Render stems per instrument and not per track to help the mixing / mastering process

What is the problem?

Tracker has 8 track limitation so we sometimes need to use more than 1 instrument on a track
(this is a feature in trackers, not a problem).

A good example is a drum track often uses 3-4 samples / instruments.

The problem occurs when a user wants to render the entire project into stems.

When rendering a project that uses multiple instruments on single tracks, the stems will have
multiple sounds on single stems, so in the mixing / mastering stage you would have to chop up
the stems and reorganize them to single instrument / sound tracks (unless you are ok with mixing the stems as is).

This makes the mix / master process more complex.

What should this feature achieve?

The tracker has some nice / easy mixing and mastering tools, but I think to get
the song sound even more professional you would have to mix / master it in a daw.

I suggest adding a feature of rendering stems by instrument and not by track,
this way if you have 8 tracks and using 12 instruments in that project you will
get 12 stems (+ 2 for reverb and delay) instead of 8 stems (+2).

Are there any workarounds?

Try to make a pattern with 1 sound/instrument per track, then render it to a wav file
and use that in the song.

When rendering the song to stems, can also render that pattern and use it for
mixing / mastering (still adds complexity because will need to chop up and rearrange
the song stems)

There is a caveat here:

The creation process is more natural when you “go with the flow”, which is quite intuitive
on a tracker, these workarounds are more of a “plan ahead” approach and can hinder that process

Any links to related discussions?

no

Any references to other products?

no

2 Likes

Thank you! That’s a really good idea. Do you mind if I also add Play tags to this, as this would also be helpful on the Plays?

sure, please do

But the Play doesn’t have instruments. Instead, it relies on p-lockable samples. There are three synth slots in the Play, sure, but I doubt anyone uses different synths on the same track because eight tracks is enough for total eight voices. And each synth transmits audio to its own USB channel so instead of rendering one can just record each synth separately into a daw.