John
The term to me means tracks grouped together of like type. If I'm not mistaken its a term that comes from the movie industry for handling dialog, FX and music. In audio you would want the guitars grouped together and the drums and the vocals and so forth. The way to do this is use buses. You just export the buses as independent wave files. 

+1
 
Stems to me have always meant to be a unique collection of tracks based on their grouping, i.e. busses
If you have your projects organised so that EVERY track directs it's output to a sub-bus (not the master) then sll you need to do is export your project using busses in the source category.
Make a separate pass for each buss

John
The term to me means tracks grouped together of like type. If I'm not mistaken its a term that comes from the movie industry for handling dialog, FX and music. In audio you would want the guitars grouped together and the drums and the vocals and so forth. The way to do this is use buses. You just export the buses as independent wave files. 

You are correct Sir!

Quite a cool feature for Sonar in the future would be the functionality of exporting "Track Folders as stems" as well as the individual tracks or busses or entire mix.

I often group various sounds together in the same track folder but they are across different busses...

Hmmm, I shall scuttle off to the feature request section.

I'm a little confused here as the OP states that he is having some mixing done by a third party.  Why would he want to send what has already been summed at his busses?  I would think in this case that what is required would be to Export each individual track in the project in order for the "mixer" to be able to have the most flexibility?

cuitlahac
I'm a little confused here as the OP states that he is having some mixing done by a third party.  Why would he want to send what has already been summed at his busses?  I would think in this case that what is required would be to Export each individual track in the project in order for the "mixer" to be able to have the most flexibility?

Stems get outputted to your Dubbing Mixer or Engineer for the final process of mixing before delivery.

I understood the same thing Dave.... I think that the thread got hung up on what is considered a "Stem", which I agree is the summed busses or individual tracks that are not bussed.
 
So, to me, the DRUM MIX goes to a buss (that would be the drum stem).  Vocals go to a buss (another stem).  The guitars aren't bussed (each track would be a stem), etc. etc.
 
Technically speaking, with stems you could re mix the track but be limited in what processing you could add (control of the mix).  I agree with you, if I was to send me work for someone else to mix, I would send each individual track (un processed) and let them have a go at it.
 
Jim

jkleban
I understood the same thing Dave.... I think that the thread got hung up on what is considered a "Stem", which I agree is the summed busses or individual tracks that are not bussed.
 
So, to me, the DRUM MIX goes to a buss (that would be the drum stem).  Vocals go to a buss (another stem).  The guitars aren't bussed (each track would be a stem), etc. etc.
 
Technically speaking, with stems you could re mix the track but be limited in what processing you could add (control of the mix).  I agree with you, if I was to send me work for someone else to mix, I would send each individual track (un processed) and let them have a go at it.
 
Jim

What stems to output to depends on what your Dubbing Mixer / Delivery or Engineer asks for.

In film its usually Dials/Music and FX

In Music its usually Drums/Vox/Bass/Keys

But this can be entirely at the Engineers/Dubbing mixers request...I myself have dub mixed a movie and I requested from the score guy that he supply me anything in the strings/design part of his composition that he supply me a separate stem of anything in the 60hz region so I could mix the lower regions in their own stems.

It can get confusing but it really isnt, just work with whom you are going to supply your stems with and ask them EXACTLY what they need as their vision of how they mix is their call.