Stems

[deathy]

Though it's only a matter of time until separation of mixed down tracks back to multitrack is a reality - the maths for doing it are improving constantly.

[tunecrew]

For legal reasons this idea will not make it. Putting vocals in a separate track makes it easy to "abuse" the vocals for other remixes without paying for it.

Depends on the label and the publishers - a lot of smaller and/or forward-thinking entities will welcome this kind of thing, but the old school big boys will probably be more hostile.

And it still doesn't give anyone the right to actually commercially release a remix using someone's vocals - 99% of people will just do their own mashups / edits / etc

[solkhan]

It would be awesome if existing tracks had this. I don't know about re-purchasing music just for stem capability.

[SlayForMoney]

So, just finished reading the update on Stems at DJWorx site.

Based on answers from NI, every stem.mp4 file will contain 4 mono stems + 1 stereo track. Did I understand it correctly?
You can either play the stems or the stereo track, no switching between them once play is pushed.

[Notanon]

Initially thought it was an early April Fools joke due to the timing of the announcement, but can see this working well with the remix decks and a future Traktor/Maschine compatibility arrangement. I personally suspect the latter will be where Stems and the D2 will shine. Of course, can't really see the likes of Dim Mak et al getting on board initially, but very good potential for some labels like Last Night On Earth and Toolroom Records to get behind this.

[dj matt blaze]

This is catering to the masses not to the so called "pros". The "pros" already have access to the stems which is how they make their remix in the first place. The isolated vocal aka "the acapella " is already out there for just about every other song. There are only going to be 4 stems, 1 being vocals, that leaves 3 others, doesn't really leave a lot considering how may individual tracks make up a song. I guess there will be an entire drum stem of all the drums together, a lead stem, a bass stem and vocals and then whatever they decide needs to be isolated like strings, or rhythm parts but with there only being 4 tracks available it can be limited. If you look hard enough the stems are out there already for a lot of stuff. I have used stems to do what I call a "rework" which is really just doing my own mix of the song only using the stems. There are a couple on my soundcloud. I don't think its anything I would ever use to DJ with, I don't use the remix decks either.

[Daniboy]

I'm not following all the posts in this thread, so I have a question which may have been asked before:

Can you split the stems on 4 different tracks?

I mean, if there is a vocal stem in the mp4 file, how hard is it to get the vocal as an mp3 file?

By the way, I love this stem idea, cutting exacly what you want to cut is just perfect.

[Stewe]

I'm not following all the posts in this thread, so I have a question which may have been asked before:

Can you split the stems on 4 different tracks?

I mean, if there is a vocal stem in the mp4 file, how hard is it to get the vocal as an mp3 file?

By the way, I love this stem idea, cutting exacly what you want to cut is just perfect.

In theory, you could isolate only the vox and record it internally with audio recorder. Then use some converter software to create mp3 file.

[Daniboy]

In theory, you could isolate only the vox and record it internally with audio recorder. Then use some converter software to create mp3 file.

Great, thanks.

[djadrenal]

Can't wait to see new info on the stems feature as there seems to be so much speculation floating around right now