Make and Play your Own Stems

Hi. What I found attractive with Stems is the possibility to create a live setup, to create my own material and then pull everything together during the set. I wonder what experience others have made with the production of their own stem tracks. Here are some thoughts on my first exploration, which I enjoyed a lot:

Note that this is a rough recording of me assembling everything on the fly. Although one can afterwards clearly hear the problems, eg getting lost, this is also part of the fun. Here is how I went about creating the material.

Using material from Sample Packs and my own stuff, I organised material for nine "tracks", which are not played as tracks but are used as "stem loops". I divided each track into eight parts (Intro, Full I, Break I, Full II, Break II, Full III, Break III, Outro), the stems grouping, as usual, drums, bass, synths or melodic material, and VOX/FX stuff. Although the tracks could be played without looping, the loops allow me to focus on the effects.

Loading effects on the S8 can be cumbersome, so I created a MIDI mapping for a Novation Launch Control, allowing me to load with a few buttons a large number of effects, effect groups and macro effects that are then controlled by one or two knobs. The mapping can be found here: https://maps.djtechtools.com/mappings/3807

In addition to two stem decks at any time, I have loaded two Remix Sets. They work nicely together with the stem decks. I have one Remix Set with all sorts of transitional elements that can be used in almost any track (risers, impacts, sweeps, atmo stuff, fills, vox elements). For every stem "track" I have a Remix Set (purchased, not home brewed), where there are elements that go nicely together with my own material and make my naturally less perfect stuff shine a little bit more. From the purchased Remix Sets I found lots of material, like top loops, that could also be used in breaks to create variations and to add to my own material, increasing the number of tracks that are playing at any time to about 12.

I must admit that the mastering of my own material in Ableton and then in the Stem Creator Tool is something I find difficult and will need more practice. I would be very interested to find tutorial and tips on that.

In summary, I am very happy with the Stems concept. Not only does it allow precise control of frequencies and effects, it motivates me to be creative, producing my own material but more importantly instead of a normal DJ set, I now have a live set in which I perform the music. With the large number of options, and everything happening spontaneously (albeit not completely random, of course) this ensure that no set will be identical to another. I have also purchased stem tracks and mixing these with my own material, I really enjoy the process.