How to Practice Your Instrument Along with Stems

One of the best uses of stems has nothing to do with remixing. If you play bass, guitar, drums, or sing, you can take your own part out of a song and play it yourself with the rest of the band behind you.

The basic idea

Upload a song you want to learn, let it split into stems, and mute the channel for your instrument. Everything else keeps playing, so you get a backing track made from the real recording, not a generic one.

By instrument

• Bass players: mute the bass stem and lock in with the drums. This is a good way to work on feel and timing, since the kick and bass are meant to move together.
• Guitarists: mute the guitar stem and play the parts yourself. If the song has both rhythm and lead guitar, check the "other" stem as well, since some parts can land there.
• Drummers: mute the drums and play along to the bass, guitar, and vocals. It is a great way to practice keeping steady time when you have no click track.
• Singers: mute the vocals for a karaoke-style backing track, or keep them quiet in the background as a guide while you learn the melody. Our guide to removing vocals has more.

Learn parts by ear

Soloing a stem is also a way to hear what a player is doing. Solo the bass to catch the exact notes, or solo the drums to work out a fill. Hearing the part alone is much easier than trying to pick it out of a full mix. Then alternate: listen to the isolated part, play it yourself, and then play along with the full band.

Slow it down

A hard passage is easier to learn at a slower speed. Lower the tempo until you can play it cleanly, then gradually speed it back up. Use a tempo control that keeps the pitch the same, so the song stays in tune with your instrument while it slows down. Stemline's mixer has a tempo control and a key lock for this.

Change the key to suit you

If a song sits too high for your voice or in an awkward key for your instrument, shift the pitch by a few semitones until it feels comfortable. Moving a song down a step or two is a common way for singers to find the right range.

A simple practice routine

1. Listen to the full song once, paying attention to your part.
2. Solo your instrument's stem and learn the tricky sections slowly.
3. Mute your stem and play along at a slower tempo.
4. Bring the tempo up in small steps until you reach the original speed.
5. Finish by playing the whole song through with your stem muted.

Tips for better practice tracks

• Expect a little bleed. You may hear a faint trace of your instrument in the other stems. That is normal and comes from the separation process, as described in how AI stem separation works.
• Use a clean source file. A WAV or high-quality MP3 gives better results. See getting cleaner stems.
• Take notes. Write down the sections that gave you trouble so you can come back to them.

Sheet music and tab

If you want to see the notes as well as hear them, Stemline101 offers sheet music and tablature as a Premium feature, built from the separated stems.

Ready to practice? Split a song in Stemline101.