Most musicians and bands are aware of the benefits of professional audio mastering, the final stage where a mastering engineer with a lot of experience will enhance, quality control and optimize a piece of music before it’s  release. Mastering is usually performed using a 24 bit stereo interleaved file of the producers final mix down. The mastering engineer can equalize, compress and adjust other parameters of the mix to aid translation across all the varying types of audio system the music will be played on.

Stem mastering is a type of mastering that differs in that it uses groups of instruments such as bass, guitars, drums, keyboards, vocals. There are a number of advantages to stem mastering. The ‘collections’ of instruments allow the mastering engineer to create a master with more targeted corrections and enhancement to the equalization, tone, depth  and balance of the mix down.