Simone Lovera
The mix was approved at 6pm. The email arrives at 6:15: stems by category as 24 bit WAV, an instrumental for sync, the radio edit as its own file, and MP3 copies of everything for the artist's phone. Nobody budgeted the evening this takes, because on paper the mix was the work and this is just exporting.
This piece walks that exact delivery through fMusic Suite, start to finish, on one song. Not the feature list: the sequence, in the order you would actually do it.
Why the delivery is a second session's worth of work
Done by hand, the spec above is a long series of small, error prone operations. Each stem is a pass: solo the group, check nothing else is open, bounce, restore the solos, move on. The instrumental is its own pass with the vocals silenced. The radio edit means setting the timeline selection precisely and trusting that nobody nudged it before the bounce. The MP3 copies are either a second full round of bounces or a conversion step in another tool, and every file then needs a name that says what it is, because bounce_14.wav tells the label nothing.
The failure modes are quiet. A solo left over from editing silently changes a stem. A selection off by a bar delivers a radio edit that starts mid word. A second format pass overwrites a first one because the names collided. None of this is audible while it happens, which is why delivery evenings end with everything played back once more, from the folder, just in case.
Even the arithmetic is unkind. Ten stems from a four minute song at analog print speed is forty minutes of printing alone, before the instrumental, before the edit, before the MP3s, and before anything goes wrong. The spec is not hard work; it is long work, made of steps that each invite one small mistake.
What this walkthrough assumes
fMusic Suite, and a session whose structure means something. The stems in this workflow come from export categories, which select their tracks through the session's own structure: a bus or an output in Routing mode, or one or more routing folders in Folder mode. How categories read the session, and what they deliberately cannot point at, is covered in export categories from buses, outputs and routing folders. If your sessions are template driven, the structure is already there; our guide to mix template bus routing covers that side. If the session arrived from someone else, Organize is how it becomes readable before any of this starts.
Categories are configured once, in the Export pane of Settings, because which parts of the session define your stems is a studio decision, not a per song one. The mode, Routing or Folder, is likewise one choice for the whole categories table, because a session is organized one way or the other. That single configuration is what makes the rest of this piece short.
The stems build themselves
Open the session for export and the stems are, for the most part, already waiting. Every export category with a source is an automatic favorite print in the session, adapted to this session's track count: the Drums category that found 20 tracks last week finds 13 tonight and does not care. The category prints inherit the global export settings, which is where the 24 bit WAV spec lives, set once in Print settings rather than re entered per song.
One honest caveat travels with this convenience: a category trusts its structure. A folder that collects stray tracks exports them, and a bus that picked up a rerouted track exports that track too. The categories read the session as it is, which is exactly why the session has to be what it claims.
The list is also allowed to disagree with the spec. An automatic print for a category you never deliver can simply be deleted, and fMusic remembers the deletion instead of bringing the print back next session. Favorite sets can be saved and loaded, so a studio with two recurring specs keeps two lists and loads the right one.
The radio edit is a custom print
The radio edit is a custom print, and it overrides exactly one value: the range. A print's range can be the whole session, a time range, or the span between two markers, so the edit is two markers in the session and a range pointing at them. Verse 1 to Chorus 2 is a valid render range, which matters because musicians think in sections and radio briefs arrive in sections.
The MP3 copies are the step that stops existing. A print carries a format list, WAV, AIFF or MP3 each with its own sample rate and bit depth, rendered in one pass, with a per format tag in the filename so Song_48k-24b.wav and the MP3 land side by side without overwriting. Adding the artist's MP3s means adding a line to the format lists, not planning a second round. Every print shows Inherit or its explicit override, so a glance at the list says which deliverables deviate from the studio defaults and in what; the recipe model has its own piece.
| Deliverable | The print | What it carries itself |
|---|---|---|
| Stems by category | Automatic favorite prints | Nothing, they inherit the WAV spec |
| Radio edit | Custom print | A range between two markers |
| MP3 copies | No print of their own | One line in each format list |
The table is the point of the model: four kinds of deliverable, and the only things written by hand are one content definition, one range and one format line. Everything else was configuration the studio already owned.
