DJ.Studio features a powerful Stem Separation tool that allows you to isolate and separate different elements of a track, such as drums, bass, melody, and vocals.
DJ.Studio gives you complete control over the volume and automation of each layer independently. Whether you're crafting smooth transitions, creating a capellas, or producing mashups and remixes, this tool is an essential part of your creative workflow.
You can use Stem separation during the free trial and it is also included in the monthly subscription, Pro+Stems and the Ultimate license.
How To Activate Stem Separation
Activating Stem Separation features is easy, and only takes a few steps.
Open DJ.Studio.
Open the Settings menu.
Go to the Extensions Tab
You will now see the Stem Separation extension, click Download. It will download and install Core AI & Stem Separation.
After the extension is installed, you will need to restart DJ.Studio, or use the Reload function from the top menu.
Stem separation is now activated.
Stem Transition Editor
If you are in DJ mix mode, you can enable Stems in the transition window
Let's start by looking at the Stem Transition Editor.
Open the Studio View of a DJ mix project.
Put the playhead in one of the blue transition windows.
Make sure the Transition Tab is selected via the tabs at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the Stems transition category from the list. (Equalizer/Effects/Stems/My Presets) or press the stems button with the 4 lines in the top right corner of the transition window
You will now see 4 colored sub-lanes on each track, in the transition window. There are also buttons on each track to mute the various stems.
Drums - Contains the drums and percussion. (Green)
Bass - Isolates the bassline. (Yellow)
Melody - Captures the melodic and harmonic layers, like synths, guitars, keyboards, and other instruments. (Red)
Vocals - Contains a pure isolation of any vocal elements in the track. (Blue)
There are stem transition presets in the TRansition tab at the bottom of the screen:
None - Stems are not used for the transition
Crossfade - All stems are crossfaded, with a slightly longer fade for drum stems.
Swap - The stems of track 1 stop in the middle and the stems of track 2 start in the middle
Full - Stems are used, but no fades are applied in the transition
Manual- the default setting, enabling you to draw volume automation lines per stem directly in the transition window stem lanes.
Click and drag the points on automation lines to change the volume and length of each stem's transition.
Tip: When editing volume automation points per stem, click the Z button or the Zoom tab at the bottom of the screen for maximum visibility.
Add stems to a track outside of a transition
To add stems to a track outside of the transitions:
Click “Show Stems” on a full track to view the stems. This doesn’t split the track yet, it just shows you the waveform view per stem
Select a part in the right stem lane by dragging the mouse and choose “Mute Selection” to actually mute the stem.
OR add volume automation points per stem and drag the automation line down for more detailed changes.
When you play the music, the audio will be generated so you can hear the track with that specific stem muted.
Convert Track to Acapella and Instrumental
With DJ.Studio, you can easily split a full track into an acapella or instrumental version, allowing for even more creative flexibility in your mixes.
Click on the track you want to edit in the timeline.
Make sure the waveform view is selected
Right-click on the header of the track or in the track itself.
From the menu, select one of the following options to isolate the desired elements:
- Save as acapella : to extract the vocals of your track
- Save as instrumental to extract the instrumentals of your track, which includes, drum, bass and melody.
- or Split acapella and instrumental to split the main track and replace the main track with only the Instrumental part of the track and put a separate vocal sample in the sample lane.
Wait for the process to finish.
The separated samples will appear in your sample library. Click on the 3-dots behing the name of the sample to open the Sample details. Click the download button to export these files to your machine for use in other projects or remixing sessions.
If you want to export the vocal or instrumental including beatgrid, you can better use the Stems 4 Ableton feature in the Library when you right mouse click on a track.
Create Acapellas with Vocal Isolation
DJ.Studio’s Stem Separation technology also allows you to isolate vocals from any part of a track to create a new acapella sample. This is perfect for mashups, remixes, or using vocal slices creatively within your mix.
Highlight any section of the track by holding Shift and clicking on the desired portion.
Right-click the highlighted section and select Copy Vocals.
This action will generate a new audio sample in the Sample Lane containing the isolated vocal elements.
