Separate into Stems
Separate into Stems splits a recording of a band into four: Drums, Bass, Vocals and Other (guitars, keys and everything else). Each comes in as a recording lane of its own, so you can hear the bass alone to learn it, mute the guitars to play them yourself, or write tab from one part. It runs on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.
Separating a recording into stems
Available on Mac and Windows. Not on Web.
This isn’t on Web.
Separate into Stems isn’t on the web: the web doesn’t play recordings or run the model it listens with. Open the song in Stab on a Mac, a PC, an iPad, an iPhone or Android; stems made there come with the song wherever its recordings do.
Separating a recording
- Right-click the recording’s lane.
- Choose Separate into Stems. To separate only part of it, first drag along its waveform with ⇧ held to pick a stretch: the item then reads Separate into Stems (the selection).
Separating takes a while, longer on a long recording and on an older device. On an Intel Mac a 4-minute song takes about a minute, and up to ten if its graphics card can’t run it. The pill over the pane counts it out: “Separating into stems: 40 % · Stop”. Click it to stop, or choose Stop Analysis (⌘.)Stop Analysis (Ctrl+.)Stop Analysis (not on Web); the lane’s menu says Stop Separating meanwhile.
When it’s done, the note says “Separated into 4 stems”. Each stem is a new recording lane named after the recording, such as “Live Take – Bass”, starting where the recording (or the stretch) does. When the whole recording was separated, the original is muted, so you hear the stems. It’s one undo step. A recording with sync pins passes them on to its stems, so they play in time with it, even when it’s stretched to follow the tab.
The stems are recordings like any other: mute them, set their volume in the lane’s header, find the beats or write tab from one of them. Their files are kept beside the song, as recorded takes are.
On a take you recorded
Select a take recorded in Stab (tap its waveform) and choose Separate into Stems from the take’s menu (right-click it), the action bar or the Inspector’s Recording section. Its stems become recording lanes that start where the take does; the take itself stays as it is.
Playing along without your part
Put the caret in your own part’s track, then open the recording lane’s menu: it offers Play Along Without the Drums, Play Along Without the Bass or Play Along Without the Guitars and Keys, by the kind of track. It mutes the original and that part’s stem, and plays the others, in one step. A recording not separated yet is separated first: the item says (Separated First), and the note says “Separated: playing along without the bass” when it’s ready.
Hear the Recording Whole Again brings back the original and mutes its stems.
What to expect
The drums and the bass come out cleanest; vocals well; the rest (guitars and keys together) with some bleed from the others. A guitar isn’t split from a piano: both are in Other.
Its model
Separate into Stems listens with the Stems model, a download from the Sound Library. Until it’s on this device, the lane’s menu says Separate into Stems: Get Its Model…: see Model packs.