The pass before the pass
Before anything renders, each print can be auditioned. Flip through the list: the drum stem plays drums, the instrumental is missing exactly the vocal, the radio edit starts and ends where the markers say. This is where the quiet failures from the manual version get loud: a wrong source is heard in seconds, a leftover mute shows up as silence, a wrong range plays itself. The mechanics of print preview have their own piece; in the delivery sequence it is simply the last step before commitment, a few seconds per print with the session's monitoring untouched.
Press once, deliver once
Then the whole list renders in one run. fMusic isolates each print as it bounces, with solo and mute set around its content and restored afterwards, and each print runs in its own error scope, so one failed print reports itself instead of killing the batch. Pro Tools bounces into the session's own Bounced Files folder and fMusic moves the results to the delivery destination afterwards, the dependable path rather than the elegant one. The files arrive named, tagged per format, in one folder, in one pass.
If the client wants printed stems inside the session as well, rendered prints can be imported back onto new tracks, the standard print stems into the session workflow, without rebuilding anything.
The evening, at scale
On one song, the delivery above collapses into configuration that mostly already existed, a preview pass, and one render. The shape scales because every operation in fMusic goes through the queue: Suite's mixed queue runs imports, organize jobs and exports together as one batch, so a night with three deliveries and two incoming sessions is queued once and processed while nobody watches. The processing view shows each session advancing with real progress, and any queued session can be recalled or expanded. What that changes in a working week is less about speed than about when the work happens: delivery stops being an evening and becomes a pass. Any queued session can be recalled to keep working on it or expanded to inspect what it holds, and the processing view shows each one advancing through its steps with real progress, which is what makes leaving the machine alone feel safe rather than brave.
What this workflow does not do
It does not write the spec, chase the label about sample rates, or check loudness: the recipe renders what it says, and judgment about what it should say stays with you. It does not rescue a session whose structure lies, because categories trust their references; that cleanup is Organize's job, before export, not during it. And the pieces that make this a single pass, per print recipes, print preview, Folder mode categories and the mixed queue, are part of fMusic Suite: in fMusic Studio the same delivery is possible with favorites and the global export settings, with more of the checking done by hand. The split is mapped in fMusic Studio vs Suite.
Frequently asked questions
What does a typical music delivery spec include?
Stems grouped by category in a specified format and resolution, often an instrumental, sometimes edits of the full mix such as a radio edit, and frequently a second lighter format for reviewing on phones. The spec varies by client; the shape rarely does.
How does fMusic decide which tracks go into each stem?
Through export categories, which select tracks by the session's structure: a bus or an output in Routing mode, or one or more routing folders in Folder mode. A category exports what its reference actually holds.
How do I render only part of the song for an edit?
Set that print's range to the span between two markers, or to a time range. The rest of the prints keep their own ranges; nothing is shared between prints that should not be.
Do the MP3 copies need a second render?
No. Formats are a list per print, rendered in one pass, with a per format tag available in the filename so the versions do not overwrite each other.
Can I hear a stem before the batch renders?
Yes. Every print can be auditioned before rendering, which is where a wrong source, a leftover mute or a wrong range is caught.
What happens if one print in the batch fails?
Each print renders in its own error scope, so the failure is reported and the rest of the batch keeps rendering.
Does this workflow exist in fMusic Studio?
The print model, favorites and multi format rendering are in both tiers. Per print recipes, print preview, Folder mode categories and the mixed queue are part of fMusic Suite, so in Studio the same delivery takes more manual checking.
fMusic Suite turns a delivery spec into a list of prints, checked by ear before anything renders and printed in one pass. The whole export model is at forte-ai.com/fmusic.
