What is a stem?

What is a stem?

"Stems" are an isolated part of a song. A vocal stem would be Acapella of a part of the song. When a musician makes a song now days, he uses a sequencer. His song might have 32 tracks and in track 1 might be the drums, track 2 might be the tambourine, track 3 might be some other style of drums. Well, a "Beat Stem" could be those 3 tracks combined.

Kanye West has stems for free to his hit songs. You can use these to mash up your own song, or use parts of the stem in your own music (read and make sure he allows this).