Future-proofing your DAW project: A guide to exporting multitracks, stems, and moreLosing a DAW project to software upgrades or crashed hard drives is a rite of passage in music production. You back up your work, confident you’ve properly archived your musical history; several months or years later, you bitterly realise that your computer won’t even open the session, let alone play it back.

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This kind of disaster scenario can happen at any time. Plugins change, software companies go bankrupt, and product support disappears—but your music doesn’t have to. Here’s how you can future-proof a project before it leaves your DAW.
Organising with intent
Future-proofing your projects will prevent any technical mishaps but will also keep your music adaptable to different media forms.
Imagine missing out on a TV or film placement because you can’t provide the stems from a previous song, or needing a spatial mix years after release, when the original project is no longer accessible.
Multitracks are essential for building flexible live sets. Logistics force you to scale your setup down for your next show, and suddenly, you long to have control over every layer of sound in the backing tracks. The same applies to remixing. An a cappella master offers far less creative freedom than dry vocal tracks.
That said, for producers working at speed, creating a detailed delivery folder for every sketch isn’t the most productive strategy. Focusing on music that’s already released or release-ready is more sensible.
A typical archival folder might include:

Masters (with alternative versions)
Stems (submixes of grouped instruments)
Multitracks (each channel exported individually)
MIDI files (to preserve tempo and key information)
Metadata files (lyrics, credits, keywords)

Each of these files supports different use cases.
Image: SIRMA
Exporting masters and stems
For many artists, the full master feels like the finish line. But it’s just as important to get the a cappella and instrumental versions from your mastering engineer. If you perform live with backing tracks, it’s also worth having a master without lead vocals. Radio edits and TV masters are useful too, especially for longer pieces or tracks with explicit lyrics.
In digital media, 24-bit / 48kHz WAV is widely considered the industry standard. Some distributors, such as CD Baby, require 16-bit / 44.1kHz files. Physical formats like vinyl, cassette, and CD each have their own technical requirements.
So what’s a producer to do to cover all their bases? Well, if your DAW runs a project at 24-bit / 48kHz, exporting at 32-bit / 96kHz won’t improve the audio’s sonic quality. Print at the highest resolution native to your session instead. You can always create conversions for specific formats later.
As for stems, bypass the limiter, but include group processing. When played together in an empty session, they should closely resemble the final mix, with only minor dynamic differences.
How granular you want to get with your stems is up to you. For example, it’s common to create one stem for the lead vocal, another for harmonies, and a separate one for ad-libs. Some producers stem out all the drums together. Others combine the kick and snare in one stem, and bundle the cymbals in another.
Once you make your decision, solo the channels you want to export together to create each stem and bounce your session as normal.
Image: SIRMA
Exporting multitracks
It’s common to compress all the channels of a drum kit together. But what if you want to process them differently in the future?
This is where multitracks matter most: they offer control over every individual sound.
Most DAWs can export all channels at once. But the results are often far from perfect. You may end up with glitches and missing audio files. Soloing and printing each channel individually takes longer, but it’s far more reliable.
A common workflow is to secure dry sources, such as vocals, individually first. After that, you can solo the return channels to capture the reverb or delay output. Manage the sends carefully to craft a modular multitrack session that’s easy to reconstruct later.
When imported into a blank project, all multitracks should recreate the mix exactly, minus any group or master bus processing.
Image: SIRMA
Alternative audio assets, MIDI, and metadata
Once your masters, stems, and multitracks are finalised, consider archiving anything else you may need later.
It’s best to preserve all your original panning decisions in multitracks. But you can always create a supplementary folder containing centred harmony vocals, dry drum elements, or even raw, untuned vocal comps.
Likewise, exporting MIDI files for each software instrument can simplify future tasks such as score preparation. At minimum, a single consolidated MIDI file preserves tempo, key, and harmonic structure.
Image: SIRMA
Next, prepare a PDF of a metadata sheet that includes:

Musician credits (with PRO information included for each composer)
ISRC and UPC codes
Label and/or music libraries representing the song
Lyrics
Tempo, time signature, and key
Genres

You can embed some metadata directly into WAV files using software such as Audacity. But a standalone document is still the most accessible solution.
Final checks
Simple organisational tactics can make your archives more functional.
Label every item distinctly and include the track title in all file names to save yourself the headache later.
To maintain alignment, export all files with one or two bars of silence at the beginning and end.
Once complete, import everything into a blank session and listen through: first the stems, then the multitracks. This way, if anything is misaligned or missing, you’ll be able to spot it quickly.
Future-proof one project at a time. Once the process becomes familiar, you’ll develop a repeatable system that protects your music for years to come.
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