Extract Stems

Stem separation used to mean desktop software and some patience. Extract Stems puts it in a browser tab. You choose an audio file, pick how many parts you want, and get each one back to play and download. Two stems gives you vocals and instrumental, which covers karaoke tracks, a cappellas and practice backings. Four or six stems split the band further, including a separate drum track.

The homepage has a short licensed example, a 24-second excerpt of a Creative Commons song separated into vocals and instrumental, so you can hear the kind of result to expect before signing up. The site notes that results vary with the recording, which is true of every stem splitter.

Uploads can be MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A or OGG, up to 100 MB and 10 minutes long. Outputs come as MP3, WAV or FLAC, full length. Selecting a file opens an account step first, and the audio is uploaded only after you continue.

A verified account gets five free minutes with no card. After that there's no subscription. You buy minute packs: Starter is $2.99 for 15 minutes, Creator $5.99 for 40, Pro $11.99 for 100 and Studio $29.99 for 300, which works out to between about 20 and 10 cents a minute. Purchased minutes don't expire, which suits someone splitting a few songs now and then rather than every day.

The privacy policy names Replicate as the service that processes audio, Cloudflare for hosting and storage and Stripe for payments. Files are private to your account. Drafts expire after 24 hours and finished results 7 days after completion, when scheduled cleanup removes them, so download what you want to keep. Analytics cookies are optional. Both the policy and the upload page ask you to process only recordings you own or have permission to use.

It suits musicians practicing along with a song, people making karaoke or backing tracks and producers who need a quick a cappella, as long as the source audio is theirs to use.