Guide: What Is Stem Splitting & How Does It Work?
Jun 2, 2025
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Tero Potila
Stem splitting lets you isolate vocals, drums, bass, and other instruments from a complete audio track. This opens up new creative options with your favorite songs.
Maybe you want to remix, sample, make karaoke versions, or learn how tracks are built—stem splitting puts this powerful tool at your fingertips.
Another scenario where stem splitting can be a lifesaver is if you get a request for stems from a project from many years ago, and back then, you didn’t print stems. You’ve tried to open the DAW session, but after many rounds of software and hardware upgrades, it no longer works.
This has happened to me more than once, and stem splitting gave me the tools to deliver what the client still needed.
Stem splitting has only recently become widely available. It can be a big time-saver when prepping projects or live sets.
But what I personally like most about it is that it allows you to study your favorite song in detail.
Of course, it’s preferable to have the original stems, but AI-powered splitters let you start experimenting with just the finished track.
Whether you’re a producer or a DJ, stem splitting is a tool you’ll want in your workflow.
Understanding Stem Splitting
Stem splitting breaks down a full music track into its core elements. This process is essential if you want to remix, analyze, or isolate specific instruments or vocals from mixed audio files.
What Is A Stem?
Before we discuss stem splitting, let’s clarify the term stem. I hear it used incorrectly all the time! Stems are not the same as the individual audio tracks of a composition.
Stems are audio files that combine groups of audio tracks containing musical elements from individual tracks, like bass, guitar, drums, keys, vocals, etc.
For example, you might export stems for guitars, where all acoustic and electric guitars are together in one stereo audio file. Or a stem for drums. If you export a single electric guitar track, that’s not a stem.
What Is Stem Splitting
Stem splitting separates a combined audio file into individual stems.
When you use a stem splitter, a specialized tool analyzes the audio and pulls out each stem. That means you can work with each part instead of just the finished song.
This method is handy for remixing, mastering, or recovering parts from songs when you don’t have the original project files. As I said, stem splitting has often been a lifesaver in my own music production for reworking songs or tweaking vocals without the original multitrack session.
It’s also great for learning how different elements interact in a mix. Sometimes you just want to hear what’s going on underneath it all.
How Stem Splitting Works
Stem splitters use advanced algorithms—often powered by AI—to analyze and separate the parts inside a mixed audio file. The process looks at frequency ranges, timbres, and spatial cues to tell vocals, instruments, and noise apart.
Most popular splitters can pull out 4-5 stems, usually giving you files for vocals, drums, bass, other instruments, and background music. Once the tool finishes, you get separate audio files for each stem, so you can mute, solo, or process them however you want.
Even if all you have is a finished MP3 or WAV, you can still recover useful elements for covers, mashups, or just learning how a track was made.
Types of Stems
Stems are grouped audio tracks that represent specific parts of a song.
Some of the most common types of stems you might see:
- vocal stems (lead vocal, backing vocals, harmonies)
- drum stems (kick, snare, hi-hats, percussion)
- bass stems (bass guitar, synth bass)
- instrumental stems (guitars, keyboards, synths)
- effects stems (effects, background noise)
When you have access to the individual stems, you can focus on just the lead vocal or strip out the drums for an a cappella. They make it simple to study or rework a specific group of sounds in the audio file, giving you a lot of creative flexibility as you mix and produce.
AI and Advanced Technologies in Stem Splitting
AI is the latest technology that has truly changed the game for stem splitting. Music producers and engineers now have precision and flexibility that weren’t possible before.
These tools use cutting-edge algorithms and machine learning to extract stems from mixed audio fast and with surprising accuracy.
AI Stem Splitting Overview
AI stem splitting lets you extract stems from fully mixed tracks. Solutions like AudoShake’s award-winning AI, Gaudio Studio, and other web tools use sophisticated models to analyze and separate audio parts.
You don’t need the original multitrack files to do this. Just upload a mixed track and get clean, usable audio stems in minutes.
AI splitters are available as web platforms, desktop software, and plugins. They’re incredibly convenient for any workflow.
