Who hasn't at some point thought that music seems "canned"? There are several ways to interact with it to move away from that feeling (including singing and dancing), but a very popular way to break the limits today is mixing its content over and over. STEMS is a new audio format developed by Native Instruments that aims to make that process simpler. In essence, each STEMS song has four internal tracks that can be mixed, cut, silenced, and replaced at will.
I admit it: I should listen to more music. Spotify remains in a corner gathering digital dust, and then you come across things like this video, which confirms (in my opinion, at least) the dramatic decline in the quality of today's music. That's when mixes appear, remixes if you prefer. The formula of cut, paste, mix has given rise to all kinds of projects, some very interesting, and others destined to be forgotten. Competition in this market seems fierce, and there is a wide range of comments on the Web exploring the offerings of two companies, Ableton and Native Instruments, who brings us here with the announcement of a new audio format, dubbed STEMS.
At first glance, a STEMS song plays like any other audio track under the MP4 container, but when opened with a compatible program (I cite here the Traktor suite, from the same company), the user will find the content divided into four different tracks. The most interesting aspect of STEMS is that it will be completely open, with instructions for creating, editing, and reproducing files. As if that weren't enough, Native Instruments will not demand any payment for personal or commercial use. The fact that it is an open format should greatly help the adoption process, however, the other half of the equation will be in the hands of producers, artists, and distributors.
A curious detail about STEMS is that it sparked intense discussion in the enthusiast community. Basically, the first impression is that the format will become a very useful and flexible tool for DJs (whether professional or not), since they will have more precise control over the content of each song. On the other hand, STEMS is shaping up to be a real nightmare for producers. One thing is for someone to take three or four seconds of audio to use in another project, and another is to extract or replace an entire track directly on the original work. Personally, I don't think STEMS has much space as a general consumption format (say, similar to MP3), but Native Instruments undoubtedly managed to stir the hornet's nest among those who make and sell music. We'll see what happens.
