Best Stem Splitter in 2026: 10 AI Stem Separation Tools Compared

Looking for the best stem splitter? A stem splitter AI takes a finished song and estimates its parts, such as vocals, drums and bass, as separate audio files you can mute, solo or remix. Dozens of tools do it now, and they differ more in stem count, price model, file limits and privacy than in the basic idea. We compared ten of them: five online services, three free open-source tools and the stem separation built into two DAWs. Below you'll find a comparison table, a short review of each, what to look for, the best pick by use case and a quick way to test any splitter on your own song.

Stem splitter comparison table

The best stem splitters, reviewed

VoiceFinch stem splitter: four stems in the browser, pay per minute

Our stem splitter splits a song into four stems: vocals, drums, bass and other instruments, where guitar, piano and synths share the other track. You can choose a file and preview it for free. Splitting needs an account and costs 20 credits per started minute of audio with a 2-minute minimum, so a 3:30 song uses 80 credits. Files can be up to 50 MB and 10 minutes long. You play and download each stem on the page or later from your generation history, and if a split fails the credits are refunded automatically. The file is uploaded to our server and an AI model provider and used only to process your request.

Two related tools use the same engine and price: the vocal remover gives you vocals and an instrumental, and the drum remover gives you a drumless track plus the drums. It's not the right pick if you need separate guitar or piano stems.

LALAL.AI: the widest set of instrument stems

LALAL.AI lists stems for vocals, instrumental, drums, bass, acoustic and electric guitar, piano, synthesizer, strings and wind, plus a lead and backing vocal splitter. The free Starter plan includes 10 minutes on its Relaxed Queue and a 200 MB upload limit. Lite costs $90 a year and Pro $180 a year (shown as $7.50 and $15 a month), with 90 and 250 Fast Queue minutes a month, unlimited Relaxed Queue and 2 GB uploads. One detail matters for budgeting: minutes are counted as file length times the number of stem types you pick, so a four-minute song split three ways uses 12 minutes. It also offers desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux, iOS and Android apps, and a VST plugin on the Pro plan.

Fadr: a free four-way split with MIDI

Fadr's free plan splits a song into vocals, melodies, drums and bass, with MP3 downloads, MIDI detection and a remix maker. Fadr Plus costs $10 a month or $100 a year and raises the stem count to 18 types, including lead and backing vocals, kick and snare, piano, acoustic and electric guitar, wind and strings. It also adds 32-bit WAV downloads and raises the upload length from 10 minutes to an hour. It's a strong free starting point if MP3 quality is enough for you.

Moises: stems plus practice tools

Moises runs in the browser and as desktop, iPhone, iPad and Android apps. It says it can separate 27 stem types, including vocals, guitar, bass, drums, piano, keys, winds and strings, and pairs separation with practice tools such as a chord finder, a speed changer and lyric transcription. The free tier gives a limited number of uploads each month with a select set of features; full plan details appear on its pricing page after you sign in. It suits musicians who want to learn songs as much as remix them.

Lalals: the most detailed drum split

Lalals lists 23 stem types, the most granular drum split in this roundup: kick, snare, toms, hi-hat, crash and ride, alongside male, female, lead and backing vocals and rhythm, solo, electric and acoustic guitar. It accepts MP3, WAV, MP4 and other audio and video files, plus YouTube links, exports WAV and supports batch processing. On its pricing page, the free plan splits 2 stems, Plus (from $9.99 a month billed yearly) up to 4 and Pro (from $16.99 a month billed yearly) all 23.

Demucs: the open-source reference model

Demucs v4, the Hybrid Transformer model, splits songs into drums, bass, vocals and other as 44.1 kHz stereo WAV files, or MP3 with a flag. An experimental six-source model adds guitar and piano; the README rates guitar as okay and warns that piano has a lot of bleeding and artifacts. It's MIT-licensed and needs Python 3.10 or newer. On a GPU it wants about 3 GB of memory at minimum and about 7 GB with default settings; on a CPU it takes roughly 1.5 times the length of the song. In the README's benchmark the fine-tuned v4 model scores 9.0 dB SDR, against 5.9 for Spleeter. The author is no longer actively developing it, so expect slow replies to issues. Our guide on how to remove drums from a song has the exact commands.

Ultimate Vocal Remover: Demucs and more, with a GUI

Ultimate Vocal Remover (UVR) is a free, MIT-licensed desktop app for Windows 10 or later, macOS Big Sur or later (Apple silicon and Intel builds) and Linux. It bundles several model families, including Demucs v3 and v4, MDX-Net, the VR architecture and MDX23C, so you can try different models on the same song. The Windows installer includes Python and PyTorch, so there's no command line. GPU conversion needs at least an NVIDIA GTX 1060 with 6 GB, and the project recommends an NVIDIA card with 8 GB or more. It's the best free stem splitter if you're happy to install software and have the hardware.

