Exporting Stems
A stem export renders every track in your project to its own audio file, all starting at the same moment. It’s how you hand your song to someone else — a mixing engineer, a bandmate, another DAW — without giving up the arrangement you built.
Where a mixdown collapses everything into one stereo file, stems keep the parts separate so the whole balance stays editable anywhere.
[SCREENSHOT: Export / Share modal with the Stems tab selected]
Exporting
- Stop playback and recording — the Export button is disabled while the transport is running.
- Tap ⋯ (more menu) → Export / Share.
- Switch to the Stems tab.
- Tap Export.
A progress screen counts through the tracks (“3 / 8”) as each one renders.
[SCREENSHOT: Exporting Stems progress showing the track counter]
What Each Stem Contains
Every track is rendered on its own, through the same engine that renders your mixdown:
| Included | Details |
|---|---|
| Plugin processing | Baked in. Amp sims, EQ, reverb — what you hear on that track is what lands in the file |
| Track volume and pan | Applied. Stems are post-fader, so importing them all at unity elsewhere reproduces your balance |
| Clip timing | Preserved. Every clip keeps its position, so all stems share one origin and line up when dropped into another project |
| Trims, time-stretch, and fades | Applied, exactly as you set them on the clips |
| MIDI / instrument tracks | Included — the instrument’s audio output is captured and rendered like any other track |
| Not included | Why |
|---|---|
| Master bus processing | Stems are per-track deliverables. Master plugins and master volume stay out so the person receiving them can make their own master decisions |
Output is stereo WAV.
The Results Screen
When the render finishes you get one row per stem:
[SCREENSHOT: Stems Exported results list with per-stem preview and share buttons]
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Preview (per row) | Plays that stem so you can check it before sending anything |
| Share (per row) | Shares that single file through the iOS share sheet |
| Share / Save All (.zip) | Bundles every stem into one zip — the usual way to send a set |
| Done | Closes. The files stay on disk |
File names
Stems are named so they still make sense once they’ve left the app:
MySong_120bpm_Track_3.wavProject name, project tempo, track number. Whoever opens the zip knows what tempo to set their session to without asking.
Spatial Stems
If you’re working in Spatial Mode, there’s a second kind of stem export. In the Mixdown tab of the Export / Share modal, tick Export per-track spatial stems (v2) before saving.
[SCREENSHOT: Spatial mixdown tab with the per-track spatial stems checkbox ticked]
This runs in addition to the normal spatial mixdown. Alongside the exported .mp4 you get:
- a
<name>_stemsfolder containing one file per spatialised track, and - a
<name>.spatial.jsonsidecar listing each stem with its track index, spatial position, and volume.
The sidecar is what makes the set re-renderable: a tool reading it knows exactly where each stem belonged in the room rather than having to guess from a shared downmix.
Two honest limitations:
- Spatial stems only run when the export produced a real spatial (APAC) file, which needs iOS 26 or later. On earlier iOS the mixdown falls back to a tagged stereo file and no spatial stems are written.
- If the stem pass fails, the mixdown itself is already saved — you’ll see “Saved — Stems Failed” and the exported file still plays normally with its standard spatial audio.
See Spatial Mode Overview for the rest of the spatial workflow.
Where the Files Go
Stems are written to the project’s own stems folder:
Files app → Homecrate → Recordings/[project-id]/stems/Spatial stems and their .spatial.json sidecar go next to the exported spatial file, in the project’s exports folder.
A few things worth knowing about that folder:
- Re-exporting replaces the previous set. Any stems from an earlier export are cleared first, so a track you deleted or renamed doesn’t linger as a stale file.
- Separated stems are safe. Files produced by Stem Separation live in the same folder but are never cleared by a track stem export — they came from a source song, not from your tracks.
- The Share All (.zip) bundle is written to the exports folder rather than the stems folder, so it doesn’t get picked up as a stem next time.
Tips
- Send the zip, not the individual files. One transfer, one tempo in every filename, nothing missed.
- Check for silent stems before you send. A muted or empty track can still produce a file. The preview button takes seconds and saves an embarrassing email.
- Stems are post-fader by design. If you want the receiving engineer to start from scratch instead of from your balance, set your faders to unity before exporting.
- Master processing is deliberately absent. If your song only works with a master bus compressor on it, send a mixdown alongside the stems as a reference of what you intended.
- Name your project before exporting. The project name is baked into every filename, and
project_120bpm_Track_1.wavhelps nobody. - Stop the transport first. The Export button stays dimmed until playback and recording are stopped.