you don't dictate terms to them you need them to bring their a-game if you've got somebody that's super creative and an amazing guitar player for instance if you send them some big long-form contract and how that you own everything percent and it's all work for hire and they can't claim it's a little a little kind of heavy I've sent contracts to people before to quote protect myself and they've felt a little bit wildered by a you know four or five page contract for something quite simple so you need to find a happy medium how do you do that you get to know the people you're working with whether it be face-to-face or on the phone or literally through email as you're suggesting here facebook Messenger get a rapport find a place where you feel comfortable offering them a certain amount of money for their abilities or if there's no money changing hand hands find maybe a happy medium on the publishing on some kind of co-writing make sure that you reward the musicians the people that you're working with make sure that it feels good for everybody involved because everything will come back round to bite you if you're if you're going to be negative with people and you're going to be aggressive with people then you know even accidentally make sure that you're humble enough to apologize and get through it because if you don't you could lose relationships and I can tell you every day we have conversations with different artists about how they worked with the different producer who was completely errant who was never there who was on the phone the whole time who left them with the assistant to make the record and you can do that once or twice and you have to sometimes go and take those phone calls but if you're repeating those kind of things and you're making an artist or a collaborator feel less than you will end up not working so once again relationships relationships relationships build those strong relationships collaborate with people sometimes you have to give up a lot sometimes you don't have to give up a lot but you just have to weigh every single situation is this song amazing is this guitar player a phenomenal musician it's going to bring his name or her name to it if so maybe you are giving a little bit extra away maybe you do have to agree that in advance but sometimes having a song that I'm singing on I could write a great song and sing on it who cares there's not a line of people at this moment you know or sitting at with their laptops with Spotify open waiting for the new Warren Hewitt's single to drop it's just not happening there's nobody waiting for my for me to sing however if I wrote a great song and an amazing singer just loved it changed a couple of words and wanted a piece of the publishing I'm going to give it to them I'm going to give it to them because bringing a song to life with an amazing artist means so much more than just me butter butter butter here's a great story I once worked with a really great artist and she had this song and it was a demo and she sang on it and I thought it's pretty good ah and she said to me she goes the label thinks it's my first single and I was like huh and it was a demo no she wasn't like delivering maybe the way she could have but I was like scratching my head like it's a pretty good song I was like well who wrote it and she said kara DioGuardi and you probably know that she's an amazing singer an amazing songwriter and she goes let me play you chorusing she puts it on Wow Cara Lee nailed it it was expressive and brought the melody to life and I was like the end of the song I was like wow this could be a hit song I'm like wait there five minutes ago I didn't think it was a hit song when it was kind of a like average Lee recorded demo so you get my point when you've got somebody that can bring your work to life whether it be a singer and musician and producer and engineer and mixer whatever it might be when you get a chance you've got to make sure that you reward them and you find a safe place that you both feel good about the collaboration you don't want to be that guy or girl who's continually like like this I remember working with somebody I'm not going to say their name but working with somebody maybe in the very early 2000 could be about 2000 we wrote a lot of songs together a lot and I was working for free and I was co-writing I was playing all the instruments and yeah and then when it came to negotiate the writing split suddenly I my writing percentage got pretty small and they were like well you know you didn't really write I was like I wrote the chorus and they're like yeah but you know the bridge and the verses is more of the song I'm like maybe percentage-wise but I wrote the chorus yeah but and then suddenly I become like a 30% right or on a song that I wrote the chorus I remember thinking to myself I don't really want to write with this person anymore I don't really want to put my heart and soul into something because I don't feel like they're treating me well I don't feel like I'm being rewarded now flip it around you've got somebody they bring something special to the song they take it to the next level reward them reward them because if they have that ability to take your music and take it to the next level you sure as heck want to be working with them and you want to be working with them regularly so I've been on both sides I'm sure I have undercut people and I have been undercut and I think being the person the guy or girl who's going out there treating people with respect is a much better place to be than the one that's always complaining how hard done by the art and everything give yourself a positive makeover and realize that collaboration is the king of creativity so you can be as creative as you like but you need that collaboration of being able to work with others so agree the terms but do it in a very friendly very respectful way that makes everybody feel good I hope you're enjoying the video please don't forget to subscribe and hit the like button but more importantly or just as importantly go to produce like a pro and sign up for the email list and try out the academy it's absolutely freakin awesome how do you adapt your plane to suit the genre of song you're working on since you work in a myriad of styles I just love all music and especially you know camera I'm sure you've watched ton of my videos I mean there's there's like thirty or forty guitars there's about thirty guitar sitting out here and we have about 40 in total in the studio and so yes I like to play guitar I'm a guitar player and I love all styles of guitar playing so if you come in and you're doing a heavy rock song I'd love to shred on it if you come in and you're a funk band yep let me play some funk I even play some country I play some folk and probably most importantly outside of rock I love blues playing so you understand my point I push myself in all kinds of directions I love all kinds of styles what is interesting and many of you probably don't know is in the late 80s and early 90s before I got into like an indie rock band in 94 95 I actually used to DJ and do what is now known as EDM when we did it it was just dance music and so I did that as well and we used to have a dots and sequencers and a ton of synth when I was at junky excels just a couple of weeks ago if you remember that video I'm looking at you since going I used to have that I used to have that I used to use this I used that sequencer I had that sampler I had a lot of that stuff I remember I had an AK is-6 50 couldn't afford the s1000 at the X 650 and a ton of other stuff and it was amazing and it was a lot of fun and it