Before anything, if you’d like to learn more about mixing, here’s a great book I’d like to recommend. It’ll explain what different tools actually do to the sound and will help you make better mixing decisions. Check out the preview here: The Art of Mixing: A Visual Guide to Recording, Engineering, and Production
The first thing you need to do is make sure each track in your song is connected to a separate channel in the mixer.
This is the most important part of exporting stems in FL Studio and you should do this slowly and carefully.
In the image below, you can see we’ve connected this track named “Lex808_1” with channel 9 in the mixer.
To do this all you need to do is click on the track and on the box on the right labeled FX, change the number to a free channel on the mixer.
Now you just have to connect every track to a different channel in the mixer.
Pro-Tip
A good idea is to give each track its own channel in the mixer and don’t send two tracks to the same channel unless you’re consolidating them (for example the vocals), which we’ll explain how to do next.
Don’t worry it’s really easy.
How to Consolidate Vocals For Export in Fl Studio
When I say consolidate the vocals what I mean is separate the main vocals, ad-libs, doubles, chorus lead, chorus backing, and chorus ad-libs into their own tracks.
So when it’s all said and done, you’ll have these tracks all in separate WAV forms.
Main Vocals
Ad Libs
Doubles
Chorus Lead
Chorus Backing
Chorus Ad Lib
For example, you can send the main vocal for verses 1, 2, and 3 to the same channel in the mixer.
You can then do the same for the other vocal tracks as well (send them to their own channel in the mixer).
This way when you export them there will be one track with all your main vocals in it, one track with all the backing vocals in it, one track with all the main chorus vocals in it, you get the idea.
Another good thing to do is name each track correctly.
For example, if you have a main vocal track, name it “main vocal” in the mixer by right-clicking on the channel and going to rename it.
This way it’ll be easier for you to assign tracks to the correct channel and when the file exports it’ll be called “main vocals”.
Also, your audio engineer will love you because you saved him time from organizing your stems.
Export Stems
Now you go to File > Export > Wav file
Next, a dialog window will pop up asking you to name it and save it.
The beat I’m exporting is called “Tropical Trap” (don’t ask me why I named it that).
This is where you’ll want to create a new folder and name it your songs name.
You can right-click and go to “Create new folder” and then you can name it accordingly.
I will usually title the folder the song’s name and put (stems) beside it.
For example, if the song is called “Tropical Trap”, I’d have a folder called “Tropical Trap (stems)” and it would contain all the exported stems from Fl Studio in it.
Don’t forget to select this folder and click “save” as this is where you’re telling FL Studio to export your stems.
The Final Part
Finally, this window will pop up, all you need to is select “Split mixer tracks”.
You can also copy the same settings I have used here as well.
Once you’ve done that, click “Start” and let the magic happen.
If you’ve done everything correctly, you’ll have a folder with all the tracks from your song separated.
Exporting Stems Mistake: Don’t Worry Everyone Does This
A common problem, I still do even to this day, is forgetting to link one track to its own mixer channel, so it’ll be missing from the folder! Ouch.
Remember up above I said to do it slowly and carefully.
You can double-check to make sure every track from your song is in the folder by exporting your tracks back into your recording program and making sure they’re all there and lined up correctly.
Let’s talk about audio splits and stems and what we can do with them on Premiere Pro. Audio stems are a collection of audio sources mixed together. They are audio files but the significance of calling them stems is that they collectively make sense for the project. They are essential for transporting files and basically they make an engineers life easier. Audio splits are a separation of the final mix into smaller more discrete audio elements. These stems come in handy when you want to replace some elements like dialogue in a project without having to go back into the original audio project and mess around with it to get what you want. To make it easy, it is best if you have 6 mono tracks (3 stereo stem tracks) for left and right sound effects, dialogue and music. When it comes to 5.1 surround mix, sports or comedy shows you will end up with a lot more tracks and other variations. For example, in comedy shows the laugh track is isolated as a stem. So depending on the case, you may end up with with a few DME tracks or a single M&E track in stereo.
If you do work in entertainment programming, short films, commercials or corporate videos, then this should be common practice. If you do it while you are in the works of a specific project, then later down the line it WILL make your life easier. Although it is possible to go back to your files and do it later, it just saves time (time = money, people!).
So now it’s time to set up your new Premiere Pro sequence. For generating a multichannel master file with isolated DME stems in FCP X, we use the Roles function. In order to do this you need to ensure that the proper Roles is assigned from the start of your project. If you do this for the sound effects, music and dialogue Roles, then the stems will self-sort when you export them. It all comes down to how you route a Role to the channel that it corresponds to.
When we look at audio editing and mixing, Premiere Pro CC’s is also a good tool to use and the process is pretty easy. Just like I mentioned earlier though, you have to set up the proper sequence designed for the type of audio work you are working with. Correspondence is MAJOR KEY (thanks Dj Khaled). And just like I mentioned before, doing it right from the beginning will save you a headache and a trip to the quick mart to pick up some eye drops and a coffee.
