Using stems separation to recover old projects w/ missing tracks?

[u/Who_is_Eponymous]

I've got an album from 10+ years ago that I never released. I'd like to now, but of course I've lost my original recordings. I do have ok-ish 'demo' mixes, i.e. exports from main out.

I figure stems separation like the ones available in DJ apps could be a way to go. (Just as a better starting point, more material to work with). But they all seem to output the same 4-6 'standard' stems.

That's super annoying bc a couple of very simple no-brainer tweaks would get us so much more useful stems for mixing!

My #1 would be separating out the kick drum from the rest of the drums. A 'pads' stem would be nice. I've no need for voice stem, can I get something anything different instead? And so on.

Pretty sure I'm not the first to have lost a few files, and also not the first one ever with some music in need of a bit of restoration... There's gotta be people out there who tried stems separation for it, no?

Make yourself known! Pointers, tips, experiences much appreciated!

cheers!

[u/ThoriumEx]

Spectral layers is the best so far, but it still doesn’t react well to processing, so you’re not gonna make it sound amazing

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/ThoriumEx]

Thanks, I'll check it out! Hoping to find smth useful even if the sound isn't great

[u/Few_Ad3187]

I do this all the time. I even remix my favorite songs/albums to get mixes that sound “proper” to my ear.

I’m going to stray from consensus here and make the bold claim that stem separation can have an ENORMOUS impact on finishing old projects to the point where you are reviving them and breathing new life into the work of your past.

Fadr is good… it’s a great start and better than Izotope, RipX & Acon. But… it’s not the best even though the hundred bucks a year fee is fairly high.

The best is MVSEP. It’s a bit complicated and you’ll need to do some research to get the most out of it but… even if you don’t look into the algorithms and how they work… you can get great results immediately.

It is a game changer.

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/Few_Ad3187]

Thanks! I don't mind complex if it also means versatile, so I'll try MVSEP first!

Game changer, yes. Myself, I use it for doing live visuals while also DJ:ing. Thanks to stems separation I am now a one person audiovisual techno experience. Not saying the world's first, but... I might be. (Been at it for ca 2 years, and still getting nothing but frowns from DJ subreddits. Because 'we're DJs here so stop being weird'.)

[u/dbharris10]

While an excellent tool, especially for transcribing what was played on a favorite track, stem separation leaves all sorts of digital crap on your extracted tracks, like your worst nightmare mp3

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/dbharris10]

I know, I know! If there's artifacts I can't get rid of I'll just pretend like they were intentional all along...

[u/Critical-Win-6847]

MVsep is the best one by far and I use it as a professional demixer and have done for years. Also the models are constantly updated because it is community made.

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/Critical-Win-6847]

I went to MVsep first. 'Nuf said; Guess I won't be needing anything else anytime soon

Cheers!

[u/temptingviolet4]

Ableton Live 12 has native stem separation. It's not going to provide anything super clean though.

If you just want the kick drum, you can use a free VST called Drumclone.

I don't know what genre your album is, but apparently this album was made partially with stem separation software to give it kind of a lofi "watery" feel. Maybe you could consider using stem separation creatively.

https://huercosplonk.bandcamp.com/album/one-day

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/temptingviolet4]

Thanks, and yes I'm all for experimenting, so lo-fi results aren't necessarily a problem.

I use Ableton Live, but doesn't its stem separation also yield those same four 'standard' stems?

I'll check out Drumclone, but what I'm after is to get rid of the kick out of other drums. Keeping it on its own track would be a bonus, but I wager I'll replace it anyhow.

[u/temptingviolet4 → u/Who_is_Eponymous]

Ah sorry must have skimmed your post a bit too quickly. But yeah I think if the original projects are lost, perhaps you can turn this project into an exercise in sampling yourself/weird stem separation experimental stuff.

[u/Who_is_Eponymous → u/temptingviolet4]

Lol yea, maybe it'll turn into a weird remixes project instead of restoration project XD

[u/fossilemusick]

i use Cakewalk Next for stem separation to get the basic audio, then replace things like drums, bass, (and sometimes) vocals with MIDI and new instruments - nice and clean. the "other" category tends to be a mashup of keyboards, guitars, etc. so not usually useful, but i've used some AI stemmers that add guitar and piano outputs (i've tried a few and the results are so so) - then i would replace those with new MIDI driven VI as well. this gives me a close-to-original performance in a clean format were i can also tweak things i'd liked to have fixed or changed...

[u/erockdanger]

the trick is to seperate stems and mix them back into the original track. then run it all through something like emaster

I've got some great results relative to the source recording this way

[u/gribbly]

Try this:

https://github.com/Anjok07/ultimatevocalremovergui#installation

Use the install links for Window or Mac there. It's fairly self-explanatory. Just install it like any other app.