Stem Separation has been a major part of a few of my important workflows since I started using it about 3 years ago.
I tested about 10 different apps back then.
The one that Audacity uses is by far the best quality of the “free” category. SpectraLayers is expensive but wins first place in my opinion. But for now I only can afford the Elements version that is just Vocals and the Music.
A couple of use cases that make my life better.
Creating midi backing tracks. And removing Mike bleed from live recordings.
How I now create an excellent backing track!
I play gigs as a solo using backing tracks Ive made myself since DrT on an Atari. They have always used midi but I export them to stereo wave for playback.
In the past this required starting from scratch and learning the bass and drum parts. It often required 2 days of work to learn the parts and finish a backing track.
Now I take the original version using YouTube and record it into Audacity. I stem separate and export the 4 Stems.
I drop them into my Daw and first extract a tempo map from the drum stem.
I then use Prism ( the best audio too midi app) to convert the bass stem into midi. Prism now has added drums so I convert the drum stem into midi drums. This is a new toy and simply amazing!
I now have a backing track that is almost identical to the original performance but it is midi not the audio. So Im technically not breaking copyright! Midi keeps the tracks consistent song to song. I can also change the key.
I don’t need the guitar or vocals. Now it takes about two hours at most. I might add a piano or organ. Because of the tempo map the midi can be quantized. Huge time saver as well as deadly accurate version of a cover tune. I am actually playing along with the original drummer and bass player!
So two different tools used, Audacity stem separation and Prism audio to Midi.
Another use case- Mike bleed from live performance!
I had these clients in my studio who insisted on recording their music live and using one LDC Mike. vocals and Acoustic guitar. Well that sounded great but then they asked me after the fact to make some pitch correction with Melodyne to the vocals!
I have Melodyne Studio and I even contacted Celemony. No you can’t do that!
But a person on the Sonar forum suggested I try SpectraLayers and use separation first. They asked for a copy of the track.
He sent back the two stems the vocals and guitar and I was impressed! It sounded clean.
I ended up purchasing it and it has paid for itself 10 times over now. The client were very pleased!
It separated the vocals and the guitar with very minimal artifacts at all. Audacity can’t do that.
I also have used stem separation on drum mikes and especially the overheads to remove the bleeding of guitar, bass and vocals.This really cleans things up.
And like the other two old farts I’ve used it to remix old four track cassette recordings. That’s a gas!
Im hoping for a Black Friday sale on the full version of SpectraLayers. I think it’s included in the full version of Cubase.
I tested about 10 different apps back then.
The one that Audacity uses is by far the best quality of the “free” category. SpectraLayers is expensive but wins first place in my opinion. But for now I only can afford the Elements version that is just Vocals and the Music.
A couple of use cases that make my life better.
Creating midi backing tracks. And removing Mike bleed from live recordings.
How I now create an excellent backing track!
I play gigs as a solo using backing tracks Ive made myself since DrT on an Atari. They have always used midi but I export them to stereo wave for playback.
In the past this required starting from scratch and learning the bass and drum parts. It often required 2 days of work to learn the parts and finish a backing track.
Now I take the original version using YouTube and record it into Audacity. I stem separate and export the 4 Stems.
I drop them into my Daw and first extract a tempo map from the drum stem.
I then use Prism ( the best audio too midi app) to convert the bass stem into midi. Prism now has added drums so I convert the drum stem into midi drums. This is a new toy and simply amazing!
I now have a backing track that is almost identical to the original performance but it is midi not the audio. So Im technically not breaking copyright! Midi keeps the tracks consistent song to song. I can also change the key.
I don’t need the guitar or vocals. Now it takes about two hours at most. I might add a piano or organ. Because of the tempo map the midi can be quantized. Huge time saver as well as deadly accurate version of a cover tune. I am actually playing along with the original drummer and bass player!
So two different tools used, Audacity stem separation and Prism audio to Midi.
Another use case- Mike bleed from live performance!
I had these clients in my studio who insisted on recording their music live and using one LDC Mike. vocals and Acoustic guitar. Well that sounded great but then they asked me after the fact to make some pitch correction with Melodyne to the vocals!
I have Melodyne Studio and I even contacted Celemony. No you can’t do that!
But a person on the Sonar forum suggested I try SpectraLayers and use separation first. They asked for a copy of the track.
He sent back the two stems the vocals and guitar and I was impressed! It sounded clean.
I ended up purchasing it and it has paid for itself 10 times over now. The client were very pleased!
It separated the vocals and the guitar with very minimal artifacts at all. Audacity can’t do that.
I also have used stem separation on drum mikes and especially the overheads to remove the bleeding of guitar, bass and vocals.This really cleans things up.
And like the other two old farts I’ve used it to remix old four track cassette recordings. That’s a gas!
Im hoping for a Black Friday sale on the full version of SpectraLayers. I think it’s included in the full version of Cubase.
