• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Stem separation tools: Spleeter vs Moises vs Demucs

C

Cerio

Apr 7, 2006
191
386
Spain
#1
I've been trying out three stem separation tools, designed to separate a complete mix into its different instruments.


Some comments about the some advantages and disadvantages of these three tools:

Spleeter: one of the first projects of this kind, initially developed by Deezer, who generously decided to release the code. It is the engine used by most of the paid online sites that offer this service, of which there are many.
Advantages: Free and open source, without any limitations. Offline, it can be used locally by computers without internet connection.
Disadvantages: Difficult to use, although it can be used without installing anything (the instructions are on Github), most people find command line programs too difficult to use (however for Windows users there is a version with a graphical environment and everything necessary already installed called Spleeter GUI).
GitHub - deezer/spleeter: Deezer source separation library including pretrained models. > Official website
SpleeterGUI | Maken It So > Version with graphical environment for Windows

Moises: originally an implementation of Spleeter designed to facilitate is use for musicians, they created a web service as an online interface service for Spleeter, and then they added some extra features (chord detection, automatic tempo, tempo and pitch modification, etc...), Modifying some parameters of the algorithm as well. Better known among the community of musicians than Spleeter, because they have invested money in promoting themselves mainly through youtube channels.
Advantages: ease of use, modern interface, musician-oriented, useful additional features, mobile versions.
Disadvantages: not free, cloud service, for online use only.
App Moises: la aplicación para músicos | Elimina voces y más

Demucs: another open source project which, to me, offers in its version 3 a slightly higher quality than Spleeter / Moises.
Advantages: free, open source and without limitations, quality of the results, offline processing, no internet access required to work.
Disadvantages: difficult to use, another command line program that requires the installation of Phyton interpreters, requires a powerful machine, otherwise it is slower than Spleeter.
GitHub - facebookresearch/demucs: Code for the paper Hybrid Spectrogram and Waveform Source Separation
 
  • Like
Reactions: devnulljp, Krisfield, seamonkey and 1 other person
#3
great post. I have enjoyed Moises so far I plan to export a big playlist of all the songs I love jamming to onto a playlist one day soon. I have exported the stems into my DAW and it all works fine. There is always going to be some weirdness in the tones but overall it is effective.
 
#5
Question for anyone who's used these stem separation tools: Can they reliably separate out drum tracks completely from the other stems?

I have an album project of original pop music from the 1980s that has gone unreleased for these past ~37 years because they were recorded with an awful sounding drum machine. After the album was mixed I took a long look in the mirror and finally told myself "These tunes are cool but those drums sound like ass" and shelved it.
Now, given the apparent resurgence in popularity of all things 80s as well as the evolution of technology to allow for stem extraction from stereo mixes, I'm wondering if maybe it isn't time to revisit that project.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Patrice B
#7
Bob_Ross said:
Question for anyone who's used these stem separation tools: Can they reliably separate out drum tracks completely from the other stems?

I have an album project of original pop music from the 1980s that has gone unreleased for these past ~37 years because they were recorded with an awful sounding drum machine. After the album was mixed I took a long look in the mirror and finally told myself "These tunes are cool but those drums sound like ass" and shelved it.
Now, given the apparent resurgence in popularity of all things 80s as well as the evolution of technology to allow for stem extraction from stereo mixes, I'm wondering if maybe it isn't time to revisit that project.
Click to expand...
The only way to find out is to try it for yourself. The results depend on a lot of factors, including the quality of the recording and the mixing of the tracks.
 
#8
Just tried Moises on my iPad with files I bought for the kid’s choir in my school. I already have access to all the tracks separately but just wanted to compare with the job done by Moises.

Quite impressive! Not for a chirurgical and clean separation but enough to be able to hear the bass line isolated.

A few years ago, I searched for an instrumental for a Christmas show and had to rely on the old trick of out of phase and EQ thing with less than stellar results. Such a quantum leap in my opinion!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back