This is the last one in the series of videos about the composition Seven. It’s going to be a short rather technical video. I will show you how to export individual STEMS out of StaffPad. And how to prepare them for a quick mixing session in a DAW on your computer.
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Timestamps of the video
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 00:20 – A quick retrospect
- 00:59 – Export STEMS out of StaffPad
- 02:06 – Cleaning up STEMS for mixing session
- 03:53 – Wrap up
Let’s rewind if necessary
Is this the first post and video you bumped into? And you would like to know more about the composition Seven? And how to compose a work with the seven music modes?
Just rewind in this playlist and go through the 27 tips I have shared about composing, orchestration, theory and a bit of psychology. And learn how to compose storylines with ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, myxolydian, aeolian and locrian.
Export STEMS easily out of StaffPad
It is truly a piece of cake to export the STEMS out of StaffPad. You only need to select the outgoing arrow. Tap on the three dots in the line called Audio. And tap on Export Stems.
StaffPad now exports the STEMS to your iCloud Drive. So you will get an audio file per instrument.
To make this the most effective, do your balancing in StaffPad. If necessary do some extra panning. To be honest, I leave it “as is” most of the time.
About the internal StaffPad reverb. You can dial it back totally which will give you the most dry sounding STEMS. That means you will have to do your own reverb afterwards. That is up to you of course. But I’m quite fond of the internal reverb, so I do the export with it. And glue it a bit more together with one of my own special reverb settings during the mixing.
Prepare STEMS for a mixing session
I once did a video about how to remove pops and clicks in a music production. That is exactly what I advise you to do in this step.
I have noticed that the STEMS out of StaffPad contains some weird artefacts. Name it pops or clicks. They are hardly noticeable, but with a secure listening session with good headphones like a Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO you won’t miss them. And believe me, you want to get rid of those before you start mixing and create a master version.
The thing is, when you dial up the overal volume in your master chain with a limiter or maximiser, all these weird artefacts will be enhanced. And then you will hear them loud and clear. So you have to remove them.
Now this is also a piece of cake if you own iZotope RX. Recently I upgraded my RX Elements to RX Standard which gave me the batch process option. Which makes it even more easier.
Fire up RX. Open the batch processor if you have RX Standard or above. Add to the chain the “de-click”. In use the Multiband Random Click option. If necessary adjust any settings to your needs.
This time I also added to the chain a Spectral De-noise module. Again, if necessary adjust any settings to your needs. And then just process the STEMS through the chain. This will give you nice cleaned up STEMS to start your mixing session with.
That’s it.
The series of videos about the composition Seven has been completed. Don’t forget to subscribe and ding that bell on Youtube if you want to be notified when I upload a new video about composing, orchestration, mixing and other related topics. And I would appreciate a thumbs up if you enjoyed this and the other videos.
See you with the next one!