From a Producer / Mixing Engineer’s Perspective
Today I got two sessions to mix: one from a rapper, and one from a singer.
Unfortunetly the rapper’s session was completely messy.
There were tons of adlibs scattered everywhere and multiple random tracks stacked just to build one lead vocal.
It sounded cool in the rough preview, but inside the session it was chaos: one key adlib was split across four different tracks, and after each hook it showed up on a totally new one.
That's... that's just nutsssss. 🥜
The singer’s session was the complete opposite. ✨
Verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge - all recorded on one track, neatly labeled, with a reference bounce included so I could hear exactly how it should feel.
The difference? One session took me 30 seconds to understand.
The other would’ve taken at least an hour just to clean up before I could even start mixing.
And honestly, this isn’t rare. It happens all the time.
Messy sessions waste time, cause confusion, and make it way harder to bring your vision to life.
And my todays situation inspired me to write this article.
Sooo....
Today we’re going to break down how to properly send your vocal stems for mixing, so you can save time, avoid chaos, and show that you actually care about your music. 🎧
Let's dive in. 🤿
It All Starts With Recording
If your recording session is messy, your stems will be messy.
Simple as that.
If your gain staging is off, if you’re clipping, then no matter how clean you try to export later, it’s already broken at the source.
Good stems come from good habits while recording. 🎤
What are the good habbits?
- Naming your tracks as you go.
- Keeping adlibs and doubles on separate lanes.
- Avoiding heavy plugins on your recording chain unless they’re 100% part of the vibe
- Watching your levels so you’re not recording in the red.
To name a few.
Your session should be organized in a way that lets someone understand what’s going on just by looking at the stems.
If I open your session and see tracks named Lead Vocal 1, Lead Vocal Double, Lead Background, I immediately know that your lead part is built from three layers.
I can route them, group them, and build your mix structure in seconds.
But if I see Main 1, Main 2, Main 3… I have no idea what’s what.
I have to solo and listen to each track to figure out where your main part even is, and that wastes time, breaks my flow, and slows your whole mix down.
So when you’re recording, already think about the structure you’re building. 🧱
If you know your lead will have doubles, or a background layer, or some shouts for energy, record them on separate tracks and label them right away.
If I get clean, well-labeled stems, I can rebuild your session inside my DAW in seconds, understand your vision instantly, and move straight into the creative part instead of playing detective. 🔍
Because clean stems aren’t just about audio quality - they’re about clarity.
And clarity starts the moment you hit record. 🎙️🔴
How to Actually Name Your Stems
When you’re sending your stems for mixing, naming them clearly is huge.
It saves hours of guessing, makes your session easier to understand, and shows you care about your music.
Honestly - you can even build yourself a simple recording template with the names already set before you start tracking. 🎙️
Here’s an easy system you can follow:
Lead Vocals:
- Lead Vocal - your main vocal track
if you have doubles or backgrounds, name them:
- Lead Vocal Double
- Lead Vocal Background
Verse Vocals:
- Verse Lead
- Verse Double
- Verse Background
- Verse Adlibs - only if they are dedicated to the verse
Chorus Vocals:
- Chorus Lead
- Chorus Left and Chorus Right - if you have wide doubles
- Chorus Harmony - for harmonies stacked under the lead
- Chorus Adlibs - if they are specific to the chorus
Bridge Vocals:
- Bridge Lead
- Bridge Double
- Bridge Adlibs - for any fills or hype lines
See where I'm goin with this?
This way, when your engineer opens your session, they instantly understand what’s going on without soloing random tracks named main1, main2, main3.
Good names = faster workflow = better mix. ⚡
Should You Leave Effects On or Off?
This is one of the biggest questions artists have when sending their stems for mixing,
should you leave your effects on the vocals or strip them off? 🎛️
Here’s the simple answer:
for mixing, we need clean, dry tracks - unless the effect is a creative part of the performance.
If you’ve recorded your vocals with heavy compression, EQ, limiting, reverb or delay baked in, the engineer has almost no space to shape the sound.
It’s like handing someone a photo that’s already been filtered, color-graded and sharpened to death, there’s no way back.
So here’s the best approach:
-
Send clean, dry versions of every vocal.
No reverb, no delay, no compression, no EQ, just the raw audio, properly named and exported. -
Also send a reference bounce with your effects on.
This is huge. It lets the engineer hear the vibe you had in mind, how the space, tone and feel should be. -
Only leave effects on if they are part of the creative sound design.
For example: vocoder layers, pitched-down shouts, chopped glitch vocals. If the effect is the sound, keep it.
This way, your engineer gets full control over tone and balance, but also understands your vision from the reference.
