Share stems with producers — organised, versioned, with splits documented

What stems to share and what to keep back

The stems you share with a producer depend on why you're sharing them. This distinction matters before you build a share link.

Sharing stems for mixing

For a mix engineer or producer doing a mix pass, you share everything: individual vocal tracks, instrument layers, drum stems (kick, snare, hats, percussion separate if possible), bass, synths, and any effects returns you want preserved. The engineer needs the full picture to balance and process the track. You typically share all tracks at the same level — no plug-ins applied at the stem level unless specifically requested.

Sharing stems for additional production

When you're sharing stems with a producer who's going to add elements, rearrange the track, or rebuild sections, you might share less — your vocals and core musical ideas, but not every drum hit and sample that you'd want them to work around. What you share here is a creative brief in audio form. Be clear in your notes about what's in each stem and what you're asking for.

Sharing stems for a remix

For a remix, the convention is to share the full vocal stems (lead, adlibs, doubles, harmonies) and optionally the core musical elements (the bass riff, a synth hook) if you want them used. The remixer builds the production around your material. You generally keep your full production stems private.

Labelling stems so your producer can actually work with them

The worst thing you can do is send files named by your DAW's auto-naming convention. Before you export:

Name each stem by what it contains, not by track number: "LeadVocals_Main", "Kick", "Bass_DI", "Synth_Pad_Reverb". If there's a chorus arrangement and a verse arrangement that differ significantly, export them separately and label accordingly. If you're sharing a specific version of the track, include the version in a top-level folder name or a text file — "Stems for Mix v2, BPM 124, Key Am".

This takes ten minutes and saves your producer an hour.

How TYFRA Vault organises stem sharing

Upload stems into a Project

In Vault, a Project groups all the files for one piece of work: stems, reference tracks, a bounce of the full arrangement, notes. Each stem is uploaded as a separate track within the project — WAV, FLAC, or AIFF, up to 150MB each, stored at original quality. Metadata travels with each file: BPM, key, instruments. If you run Vault's audio analysis, BPM and key can be detected automatically.

Version your stems

If you share stems for one mix and then revise the arrangement — add a new vocal, change the bridge — the updated stems are a new revision. Vault's Track Revisions system (v1, v2, v3) keeps the original stems accessible while making the new ones clearly the current version. When you share a link with your producer, it points to a specific revision: there is no ambiguity about which stems they're working from.

Share with download access

Generate a share link for the project or for individual stem tracks. Set download permissions to on — your producer needs to pull the files into their session. You can also set an expiry date if you want the link to stop working after a certain point. Play analytics on the link tell you when your producer accessed the files.

Collect feedback directly on the stems

When your producer bounces back a mix or a production pass, they can leave timestamped comments on it within Vault — "the low end on the kick is competing with the bass around the 80Hz mark" rather than a voice note about the bass. Comments are tied to the revision they refer to, so feedback from the v1 mix doesn't get confused with feedback on v2. You see it all in one place, in context.

Splits — sorting ownership before the session starts

Sharing stems with a producer who is adding substantial creative work means a conversation about splits is coming. Starting that conversation before the session — or at minimum, before the track is released — produces better outcomes than after, when the track has momentum and the stakes are higher.

Vault's split management handles publishing and mechanical royalties separately. The producer might have a mechanical split (a percentage of the master recording income) but no publishing split if they didn't contribute to the composition. You create a split proposal, assign percentages by role — artist, producer, songwriter — and all collaborators receive it and must accept. Until everyone has accepted, nothing is finalised. Every change is recorded.

The split documentation lives inside the same project as the stems. If anyone ever needs to know what was agreed and when, it's there.

After the session — what happens to the stems

When the mix is approved and the track is ready, everything in Vault stays: the stems, the mix revisions, the feedback thread, the split record. The finished master flows into Promo if you're sending to DJs, into Contracts if you need a formal agreement documented, and into Finance when royalties arrive. The stems don't need to be moved or re-uploaded — they're part of the same project in the same system.

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