Native Instruments has released the Stems Software Developer Kit (SDK) – a free toolkit for software and hardware developers, designed to make it easy to develop apps that can work with the Stems audio format.
Stems is an open file format that lets you individually mix four different musical elements in a track, such as drums, bass, keys and vocals. The volume, filter, and effects settings of each stem can be controlled independently, enabling creation of remixes, mashups, instrumentals, a cappellas, and more.
With the arrival of the SDK, Stems can now be freely integrated into third-party music production/performance tools or media players. The available compressor and limiter components help ensure that the four separate parts of a Stem file sound nearly indistinguishable from the original stereo master, when heard individually or played together.
Accompanying the SDK release, NI has released several videos providing guidelines on mastering Stems, embedded below:
The videos feature mastering engineer Kevin Grainger and his team at Wired Masters, in London, and provide both a simplified overview and in-depth breakdowns of the mixdown and mastering process for Stems.
Pricing and Availability:
The Stems Software Developer Kit (SDK) and Stem Creator are available now as free downloads.
Stop trying to make Stems happen. It’s not going to happen. Sigh
I was thinking the same thing. The format seemed dead on arrival.
Is there some take up in the more dj-oriented crowd that I’m not seeing?
not knowing enough about it, could this tool be helpful at least in creating stems in regular projects for other clients or collaborators, helping deal with the 2 bus element fx etc?