I just discovered this new wing of the forum today; thank you for offering us this service, Doctor! My particular question comes from the low-information portion of this demographic, so you might possibly settle it with a very short answer.
During the past few years, I've read in liner notes and quite a few forum discussions many references to "music stems" being used as sources for CD releases when the original master recordings of a score were not available (or incomplete). Since I come from the era of analog film elements, so far I've just made assumptions about this -- but are music stems what used to be the mono mixdown of music laid to 35mm film, after volume adjustments were made to accommodate dialogue/sound effects, but before that fluctuating-volume mix became a source for the music-and-effects track? Or are they something else entirely?
In case I'm displaying a void of ignorance that requires more than a short confirmation to fill, I apologize for your time but would also appreciate the effort behind a detailed explanation. Thank you so much for the gift of knowledge, Doc!
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