How To Get High Quality Acapellas Of Anything

I’m sure by now you know all about real-time stems separation in DJ software – tap a button and you get acapellas and more from any track.

But what if you don’t use one of the better DJ platforms that do a good job of this (or you happen to use Traktor, come to that, which has yet to add real-time stems at all)? Or what if you use standalone gear that, again, doesn’t have the option?

And what, if truth be told, you would much rather have normal acapella files in your music collection that you know sound great, all prepared ahead of time, to play in your DJ sets like any other files? (After all, that’s exactly how the pros do it.)

More than just DJing…

Come to that, what if getting the acapella is just the start of it for you? What if you then want to use acapellas, drums or whatever from your tracks as samples, or in a DAW, or for remixing/re-editing and so on? And most important of all, what if you just want the best quality possible, which is never going to be easy when forcing your DJ software to create them for you “on the spot”?

Read this next: Acapella & Stems – Prepare First, Or Use Real-Time Features?

For all of these reasons, preparing acapellas, instrumentals and other stems way before you need them in dedicated software is definitely a thing – and so in this guide, we show you the main options you’ve got, from pricey, to budget, to free.

The truth behind stems programs

Some of the companies don’t really want you to know this, but the actual work of separating tracks into vocals, drums, basslines, melodies and more is done by clever “demixing” algorithms, that are nearly always open source, ie free.

First there was one called Spleeter, from the makers of Deezer, the streaming platform. The next big step was Demucs, originally from Meta, which has now reached Demucs v4 and is a considerable step forward from Spleeter.

However they’re packaged up, most stems systems use such algorithms (most nowadays use Demucs), so what you’re paying for is what they add on top. Just be aware of that, especially when services want to charge you a subscription for what they do.

Our Favourites For Extracting Acapellas & More

These four we have used, taught our students here at Digital DJ Tips with, and are happy to recommend. Towards the end we talk through other options, with a few to avoid. Other tools are definitely available, but we’re sticking to what we know, as ever, to share what we think are the best choices out there right now.

RipX DAW & RipX DAW Pro

Hit ‘n’ Mix’s RipX DAW and RipX DAW Pro are unique because, while RipX has decent stems separation (it doesn’t advertise its algorithm, but we suspect it is based on Demucs like most of the rest here), it has a unique “piano roll” view of your tracks, which gives you an unparalleled ability to tweak your results across the six stems it offers.

You can edit note by note, treat stems audio as Midi, further process individual notes or note types, clean and repair audio, and more – although some of the more complex features are only in the Pro version.

Yes, it can output stems like the rest, but equally, you could feasibly load a whole song into it and remix it there and then. This one definitely blurs the boundaries between stems separation and remixing, and is the paid-for option we recommend to students in our How To Mix With Acapellas (& Stems) course.

For: Mac & Windows
Price: $99/$198
More info: Hit ‘n’ Mix website

Stemverter 3

This is a slick desktop app that uses the Demucs v4 engine to create high-quality stems quickly and easily, in batches if you wish. It can output acapellas and instrumentals, or go deeper with drums, bass and melody stems too.

It can output WAV, AIFF or MP3s, and it has a “speed” vs “quality” button, the latter taking four times longer but resulting in better sounding stems – there’s no reason you wouldn’t always use it set to “longer”, otherwise the results will be no better than any real-time stems separation, ie your DJ software.

For: Mac
Price: $79
More info: Stemverter 3 website

Nuo-Stems v3

Another Demucs v4-powered desktop app, this one’s unique selling point is that it can not only produce instrumental and acapella stems that you can use in any software, but it can also output special .stems.m4a versions of your tracks that can be used directly in Traktor.

Traktor has had the ability to play stems files for many years – but they have to be special pre-prepared files (ie Traktor doesn’t process stems in real time like all other DJ software nowadays). Long story short: Got Traktor? Get this, process ahead of time, and use stems like in other DJ software. It has lots of other tools Traktor users will love, too.

For: Mac & Windows
Price: $34
From: Nuo-Stems website

Ultimate Vocal Remover v5.6

This option is 1. free, 2. high quality, and 3. for those who love rolling their sleeves up and getting stuck in! Even installing it entails you jumping through a few hoops with permissions and so on (at least, it does on a Mac), and once you’re in there, you get none of the ease-of-use of the slicker, paid-for packages.

But once you’re past the learning curve, what you do get is the ability to tweak the output like nothing else, selecting from all the Demucs algorithms, offering other methods of separation like MDX-Net, and accessing algorithm “recipes” that you can experiment with to get the best results.

It can batch process songs and output as few or many stems as you wish, depending on your needs, normalising them too if you like. This is the free option we recommend to students in our How To Mix With Acapellas (& Stems) course.

For: Mac, Windows & Linux
Price: Free
From: UVR website

Other ways to obtain acapellas & stems

In this article, for the reasons stated at the top, we’ve so far looked at software you can download and install, usually on a Mac or Windows computer, dedicated to helping you separate your stems ahead of time to then use in your DJing like normal acapella files, etc.

Most can batch process for you, but all give you better quality than most DJ software can achieve, not least because DJ software has to do this in real time, whereas these programs take longer.

However, DJ software nowadays – when used on a powerful computer – gives good, sometimes excellent, results (VirtualDJ, Djay Pro and Serato especially). You could also use DAWs that can do this (FL Studio can do it; Serato Studio/Serato Sample too). Broader audio processing tools such as Spectrasonics 10 and iZotope RX10 offer stems separation, or “demixing,” as the pros like to call it, too.

The only ones we’d avoid are the websites that try to get you to subscribe or buy minutes, such as lalal.ai (they’re affiliate-driven and poor value, as remember, their actual tech is based on free algorithms), and the original standalone stems program, Neural Mix Pro from Algoriddim (Mac only), which is simply out of date (as it still uses Spleeter separation), long superseded by better models.

Finally…

Real-time stems – the ability to simply tap a button on your DJ controller and get an instant acapella, instrumental, drum track and more – are a revolution. Given the right DJ software and a powerful computer, you may not want or need anything more than this.

Go here next: Which DJ Software Stems Sound Best?

But if your laptop is not up to it, or you want better quality or more control over the process, you want to use the stems for more than DJing, or you’re a Traktor user feeling left out of the party, there’s a standalone stems extraction tool for you, and hopefully this article has helped you to pick the right one.

Remember, we’re here to help, so add any questions (or give us your recommendations) below – and if you want to know how DJs use acapellas, stems and more, check out our popular How To Mix With Acapellas (& Stems) course.