The Stem Player by Kanye West proves that Jesus is King Was Over Produced

I'm not a producer. But I am an artist, and I'm sensitive about my shit. I've always chosen to be a writer, from those early days of printing off lyrics at the Rudisill Library to writing 10 page essays the day before they were due. We talking about high school and college papers, and I got an A. But that's enough writer flexing. There was a small period of time where I was also a producer. When I was in the 7th grade, my mom had got me a PlayStation 1, and I had purchased a demo disk with 9 free games that played the demo version of games. This particular disk had a game called "MTV Music Generator". It was the first time I had been able to produce. My first studio. And I had beats. But I also realized I didn't have the patience to sit and listen to a metronome while I looked for the perfect sounds. I wanted the finished beat now.

Fast forward years later and the Stem Player by Kanye West is just that. It’s the finished product that allows you to re-finish/re-make the song the way you want it to. The Stem Player is an audio remix device by Kanye West. What can’t Ye do?

Well, it's not all Kanye West who built this device, actually it was a collaboration with Swedish company Teenage Engineering. Their minimalistic and often retro modular style has built a reputation on quality, innovation, and looking damn good doing it.

The late Vigil Abloh first introduced Kanye to this company that was revolutionizing studio equipment. But like I said, I'm not a producer. But the Stem Player changed that. Stems. 

Stems are defined as a type of audio file that breaks down a complete track into individual mixes. This allows you, as a creator, to control each of the particular mixes for your production. Stems tend to break down into four tracks, usually covering the melody, instruments, bass, and drums.

The Stem Player appeared with Kanye doing a concert, then an interview with Big Boy but never was generally available, that's until some YouTubers found a closet with thousands of them and some Grammy’s in a storage locker in Hollywood. The plot thickens.....

So I copped one. My first impression is this thing is small, but it’s tight as hell. Its design is small and sleek and retro, with a modular feel as it incorporates manual sliders for you to manipulate the different stems. The buttons have the feel of Steve Jobs first iPhone where even the smallest detail had a quality feel to it and was initiative. The side rocker is one of those features that ergonomically feels good and smooth when you use it. The only other comparison is the Orbo and the Kano player which we will talk about in another session. Let’s get back to this version. 
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Don’t let the Stem Player’s small form factor fool you. This device packs a punch and is louder than I thought it would be. Like I couldn’t believe how loud it got. Also it's not just loud, it also has really quality sound. The device literally fits in the palm of your hand and can be used with just one hand. But I’m ambidextrous with this device and I like using it with both hands.

I turned it on. That’s when the magic began. And even though it only you can only play one album on it, Kanye's Jesus Is King, I found out that the album is actually fire... when I make it. I say this because I feel like some of the tracks are overproduced. I found myself turning down certain stems during playback. Maybe it was removing certain sounds altogether, maybe it was speeding up certain parts, or looping parts of a song. For the first time I got to be better than Ye at making music.

​Did I mention that it didn't come with any instructions! But to my luck the internet has all the answers including some videos to show you everything you need to know.

One example is on the track “Use This Gospel”. Crazy song with The Clipse and Kenny G. But the one thing I would didn’t like about it was that it felt overproduced. When I removed the dinging metronome like sound it sounded perfect. And when I isolated Malice’s stems it felt like The Gospel. This song also made me learn about the power of loops as I created a simple loop at the end with part that repeats “Work”, I could create a whole song off just this looped bar. And this is just in the simple mode. You heard that right, there’s more than 1 mode, actually there’s 4. Simple, Advanced, Simple Midi, and Advanced Midi. Also it has Bluetooth!!! Yep. No display but Bluetooth pairing capabilities. This little device? Yes, in this little device.
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Advanced mode, which is the second mode, takes all the things from Simple mode and puts them on steroids. The grey function button is everything in this mode. One of the cool things is that the buttons at the bottom when pressed with the function button actually have 4 different effects, and those 4 effects have 4 modes of their own. You have the filter, the chorus delay, distortion, and gate distortion (which is the only function you can do in simple mode.). It's like you can do everything you can in simple mode, but more. The isolation of loops and able to make them longer and shorter. All this in one simple device. 

My final thoughts would be that this is a revolutionary product. In an age of streaming where artists are getting pennies or nothing if you're a smaller artist, this device has the ability to create money and create a unique experience for the fans. Some people didn't like the $160-$200 price tag, put when you look at the price of the iPod when it first came out, it was $399. So this is even cheaper than that and does more. Obviously, this is for the super Kanye West fan, or the Tech Music fan, but I imagine this would be a way artists can take charge and drop something cool that is another price point item in their catalog. This device also brings back listening to albums. It forces you to sit with an album and it also added to the replay value of the album. In a world of streaming, this device forced you to listen to tracks over and over and the fact there is not a way to directly select a track and that you had to cycle through the album each time made me listen to tracks I never would’ve. I was going through parts thinking this would be a nice part to loop, or what if I isolated Ye’s voice on this track? So long answer yes, I say if you won't go into debt, then buy it.

Here's the video that probably helped me out the most.