PLAIN-LANGUAGE MUSIC GLOSSARY
From audio parts to editable notes.
The words around separation and MIDI can be confusing. These definitions describe how Sunofriend uses them.
The essential terms
- Finished mix
- The complete stereo song people normally hear.Its voices, instruments, effects and mastering have already been combined, so the original parts cannot be recovered perfectly from it.
- Multitracks
- The discrete tracks from the original recording or production.Examples include a kick microphone, snare microphone, bass DI, piano and lead vocal. They are usually cleaner and narrower than stems.
- Stem
- A synchronized grouped part of a song.A stem is usually a submix such as all drums, all keys or all backing vocals. It can contain several instruments, performers, microphones and effects.
- AI-separated stem
- A model's estimate of one category from a finished mix.It is useful source material, but it is not the lost original studio track. Bleed, holes, muffling and watery artefacts can remain.
- Broad stem
- A large category such as drums, vocals, keys or other.Broad stems are convenient but often contain several musical parts with different pitches, rhythms and sounds.
- Refined stem or sub-stem
- A narrower child made from a broad stem.For example, drums may be refined into kick, snare, hats, toms, cymbals and other percussion. Refinement is another estimate and may add artefacts.
- Bleed or leakage
- Sound from one part that remains in another stem.Examples include vocals audible in keys or cymbals audible in snare. Leakage can produce false MIDI notes.
- Residual or complement
- Everything a separator did not assign to its target.A residual is not necessarily one coherent instrument. A file named other may contain guitars, keyboards, strings, effects and artefacts together.
- MIDI
- Editable note and performance instructions, not recorded sound.MIDI can describe pitch, timing, duration, velocity and controls. It does not contain words, a singer's voice, instrument texture or the original effects.
- Instrument or sample bundle
- Sounds used to play MIDI notes.A suitable instrument helps a MIDI interpretation resemble the source, but an instrument bundle is not itself a stem.
- Lossless and lossy audio
- Two ways audio files preserve or discard signal detail.WAV, AIFF and FLAC are commonly lossless. MP3 and AAC discard information to reduce size. Converting MP3 to WAV does not restore that discarded detail.
A stem can contain many sounds.
The filename describes a useful category, not proof that one instrument is isolated. Listen to the source, inspect any leakage and treat AI separation as an estimate before judging its MIDI.