BUT...
If you already know your way around mixing, if you can use compression, EQ, autotune, de-essing, and you just want someone to polish it, glue it to the beat better, or double-check your choices, there’s nothing wrong with sending vocals that are already 80–90% mixed.
I often work with vocals like that - and many engineers do - as long as you’re happy with how they sound. 🔊
If you’re confident in your mix, then I can simply refine your decisions instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.
Preparing Your Stems for Export
Once your vocals are recorded, organized, and labeled, it’s time to bounce them out.
If your stems aren’t aligned, if they start and end in random places, or if some are missing effects tails, your engineer will spend the first hour just trying to line things up. 😵💫
Here’s how to do it right:
Start by cleaning your session.
Delete muted takes, silenced clips, and empty tracks. Make sure every vocal part you want in the final mix is clearly visible, named properly, and on its own lane.
Then, line everything up.
Set your session so that every track starts at bar 1, beat 1 - even if there’s silence at the beginning. This way, when your engineer drags all the files into their DAW, they’ll drop into the right places instantly. ✨ (I can't count how many times I got session like this 👇)
Now bounce each track as a full-length audio file (from bar 1 to the end of the song), instead of cutting them into tiny clips. This makes it impossible to misplace anything.
Export them as WAV files, 24-bit, 44.1kHz or 48kHz.
Never send MP3s, they crush your quality before the mix even starts.
Finally, put all your stems into one folder and zip it.
Give the folder a clean name like:ArtistName_SongTitle_Stems
When your engineer unzips it, they should see an organized, aligned set of tracks ready to drop straight into their mix template - no detective work needed. 🕵️
How to Export and Send Them
Once your stems are bounced, clean and lined up, the last step is getting them safely to your engineer.
Here’s how to do it right:
Put all your bounced WAV files into one folder. 📁
Make sure the filenames are clean and clear - things like Lead Vocal, Verse Double, Chorus Harmony - not Audio_031 or Untitled_Track_7.
Then compress that folder into a .zip file.
This makes it easier to upload and ensures nothing gets lost or renamed on the way.
Upload the zip to a cloud service like WeTransfer, Google Drive or Dropbox, these are all free and super simple. ☁️
Include a short text file inside the folder with your BPM, key, and a link to your reference bounce (the rough mix you made).
This gives your engineer all the context they need before even pressing play.
Finally, send the download link - not the raw files - so your engineer can grab everything in one click.
Clean, zipped, organized stems = happy engineer = faster mix = better song. 📈
Why This Is Important
In the internet era, where you might never even see the face of the person you’re working with, communication is everything. 🤝
The clearer your session is, the easier it is for your vision to actually survive the process.
If you’re the artist and someone else is going to mix your track, that person becomes your collaborator, and they can only work with what you give them.
Right now you might think, “This sounds like too much work, I don’t want to waste time labeling every track.”
But clean stems don’t mean they have to be “perfect” or corporate.
You can name them however you like - as long as someone opening your session instantly understands what’s what.
If you already have your own naming system, great, just include a quick legend.
It could be a small text file or PDF that says things like:
“MAIN = lead vocal (verses), BG = background layers”
If I get something like that - and most engineers would agree - it instantly helps me understand how you imagined the song.
I can see which parts are meant to be front and center, which are support layers, and how everything fits together, all without pressing play yet. 🎯
But if I get 100 files named randomly, I have to spend the first hour just trying to decode your session before I can even start mixing.
I’ll listen to them all eventually, but now I’m listening just to figure out what’s what, not to shape your sound.
So spending 10 minutes organizing and labeling your tracks isn’t just a favor to your engineer, it’s an investment in your own vision.
It means your engineer will work faster, understand your idea better, and send back a mix that actually sounds like the song you imagined.
Wrapping It Up
Sending clean, organized stems isn’t just about “being professional”, it’s about respecting your own music. 🎵
It shows that you care about your art enough to give it the best possible chance to shine.
When your engineer gets a session that’s clear, labeled, and easy to understand, they don’t have to waste hours guessing what’s what or trying to rebuild your song from chaos.
They can focus on what really matters: making your vocals sit perfectly in the mix, bringing out the emotion in your performance, and making your track sound like it belongs on every playlist.
And in a world where you might never meet the person mixing your song face-to-face, that clarity becomes your voice in the room, guiding them, even when you’re not there.
So take the extra ten minutes.
Organize your session.
Label your tracks.
Send your stems like someone who knows their music deserves to sound incredible. 🔥
Hope this one helped. Oh and if you mixing, hit me up.
Take care,
Baxon 👊