Okay, so the first thing you want to do is create a custom preset. Presets are designed with a certain number of tracks routed to a stereo master output and thus you will have a 2-channel file when you export. You’re gonna want to change the track configuration to multi-channel and then set your number of output channels. Next, you’re gonna want to add the number of tracks you need and assign the regular tracks as “standard” or “stereo submix” for the submix tracks. The more complex the project, the more regular tracks it contains – and of course this all depends on the type of work you are doing with dialogue overlapping, sound effects or music on the timeline. Some sound engineers like to have what they call “zones” for the different types of audio. For this you would just have a certain amount of tracks for the dialogue, another amount for the music, and another for the sound effects – depending on the length of your timeline. To make for easy recognition and organization, it’s smart to rename your submixes according to what they contain. For example DLG for dialogue, or SE for sound effects. One cool feature about Premiere Pro is the ability to mix audio in several different places. You can do it in the audio track mixer or the clip mixer. To work with the audio track mixer, go to it and assign the routing and channel output (this can also be assigned in the sequence preset panel). For each of the regular tracks, it would be a good idea to set the pulldown for routing to the corresponding submix track, this way all of the submix tracks are routed to the Master Output.
Lastly, you’re going to want to assign the proper channel routing. This is so the sequence preset you created will contain the full mix in the first and second master channels. To do this you need to export a 2-channel file as either a review copy or a master file (only the first 2 output channels are used by default, which means these will always get the mix without you having to do anything). Next you’re going to want to enable stereo monitoring for the stereo stems. Since channels 1 and 2 are the default, you’re going to need to make some changes in order for this to happen. To enable this, you are going to need to assign the channel output in the following format: Dialogue (Submix 1) to 1-2 and 3-4, Sound Effects (Submix 2) to 1-2 and 5-6, and Music (submix 3) to 1-2 and 7-8. The reasoning behind this is that everything is going to go to both the full mix and the the isolated stereo channel for each of the audio components.
Okay, so now that the hard part is over, it’s time to edit the custom timeline. For this you simply edit any of the dialogue clips to track one, sound effects to track 2, and music to track 3. If you are working on a more complex project, then what you would work with are the “zones” I referred to earlier. For example, if 1-8 are routed to the dialogue submix track, then all you would do is edit the dialogue clips to tracks 1-8. And the same goes for the others.
Now it’s time for export. This needs to be done correctly or else all of your hard work goes to waste. To do this there are a few good choices: a QuickTime ProRes files or the MXF OP1a choices. In the export settings panel there is an audio tab, you’re gonna want to change the pulldown channel selection from stereo to 8 channels. With this you’re gonna have your timeline output channels exported as a separate mono track in the file. Now you have everything in one single, neat file, you have the final image and mix in one neat file as well as your isolated stems that can make easy changes later on. If you are a little paranoid like I am and you want to future-proof your project, you’re gonna want to save and export some extra versions with and without titles.
Let’s suppose the day for you to reuse the file has arrived. You’re going to want to import this file back into Premiere Pro. Since the channel structure is going to be read as 8 mono channels, you’re going to need to modify the file simply by using the Modify-Audio Channels contextual menu and right-click the clip. Simply change the clip channel format from Mono to Stereo. This is going to change the 8 mono channels into 4 left stereo channels and 4 right stereo channels.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. If this helped, thank me later. Looking forward to next time, Chris.
If you are sending your song to us online for mixing and mastering, it’s very important to make sure your files are sent correctly. Thankfully, Ableton makes it quick and easy for you to export your stems!
A stem is a single element of the song exported as a single file. Multiple tracks that you’re rendering at one time can be put together to recreate the song. Ableton has a very simple and straight forward way of doing this, so let’s go through it now!
Step 1 – Label Your Tracks
Before exporting anything, you need to make sure everything is labeled. Whenever you send your files to someone else, it’s important to make sure the person it’s going to knows what every file contains. Ableton exports multiple audio tracks, so if you have a vocal and a snare on one single track, it will make things a little bit crazy. It also labels the audio tracks based on what the track names are, andnot the clip names. Select each track name and label them to represent what that tracks are doing.
Step 2 – Arrangement Is Everything!
Ableton’s session view allows you to play various Scenes and Clips in any particular order. You can render audio from the Session view just specify the amount of time with your current selection that you would like to have rendered.
In the Arrangement View, you can either drag-select the area that you would like to export…
Or, you can use the loop selection range to choose what area of the song you’d like to export…
In this mode, just make sure that you have something in the arrangement!
Step 3 – Export
Once you’re ready to export your stems to audio and you’ve highlighted your arrangement (or set up your loop range), press: Command-Shift-R
This box will appear:
Ensure the bottom section of the box indicates the right time range.
Indicate if you want to render in stereo, or mono. For stems, or separated tracks, choose “mono”. If you have stereo loops in your arrangement, you will need to go back and render those in “stereo” separately.
Finally, select the all the tracks you want to export. If yo want all the tracks, select the “All Tracks” option.
Important: When Ableton Live asks you where you want to save the ‘audio file’, create a new folder and name it by the name of the song. Export all of those files in the same folder.
Once complete, follow this link to our upload form and follow the instructions.