Spleeter: fast, but showing its age

Deezer released Spleeter in 2019. It offers 2-stem (vocals and accompaniment), 4-stem (vocals, drums, bass, other) and 5-stem (adding piano) models under the MIT license, and claims its 4-stem model runs about 100 times faster than real time on a GPU. Newer models separate more cleanly, as the Demucs benchmark above shows, so Spleeter mainly makes sense for batch jobs and developers who need speed.

Logic Pro Stem Splitter: built into Logic on Apple silicon

Logic Pro's Stem Splitter extracts vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other parts. Guitar and piano arrived in Logic Pro for Mac 11.2, announced by Apple in May 2025, and the feature needs a Mac with an M1 or later chip. Control-click an audio region and choose Processing > Stem Splitter; a submix option combines the stems you don't tick into one track, which is handy for drumless or vocal-free versions.

Ableton Live 12.3: stem separation in Live Suite

Ableton Live 12.3 added stem separation to Live Suite, splitting audio into vocals, drums, bass and others with algorithms from Music AI. It runs locally, so it works without an internet connection, and offers High Speed and High Quality modes. Right-click a clip or file to separate stems onto new audio tracks. It's only in the Suite edition, which has a 30-day free trial.

What to look for in a stem splitter

1. Which stems, not just how many. Four stems cover most remixing and practice. Guitar or piano work needs six or more, and drum editing benefits from kick and snare stems.
2. Quality on your music. Benchmarks report SDR (signal-to-distortion ratio, in decibels; higher is cleaner), which is useful for comparing models. Your own song matters more, so listen for bleed: hi-hats in the vocal, vocal ghosts in the other stem.
3. The price model. Per started minute (ours), minutes multiplied by stems (LALAL.AI), subscriptions (Fadr Plus, Moises, Lalals) or free if your own hardware does the work (open source).
4. File limits and formats. Check the maximum length and size, and whether downloads are WAV or MP3. Fadr's free plan, for example, is MP3 only.
5. Speed. Cloud tools are quick without a strong GPU. Local tools depend on your computer.
6. Privacy. Online tools upload your file. Demucs, UVR, Logic Pro and Ableton Live process it on your own machine, which matters for unreleased music.
7. Workflow. If you live in a DAW, built-in separation or a plugin saves round trips; if you don't, a browser tool needs no setup.

Best stem splitter by use case

• A quick four-stem split with nothing to install: our stem splitter, paid per minute with credits.
• Karaoke and covers: a two-stem split from the vocal remover.
• Drumless practice tracks: the drum remover, or the Logic Pro submix.
• The most instrument stems online: LALAL.AI, Fadr Plus, Moises or Lalals.
• Free and private: Ultimate Vocal Remover for a GUI, Demucs for scripts, both best with a capable GPU.
• Already in a DAW: Logic Pro on Apple silicon, or Ableton Live 12.3 Suite.
• Learning songs with chords and speed control: Moises.

How to test a stem splitter on your own song

Marketing samples are chosen to sound good. A five-minute test with your own music tells you more:

1. Pick the hardest 30 to 60 seconds, usually the final chorus where every instrument plays.
2. Use the same lossless file in every tool you compare.
3. Solo each stem and listen for bleed: cymbals in the vocal, a ghost of the singer in the other stem, bass leaking into the drums.
4. Sum the stems back together in our free audio mixer. If the sum sounds like the original, nothing important went missing.
5. Check the downloads: format, length and loudness should match what your project needs.

Planning a remix? Drop all your stems into the BPM & Key Finder to check their tempo and key at once, or read our guides on how to find the key of a song and how to find the BPM of a song.

How to split a song into stems with VoiceFinch

1. Choose your song. Open the stem splitter and pick an audio file up to 50 MB and 10 minutes. You can preview it in the browser first.
2. Start the split. Sign in and start AI separation. The button shows the price before you start: 20 credits per started minute, with a 2-minute minimum.
3. Play and download. Vocals, drums, bass and other each appear as their own track. Download them here or find them later in your generation history.

Stems and copyright

Splitting a song doesn't change who owns it. The composition and the recording keep the same copyright, and every stem you pull out is covered by it. Practicing with music you own is the low-risk case; publishing a remix, an edit or a sample usually needs permission from the rights holders. Only upload music you have the rights to use. This is general information, not legal advice.