Getting into stems late, dead in the water?

I started with a pair of Technics in 1988, never used CDJs, went straight to DVS with Final Scratch, then Traktor in 2007, then added Serato around 2015. Played with various kit over the years.

I knew about stems when they came out but never really messed with them, then I watched a mate DJ with a very minimal setup, just a pair of F1s and a mixer with built in sound card about 3 years ago.

He played a wicked set using stems and live remixing, had the crowd eating out the palm of his hand! Music was almost all disco or house classics. I spoke to him about it afterwards and he said about using the stems format and that he makes his own stems files by sourcing multitracks online and then creating the stems file to use in his sets.

Well, I recently really wanted to try this so bought a cheap s4 mk1 and an F1. After about a week of looking in forums and on the general state of Stems these days it seems that sadly not much has moved on and NI don't promote it. I have tried using various new software (NUO Stems is the one I tried to make an M4a file) but no matter what I try I can't seem to make my own stems. The resulting M4A file, when pulled into Traktor, just says "Stem Track Not Analysed".

I'd love to be able to use this in it's full functionality and I am looking around for another F1. Thinking ahead to summer 2022 to use the winter to learn it and start playing out with stems next year.

Probably all been said before and I know there are alternatives like the AI mixing tool in DJay Pro but I'd like to stick with Traktor if possible... any thoughts?

 

I haven’t nuo-stems app but the ones I create with 5€ iOS app called “Let’s unmix!” work on the “19,99€ for 5 years subscription” DjPlayer app without any issue. For building ones with own material you will NI need stem-creator tool or dedicated apps such Algorridim one (afaik…) but the message error you got maybe it’s related to analysis options in nuo-stems itself. It can add NI song data to the new stem creation but it could require previous Traktor analysis maybe.
Try to analise the song with Traktor first and then route that folder into nuo-stems (and brimg feedback please,I’m also interested)

Related to NI and stems who knows… maybe they implement something with this technology over their own stem format (it’s doable as we know) and try to revitalise Traktor… or maybe not possible for actual code or not interesting for NI… Let’s see what 25 years anniversay brings and make your numbers but I’m doing what you are asking for nowadays on my iPhone SE (1st gen) and my iPad mini 4 (2015) not realtime but each stem file gets less than five minutes to be created. I can use any class compliant controller so none from NI (maybe mk2 and s2/3 mk3 could be possible since these seem to be class compliant and have midi mode not tied to native access but I was referring to F1/D2…)

That’s the reality ATM, let’s hope it gets improved for Traktor users…

 

I have the NI Stem Creator app. I haven't tried it yet, but I think that's the way to go to create the combined stem file.

 

That’s what I said.

 

Sorry, missed that. Well, it's been said twice, so now they know doubly. or something.
But I agree with you mutis, NI should get on this.
I think the technology is maybe not quite there yet, since stem separators seem to get better with every year. I'm using RipX now, its kind of good, and then I've used lalal.ai for splitting vocals and instrumentals to good effect, and I've tried pretty much every splitter. They're getting better, as I say, but they still have pretty prominent artifacts.
For something like old Disco tracks, you get heavy artifacts that make everything sound like very old mp3 files pretty quickly. I haven't tried the DJ software that has built in stem separation, but I'm not confident I'd like using that.
I suspect that such software, if it becomes popular, might create pressure for legally released stem files based on master tapes. But I think that'd need a few more years.
In the mean time, we'll be using a lot of flanger and phaser to mask those artifacts

 

I was considering getting ripx but atm using “let’s unmix” iPad app. My goal is more related to covers than remixes so I want these split to rearrange and reharmonize but I’m still figuring which player use (DjPlayer vs Hardware multitracker since there isn’t a standalone dj unit out there doing none if these, realtime or just loading NI stem.file) and next summer is still ahead (aside family issues and covid struggling) so maybe I’m working for 2023 (¿?) I dunno…

Anyways there’s a gap for sure in the market but not sure if related to djing or to karaoke to be fair. I’m more in the second than the first because djs using this kind of technology are at Ableton/Force or Djay/Vdj.

:/

 

I've used the STEM creator app to generate my own custom stem files - it works fine ...

 

Xtrax stems splits tracks and exports traktor ready stem files.

Its what I’m trying out at the moment. Doing everything manually quickly gets tired, now I want to build a base of maybe 100 stem files, don’t want to spend too much time initially. So a one-stop app is quite attractive.

It’s not the best for remixing, its a bit muddier than say lalal.ai for acapellas, but its at leas equal, if not better than neural mix. And when I compare to RipX, I can’t make up my mind which split I prefer. But its early days yet.

 

Check nuo-stems…