was all sequenced and we'd play guitar to Adak synced up to it I remember taking a alesis gate and running the hi-hat track opening and closing the gate so it's I chained it and playing guitars together shadow gonk gonk gonk gonk gonk gonk gonk gonk ax it was freaking awesome it was so much fun so I can turn on a dime and do different styles because I love all kinds of music I love all kinds of guitar players you name it but just all kinds of music yes I love Queen look I mentioned it in the video but I also love absolutely like Portishead unbelievable record massive attack amazing you know this is the stuff that still sounds a little bit like the future to me you listen to the early massive attack it's phenomenal it's absolutely phenomenal I remember you know having the orbs first record and then everything that came afterwards I mean as it's very very dense now in EDM and in dance music there is a huge amount of music now but there was a time that all of these things live together you would go to a massive festival and you could see a really cool indie band a really cool rock band and a really amazing dance artist or playing on the same main stage it wasn't a case of only metal only dance music it all blended together it was just one thing and that was music and it was phenomenal so I suppose my long long meandering answer is for me that's a challenge that I love I love the challenge of working in multiple different styles I say bring it on and I encourage you to bring it on and for you to blend styles together because it is so rewarding and is what makes music truly different and exciting I asked a very very famous producer that's is interviews going to come out next week what their model was for one of the biggest rock albums of all time and that famous producer said to me electronic music so think about that next time you listening to an amazing heavy rock or rock album when you hire someone to play is it all done by ear or do you write out the parts or is it something as simple as a lead sheet I'm looking around for charts handily I personally am remarkably lazy I think I'm always doing 50 things as you can probably tell I'm sitting here like at a computer answering emails but I always have a guitar in my hand and I'll work out the song so if I have to pick up a guitar and play some parts I already know the chord sequences I know the melody I may have worked out how many parts that to me is a big deal I think Eric is about to hand me a chart okay so this is an artist we work with called sage and it's super-simple chart I mean I don't if you can see that very well but it's super simple it's just goes DDG a D D G a a B minor G D and it just says intro verse chorus and you know I might just write that there of course is the Roman numeral system where you'll do six four one five we all know that chord progression and then if the key change is one minute you're in a major so B sharp minor D a D major and let's just say yeah you guessed it it changes to be major suddenly is G sharp minor E B F shut the point is is like you can write it in a Roman numeral system I will say if it's a complex song with a complex arrangement I tried to spend a couple of minutes charting it but typically because I'm working on a song a lot longer than just the guitar player would be which means that you know I'm there from the tracking of the drums you know bass guitars keyboards vocals and along for the whole hall engineer and producing mixing I'm doing involved in every part of it sometimes involved in the writing so for me I usually don't have a chart because I'll just pick up a guitar and go and play it because I've heard the song a gazillion billion trillion times so if I don't have it in my brain by the time I have to play a guitar part that I probably should be doing a different job so it's usually fairly easy for me but if I go and work with a world-class musician or bring a world-class musician in obviously a great example that would be Tim Pierce I Tim and I work sitting opposite each other he presses play on Pro Tools and he has a pad and paper and in real time he charts the song and at three minutes in three minutes 20 it's coming to the end of a song he's like okay got it and he charts it in real time and what that allows him to do is not have to think he can just play so he's got the chart just standing in front of him and it becomes second nature I do think whatever you do you need to connect to the song so it might mean that even if you write your chart in three minutes maybe you need to list to it a few times maybe you need to mess around if there's no laws but the reality is some people read and write music beautifully I read and write music not beautifully I don't read all the time it's been years since I've needed to read on a regular basis so I can pick up I can pick up sheet music and go duh duh duh duh okay Dada Dada Dada and uh you know that's what I'm like I'm not sight-reading like that the band's already in the second verse and I'm finishing the first verse so that's not me but you know having it written if that's the way you're gonna hand it to me for a session I'll literally now but now Bernhard but perhaps it a couple of times and then when the song starts tracking I know the part but I'm not going to cite read it straight away so that's just because I don't do it all the time and frankly it rarely comes up now if you are that person if you are that girl that guy that can sight read and does it I mean god bless you and there are many many world-class musicians of just like rock and roll guitar that also a site meters there is no real snobbery with that because guys or girls that go to schools like Leeds in England or Berkeley in America of that kind of level of player you know they're taught to sight-read so there might be just don't that good took a doing that or don't they might be playing like a funky bass line but they can read it straight away and they can read some of those articulations because it's not just about note choices as I'm sure you're aware it's about timing so as I go if it's like some paradiddle right hand thing you know having that ability to be able to read it easily is really really huge the short version of my long answer is whatever works for the musicians you're working with or what works for you if it if it's just a chord chart that's literally written a minor C G B over G you know with the B in the bass if that's what you're writing to see it and God bless you if it works I do that when I write charts that's mainly want my charts look if it is completely intricate written out every single like note and an arpeggio then god bless you to that also works there's all of these different kinds of things that you can do and there is no right way or wrong way whatever works for you and more importantly whatever works as importantly whatever works with the musicians you're working with I love these questions these hit on a lot of things that are really important to me please feel free to subscribe if you haven't already subscribe hit the like button and of course leave most importantly leave a bunch of comments and questions below it really means a lot to me when you interact with us it really does and this community is fantastic and I love all of your support have a Marvis time recording and mixing and I'll see you all again next week [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 43,983

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio, FAQ Friday, Stems vs Tracks, Whats the Difference

Id: d6TFqCGPhOY

Length: 25min 27sec (1527 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019