How to prepare your demo and stems for a producer

When a set of stems arrives well prepared, mixing starts immediately. When it does not, the first day goes on emails: which file is the double, why does the chorus guitar start three bars late, is this bass the DI or the amp. None of that is difficult to avoid, and none of it is your fault — nobody is ever taught this. Here is the whole thing.

Export everything from the same start point

This is the one rule that matters more than all the others. Every file must begin at the same moment — bar one, beat one of the session, even if the instrument does not play until the last chorus. Then all the mixer has to do is drag every file to zero and the arrangement lines up exactly as you built it.

If files start where each part happens, someone has to reconstruct your session by ear, and something will end up a few milliseconds out. That is how a tight band starts sounding loose in a mix.

One file per part, not per plugin

Export one stereo or mono file per instrument or voice: kick, snare, overheads, bass DI, bass amp, rhythm guitar left, rhythm guitar right, lead, lead vocal, double, harmony one, harmony two. Keep the parts separate when they do separate jobs, and keep them together when they are one performance — a stereo pair of overheads is one file, not two.

• 24-bit WAV, at the sample rate your session runs at. Do not convert.
• Leave a little headroom: peaks around -6 dBFS are ideal, and nothing should be clipping.
• No processing on the master bus. No mix-bus compressor, no limiter, no 'loudness' plugin.
• Keep the processing that is part of the sound: your guitar amp, the synth patch, the deliberate slapback delay. Those are the performance.
• Remove the processing that is a guess: corrective EQ you were not sure about, a compressor you left on by accident.

Name files so a stranger understands them

Audio 12_bounce_final_v3 tells the mixer nothing. Name files the way you would describe them out loud: 01 Kick, 02 Snare Top, 03 Snare Bottom, 10 Bass DI, 20 Gtr Rhythm L, 40 Lead Vox, 41 Vox Double. Numbers at the front keep them in a sensible order in every file browser on earth.

Send the rough mix. Always.

Your rough mix is the single most useful file in the folder, even when it is technically a mess. It is where your intent lives: how loud you hear the vocal, which guitar you think is the important one, how big the chorus is meant to feel. A mixer who has your rough is working towards your record. A mixer without it is guessing.

Include the boring information

• Tempo, and a tempo map if the song moves.
• Key, if you know it.
• Two or three reference tracks, with a line on what you like about each.
• A note on anything you already know is weak, so nobody wastes time being polite about it.

What not to worry about

Do not tune, time-align or clean up the takes before sending them unless you genuinely want them that way on the record — that work is part of the job, and undoing someone's over-editing takes longer than doing it properly once. Do not normalise. Do not export MP3s and hope nobody notices. And do not delay sending a song because one part is imperfect: say which part, and you will get an honest answer about whether it needs redoing.

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