You can then copy, move this sample anywhere on the timeline, and apply automated effects to enhance your mix.
Create Samples from Any Audio Layer with the Stem Separator
The Stem Separator allows you to create samples from any audio type, making it a fun and creative tool for crafting unique remixes, mashups, or isolated samples from specific track layers.
Highlight any section of the track by holding Shift and clicking on the desired portion.
Right-click the track and choose one of the following options:
Copy Drums – Isolates the drums and percussion in the selected section.
Copy Bass – Isolates the bassline.
Copy Melody – Isolates melodic and harmonic elements, such as synths, keys, guitars, and other instruments.
This will create an audio sample on the Sample Lane based on your chosen element.
You can then edit this in full detail with the sample lane editor.
Mute stems
During mashups, you sometimes want to swap the vocal with another vocal or a drum with another drum. DJ.Studio has an amazing button for this, called MS - Mute Stems. This feature will automatically mute the related stem from the original track.
Muting stems works like this:
Select a piece of a track while pressing the Shift key.
Choose which stem you want to copy. For example, the vocals (HQ).
The audio will be split and you will see the stem appear in a sample lane.
Drag the sample to the right location in another track.
Click the MS button in the sample to mute the vocal in the original track.
Adding Automation to Individual Stems
If you want to apply advanced stem effects to a specific stem , follow these steps:
Click Option on your keyboard, and drag the stem that you want to automate to the sample lane.
Select the sample
Open the Effects tab
Click on a EQ or other type of effect to add an Automation line or Effects block
Click in the automation line in the sample to automate that part of the stem.If a Effects block was created you can extend it by grabbing the automation lines at either side of the effects block.
Adding Automation to Individual Stem in a part of the track
This is how you can add automation to an individual stem in a part of the track:
Select a piece of a track while pressing the Shift key.
Choose which stem you want to copy. For example, the vocals (HQ).
The audio will be split and you will see the stem appear in a sample lane.
Select the sample
Click MS to Mute the stem in the orginal track
Open the Effects tab
Click on a EQ or other type of effect
Click in the automation line in the sample to automate that part of the stem.
You can also check out this video to see how it works.
Do not use Stem blocks for this, as the will not allow you to add automations for the 4 stems within the stems block.
Example Mashups
Here are two short examples that show how I mashed up two tracks:
Discover the magic of merging classic and modern music in this mashup of ABBA's "Gimme Gimme" and a contemaporary Melodic Techno track Milkshake.
See how the party can go through the roof with Dolly Parton and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
In this webinar you can also see some cool mashups of 6 totally different tracks, showing you how you can redrum tracks and how to do wordplay.
Frequently asked questions about Stem separation
How can I mute explicit words and create a clean version of a track?
In the near future, we come with an AI transcription extension where we can automatically mute the naughty words. For now you can mute explicit words using stem separation:
Right mouse click on the track in the Studio
Choose Split Acapella and Instrumental
The audio will be split and you will see the vocal appear in a sample lane.
Select the Acapella sample
Click on the V on your keyboard to add a Volume automation
Add 4 automation points to the Volume automation line.
Bring the Volume of the vocal down by dragging the white volume line down between the second and the third volume automation point where the explicit word is used.
This video shows you how you can mute explicit words.
Why can't I use vinyl mode transitions when using stems?
Since DJ.Studio 4.0, stem separation is also supported in vinyl and beat slice mode.
What is a normal stem generation speed?
The speed of stem generation depends on the type of machine you have and if you have CPU or GPU enable at Settings > Extensions > Core AI > GPU hardware acceleration.
| CPU | GPU |
Mac | 0,5-2 speed | If Silicon ( M1/M2/M3) : |
Windows | 0,5-2 speed | NVDIA GPU 6-80 speed |
What stem separation models does DJ.Studio 4.0 use?
DJ.Studio uses the highest quality stem models available, to give you the highest quality, but they might take a bit longer to process.
4 stems: htDemucs
HQ stems: MDX'23 for Vocal
HQ stems: MDX'23 for Instrumental