7 Ways to Use Stem Separation Creatively
From remixing and sampling to rescuing old mixes and experimental sound design, discover seven creative ways to use stem separation in your productions.
While AI-powered music production tools continue to generate plenty of hype, stem separation has already established itself as one of the most useful applications of the technology. Back in the early days of bootlegging tracks or exploring unofficial remixes, the idea of easily separating a single file into its individual stems seemed like a faraway dream. Today, stem separation has evolved from standalone online services into powerful tools, such as StudioVerse Mix Unlock, that work directly inside your DAW.
With the Mix Unlock feature in StudioVerse (released with Waves V17), we’re taking a look into the best ways to use stem separation for modern music production, live performance and sound design.
- Build Sample Packs from Unfinished Tracks
- Sampling and Resequencing Isolated Samples
- Rescue and Remix Live Recordings
- Rebalance Old Mixdowns
- Remixes and Mashups
- Experimental Sound Design
- Deeply Study Reference Tracks
1. Build Sample Packs from Unfinished Tracks
Sometimes all that’s left of a session is a rough mixdown of an unfinished song idea. Maybe you lost interest in finishing it or the original session became corrupted or simply disappeared from your drive.
With Mix Unlock, these lost ideas can become valuable starting off points for new music to be created from. Say there's a long-lost drum sound within one of these tracks that would be perfect for your next project. Simply load StudioVerse Audio Effects onto a track, add Mix Unlock and select the four-stem separation option to access the drums, bass, vocals and instruments individually. This will automatically give you the drums in isolation to export and play with however you see fit.
2. Sampling and Resequencing Isolated Samples
For beatmakers and sample-based producers, stem separation opens up creative possibilities that were previously difficult or impossible to achieve. When sampling, sometimes the drums or keys you’re after are buried amongst a lot of stuff that you’re not after. In the past, this limitation led to innovative techniques in processing, arranging and performing samples that have created entire genres and scenes. Of course, these limitations have their place, but we no longer have to accept them if we don’t want to.
Now any element within your sample is yours to isolate and resequence at your leisure. You may already have a rhythm built up, but it’s missing something. Be it a piano line or a vocal to be chopped, it needs an element that isn’t buried amongst other drums or unwanted layers. No longer do you need to find isolated stems or compromise your sample selection. Mix Unlock the track to get access to isolated vocals or instrumentation to use at your leisure.
For example, isolate a drum groove from an existing track, bounce it as a fresh waveform, chop it into individual hits and rearrange them to create something completely new. Alternatively, extract a vocal phrase or instrumental hook and experiment with its timing, pitch and placement within your production.
3. Rescue and Remix Live Recordings
Capturing multitrack recordings of live performances aren’t always possible, especially when venues lack the necessary recording equipment. Also, a performance that sounded great in the venue might not translate particularly well to a simple stereo recording, leaving you with a really basic static mix that needs some serious attention in post.
Let’s say you've managed to capture a live band performance but you only have a stereo mix to work with. With Mix Unlock, you can easily separate the 4 main band elements allowing for rebalancing and mixing to be done entirely in the StudioVerse window. You can apply effects to different stems, set better levels and improve the overall sound without needing access to the original multitrack recording.
4. Rebalance Old Mixdowns
We've all revisited an old mix only to wonder what we were thinking at the time. Maybe the vocals feel too quiet, the drums lack punch or the bass overpowers everything else.
If you no longer have access to your original project files, stem separation gives you another opportunity to get in and improve your mixes. Like the previous section, utilizing StudioVerse’s ability to stem split means you can rebalance these stereo bounces as if you had access to the essential group mixes in the original session.
5. Remixes and Mashups
The more material you can work with when creating remixes and mashups, the more creative possibilities you have. In the days of vinyl DJing, combining tracks live was largely limited to what worked together when beatmatching records. Digital DJing introduced greater flexibility through features such as tempo adjustment and key matching, making it easier to combine tracks creatively. However, these tools can't solve the problem of unwanted elements clashing within a mix.
Stem separation gives you greater control by allowing you to isolate specific elements without other sounds getting in the way. When working in a DAW, you can extract vocals, drums, bass or instruments from existing tracks and rearrange them to create entirely new remixes. Alternatively, you can export individual stems for use in your DJ sets, combining elements from different tracks to create unique live mashups.
6. Experimental Sound Design
All previous sections have described different ways of using Mix Unlock for different tasks by its ability to successfully separate a mixdown into its fundamental layers. But there is often just as much creative value in the misuse of a tool as there is in using it as it was intended. This begs the question: how do you misuse a stem separator? What is the difference between a mistake and an intentionally creative accident? What unique creative sounds and effects are possible?
Unfortunately, like all experimental art, music or otherwise, this depends on your taste and intent. Meaning your answers will likely be different from ours. However, a good place to start is intentionally trying to trick the stem separator by sending unconventional sounds or instrumentation into it that doesn’t fit into vocals, drums, bass, etc. Playing around with the sensitivity controls and other effects until you find something that sounds exciting to you.
7. Deeply Study Reference Tracks
From the arrangement and instrumentation to the final mix, reference tracks are invaluable for understanding how particular productions achieve their sound. Studying original scores or multitrack recordings can reveal how these elements work together, but for most modern music, these materials are rarely available to the average music producer.
Mix Unlock removes the need for these kinds of materials. Requiring, preferably, only a high-quality stereo recording of the mix in question. This turns stem splitting into a tool for study rather than production. Used alongside other effects such as noise gates, filters and compressors, you can ‘zoom in’ to the instrumentation of a mix for a clear view of the material and how it came together.
Get Set Up and Running with StudioVerse Mix Unlock
Learn how to install and activate StudioVerse Mix Unlock, the StudioVerse Premium feature for real-time stem separation directly inside your DAW. Follow the steps to get started, activate your license, and use Mix Unlock to split any stereo track into Vocals + Instruments or Vocals, Drums, Bass & Instruments.
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