Avid Pro Tools Production II (201M) Certification Practice Exam 2026 – Complete Study Guide

Printing stems means exporting grouped tracks as separate audio files that represent the signal after processing (the wet sound) and the routing you used. The main benefit is that you capture those processed sounds in a way that can be opened in another DAW and still sound the same, so collaborators or mastering engineers can work with your exact mix without needing your plug-ins or session settings. This setup lets you share or transfer submixes like drums, guitars, or vocals as individual stems, offering flexibility to reassemble or remix later. It’s not about eliminating submixing, and stems aren’t only for mastering; preparing the stems typically involves routing to buses, so some routing adjustments are a normal part of the process.