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First, the score is recorded. In the case of an orchestral score, the music is generally recorded to 24-tape with each microphone's signal being recorded to a different track. Although all the instruments are playing at once together, with the different mics favoring different sections of the orchestra, the 24 track allows for fine-tuned mixing of the orchestra after the recording session is over.

Once the score is all recorded, the music editor takes the preferred cues and segments of cues, and edits them against the picture, usually in a computer using a program like Pro-Tools. These edited tracks are then brought to the dubbing stage and mixed in with the dialogue and effects.

Now here's where the stems come in. At this point, the dialogue mixer might be working from 16 or 24 tracks of sound (the production dialogue and the adr), the sound effects mixer might have 96 or more tracks (the hard effects, the production fx, the foley) and the music editor may be working from the 24-tracks of the orchestral recording. These tracks are then mixed until they are all balanced against each other. They are mixed in 6.1 surround (LT/RT/C/LS/RS/CS/Sub).

Here's where it gets a little harder to conceptualise for the untechnical readers, but each type of sound (dia, fx, mx) is mixed to a 6.1 track stem. So the dia is mixed to track 1-7 of a 24 track tape, the fx are mixed to track 8-15 of the same 24-track tape, and the music is mixed to track 16-25 of the 24 track tape. Each of these 7 tracks is called the stem.

Then, in a final mixing process, the three stems are mixed into 1 7 track (6.1 surround) mix called the printmaster. The printmaster is what all the prints are mastered from.

Why do they make stems? The reason is mainly for foreign versions of the films. This way, the filmmakers can mix everything so they like how it sounds, as described above. Then, in another seperate mixing session, they mix the mx and fx stems into a track called an M&E, which is what they send to foreign distributors to use in the forgeign versions of the film - the new alternate language dia stem is usually created against the m&e by the foreign speaking actors.

The other use for stems is to mix the film in a variety of formats - 6.1 surround stems can be mixed down, or "comped", to 4 channel stereo (pro-logic, basically) for the optical prints (non-digital sound) and 2 channel stereo or mono if needed. All these different mixes are done at different times, but because we use stems for them, there is not much difference between them. Now, in the case of the first Star Wars movie in 77, they weren't really using stems yet. Each version of the sound mix was created from the ground up in a different session - hence the big difference between the 6-track, 2-track and mono mixes of ANH.

That is why if Sony made the new cd from the music stem, it had to mixed down, or "comped" from 6.1 to 2-track stereo for cd.

Now to correct a few misunderstandings - The green line on the actual film print is not a stem - that is the optical track. There is no way to extract music from a finished mix - you must go back to either the music stem, the pro-tools edit used for the film mixing session, or the 24-track master from the original recording session. So the isolated music scores on DVDs are put there by the filmmakers by making a seperate audio track from the music stem. The music is not extracted by some sort of circuitry in the DVD itself! Same thing with laserdiscs.

That's all the schooling for today. I am on vacation and it's time to go surfing!

elvisjones