Key benefits? They save time by automating the process, working on studio and live tracks, and supporting many audio formats and use cases.
Deep Learning and Neural Networks
Most advanced AI stem splitters rely on deep learning and neural networks. These technologies use complex layers of math to find patterns in audio, which helps them tell vocals, drums, and bass apart.
Neural networks are also continuously improving with more data—they learn from thousands of tracks, so accuracy keeps getting better.
Standard machine learning methods include convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs). These methods are good at picking up not just static features but also how music changes over time, which helps with cleaner separation.
Recent Advances in Algorithms
In the last few years, algorithms for stem splitting have improved a lot. Better training data, innovative models, and faster processing now deliver stronger results, even with tricky or noisy audio.
Products like Gaudio Studio and other advanced tools keep improving as they’re updated with the latest AI models. These new algorithms push the boundaries of stem separation.
Popular Stem Splitting Tools and Software
You’ve got many options for stem splitting, from online AI platforms to solid offline software and DAW tools. Key differences are price, supported formats, and audio quality, so it’s smart to know what you need before choosing.
Best AI Stem Splitters
AI splitters like LANDR Stems, LALAL.AI, and Splitter AI lead the industry for user-friendly options.
LANDR Stems comes with their Studio package, while LALAL.AI offers both paid and free trial versions. The resulting quality depends on the algorithm, and many tools support bulk processing and WAV output.
Offline Stem-Splitting Tools
Offline tools offer more privacy, power, and features not available with web-based services.
Logic Pro 11 has a built-in splitter and strong support for stem editing.
iZotope RX is famous for its de-echo and repair tools, which help you get cleaner stems from tough audio.
Serato Sample builds stem-splitting right into your workflow, which is handy if you’re already using it with your DAW.
Offline tools usually work better for big projects or sensitive material since you’re not uploading tracks to the cloud.
DJ Applications
Stem splitting provides endless possibilities for DJs as it gives you the ability to separate stems from music tracks.
Stem splitters can be a game-changer for how DJs prep and perform, as you can now have access to separate stems from full tracks, making it possible for a whole new level of customization of your DJ set during live performance.
Audio Quality and File Formats
Audio quality is essential if you’re working on a professional production. Tools like iZotope RX and LANDR Stems allow you to export high-res WAV files, keeping as much detail as possible from the original.
Most top stem separators now support exports in multiple formats, but WAV and FLAC are favorites for pro editing since they’re lossless. AI-powered tools sometimes add artifacts, but model improvements have helped reduce those issues.
I recommend looking for software that lets you select models or tweak settings, allowing you to choose between speed and quality.
Creative and Practical Uses for Stem Splitting
Music Production Techniques
Stem splitting gives you more control and a lot more creative freedom in music production.
By separating stems, you can swap out instruments, tweak arrangements, or experiment with effects on a vocal or guitar stem for a fresh twist.
When you use high-quality stem separation tools, you don’t have to worry about manual separation that can leave artifacts or mess up the sound. You just pull out clean tracks and see how far you can push things in your DAW.
I have one crucial piece of advice: always consider the legal side of things. If you plan on releasing your music commercially or doing stem splitting for content creation, for example, to use in your YouTube videos, never use elements from music someone else owns without permission!
Either license the music so you have the rights to use it, or study the stems and specific elements and create your own original tracks, inspired by your influences.
Conclusion
In the end, stem splitting is one of the best tools to come out in recent years that you can add to your audio production toolbox.
Whether you want to learn about the production in your favorite song, create karaoke tracks, isolate an acoustic guitar, or analyze a vocal track, these advanced AI algorithms allow you to learn from and examine every element in a mix.
Even independent artists and content creators can now access precise stem separation. The creative possibilities are endless—from unique mixes and better DJ sets to taking your music production skills to the next level.
About the author
Tero Potila is a professional music composer and producer. His career combining knowledge and experience from music, TV, film, ad, and game industries gives him a unique perspective that he shares through posts on teropotila.com.
