how to export stems for
Stem Mastering?
Last Updated: October 6th, 2025
Read time: 3-Min
Set yourself up for success by learning how to export stems for stem mastering.
If you are not yet familiar with what stem mastering is, you'll want to refer to our 'What is Stem Mastering' blog first. The purpose of this blog is to help ensure that your submission process to us here at Release Mastering (or any online music mastering service) is as smooth as possible.
Send wet stems
Wet stems simply means; with the effects/processing applied. If you have added EQ, compression, reverb etc during the mixing process, those should remain active during the export (otherwise what was the point of mixing them). In certain circumstances, you may also be asked to provide dry stems (these are stems with all processing bypassed) but as standard, you should be sending wet stems.
'Wet stems' does not refer to the master bus processing, and all limiters should be removed before the mastering process begins. Don't worry, all final levels will be achieved in the master.
Wet stems
(Effects active)
dry stems
(Effects bypassed)
export region (shown in purple)
Consistent export regions
The export region for each stem should span the full length of your track.
For example: if your piano only plays for 20 seconds between 1:30 and 1:50, you should still export the track from 0:00 to the track’s end.
This ensures that when the stems are dropped into the mastering project they are all aligned where they need to be.
Failure to do this not only causes a headache for the mastering engineer, but also means that you may experience timing issues in the final master as your engineer will have to manually place each stem.
The final stems should look like this:
Rough mixes are the best reference tracks
When submitting your stems for stem mastering it is also typical to submit a rough mix. This is an audio file that provides the engineer with a point of reference for how you envision the track.
For example, are you looking to drive the kick and bass hard? Is it intended to be more vocal-forward? etc.
Remember: It's called a rough mix for a reason - it does not need to feel or sound polished, that's what you're hiring the pros for!
FAQs
How long does stem mastering take?
Depending on how many stems you are delivering to your engineer, stem mastering can take anywhere from a couple of days to over a week. During the stem mastering process time must be allocated for ear-breaks to allow for the engineer to remain objective over the sound and not over-mix. Here at Release Mastering, we deliver Stem Mastering projects within 3-days.
What does the stem mastering process typically look like?
Stem mastering usually begins with listening to a rough version of a mixdown and/or reference track to understand what the artist has in mind.
Then we can begin listening to the stems individually and identifying any noise or artefacts in the sound that need to be removed. Once all stems have been checked, level-balancing can begin.
For the full breakdown of how we do this please refer to our How to Level Balance/Gain Stage a mix post.
Once levelling is complete we move onto reductive EQ to help carve out space in the mix for each of the elements to exist without competition. Further enhancements such as analog saturation, multiband compression and light reverb may also be applied at this stage.
We can then move to the final mastering stage of adding glue via light compression and ensuring a appropriate final level is achieved. We then compare the stem master to the reference track and rough track and start the process of sharing the file.
