Getting started

Stem Shovel is a place for a band or a producer to keep the working versions of songs: the stems, a chart, lyrics, notes, demo recordings and the conversation around them. Anyone with a song's link can listen; editing needs an account.

Accounts and sign-in

Sign up (top right) creates a free account: choose the Free plan, accept its terms, enter your name, email and a password, then open the verification link we send. No invitation and no credit card are needed, and you get a workspace of your own.

You can also arrive through someone else's account:

• An invitation email from someone in an account. Open the link, create your account with the address the invitation was sent to, and you join that account as soon as your email is verified.
• An invite code someone hands you. Type it on the sign-up page (dashes and capitals do not matter) and you join their account as well.

When sign-up is invitation-only, as it was during the early beta, one of those two is required and the waitlist collects everyone else. Forgot your password? The sign-in page has a reset link.

The account menu

Once signed in, the button at the top right names the account you are in. It opens a menu with Projects, the Idea Recorder (record riffs and rough takes straight from the microphone; see its own page in these docs), Account settings, any other accounts you belong to, and Sign out. From tablet width up, Projects and Idea Recorder also sit in the header.

Projects and songs

An account holds projects; a project holds songs. On a project page:

• Finished Songs are the ones whose stage is Finished (song settings → Options); they stay playable and editable.
• Mixing and Arranging list the songs at those stages, each section with its phase under the heading: left to itself a song is Writing until a stem makes it Arranging and a mix makes it Mixing, and a member can set the stage by hand in the song's settings. A section with no songs is not shown. Each has a play button, and the transport at the top plays them in order as a playlist. A song plays its newest mix when one has been uploaded, else its stems mixed down; the player says which ("Mix v4" or "Stems mix"), and the tile counts the mixes; its Demos tab plays the demo recordings of the song ideas (the songs without stems, as listed below) instead, every song's with All demos ticked, and is the one open when no song has a mix yet.
• Song Ideas are songs at the Writing stage, with no stems or mixes yet: a place to gather lyrics, a chart, notes and demo recordings before the parts exist. An idea's play button plays its demo, and every tile's line counts its charts, notes and demos. A song moves up on its own the moment a stem or a mix is uploaded, unless its stage was set by hand.

Attachments & Downloads, below the song ideas, is the project's library: every chart, score, audio scrap and document attached to any song, plus files that belong to the project itself (upload them there, and attach one to a song later from its menu). Each tile works as on a song page. Download All Charts gives you every score and chart as a zip, and Download All Song Documentation a PDF per song with its lyrics, chart and notes.

Members can put the songs in any order: drag a song by the grip before it (the six dots), or focus the grip and press the arrow keys. The order is the project's, so everyone sees it, and the playlist follows it. A new song goes to the end.

• Add Song creates a song from a title. Everything else happens on the song's page.
• A project can carry a picture (a cover, a photo from the session) from its settings; it shows beside the project's name and in the projects list. Artists take one on their page and the account in its settings. JPEG, PNG or WebP, shrunk on your device before upload.
• A project you are done with can be archived from its settings: it leaves the list for a collapsed Archived section, keeps everything, and any member can restore it. Once archived, an owner or admin can delete it from the same settings, files and all.

Links are shareable

Every project and song has a stable address. Anyone with it can listen and read, without signing in, so a link is enough to send a mix to someone outside the account. Editing controls appear only for signed-in members.