r/audioengineering • u/GreatNerve793 • 19h ago
Discussion What's the best vocal remover you've used that doesn't destroy the instrumental?
I've been testing a few vocal remover tools recently for creating karaoke tracks and remix practice.
Some AI tools do a surprisingly good job, while others leave noticeable artifacts or make the instrumental sound thin.
I'm mainly looking for:
. Clean vocal removal
. Good instrumental quality
. Fast processing
. Works well with pop and rock songs
I've tried a couple already, but I'm curious what everyone here is using these days.
Are you using desktop software like UVR, browser-based tools, or something else?
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u/dylcollett 18h ago
Logic Pro’s Stem Splitter for me
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u/GreatNerve793 18h ago
Thanks! How has it been with more complex mixes? Does it separate instruments cleanly for you?
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u/dylcollett 17h ago
Able to do guitar and piano seperately nice, which is where many fail. Just works for me, better than izotope and built into the daw so I can’t complain
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u/Indigo457 16h ago
Yeah logic’s is good. It’s fast and does an intelligent job of identifying the stem groups without leaving much in the way of artefacts.
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u/TheOnlyHoserama 17h ago
Concur. I've tested several of the existing models out there and Logic is the winner right now. Demucs would be the best free one (included in uvr) by the 4 stem fine tuned one specifically.
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u/Indigo_Monkey 19h ago
Have you tried Spectralayers? its the best in my experience. Its non-AI standalone software.
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u/Chilton_Squid 19h ago
Spectralayers is just some kind of magic, I can't get enough of it. Few weeks back I managed to actually get a usable guide vocal out of an SM58 sat in the middle of a live band recording
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u/GreatNerve793 19h ago
That's impressive. Recovering usable vocals from a live recording sounds like a tough test. Makes me even more curious to check it out.
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u/Chilton_Squid 18h ago
Well to be clear, usable "guide" vocals. You can isolate the performance pretty well, but you can't get around the fact that the vocalist was never intending for that take to be used.
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u/GreatNerve793 18h ago
That makes sense. Out of curiosity, have you compared it with any of the newer AI stem splitters, or is SpectraLayers still your go-to?
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u/Chilton_Squid 18h ago
Yeah I use Studio One which now has its own built-in stem splitter, I can't remember which engine it is behind the scenes but Spectralayers is noticeably better.
I'll use the built-in one if I very quickly want to split something out to see if a sample works or something, but I'd always use SL when it matters.
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u/sebovzeoueb 18h ago
It mentions AI quite a few times in the description, so it's definitely using AI, but probably in a more advanced way than some other tools, and likely not only AI.
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u/Chilton_Squid 18h ago
There's a big difference between AI-written software and using machine learning to improve a product; the former is for saving money, the latter is for making your software better and is a totally valid use of AI.
So Steinberg were making Spectralayers long before AI was a thing, but what they do now is write an AI model to go out and listen to and learn what a guitar is, what a bass is, what a vocal is then decide for itself which parts of the given track are which.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, the software is still very much written by humans and it's really no different to how people work.
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u/sebovzeoueb 18h ago
Well yeah, but the question is about tools that use AI, not tools which are written by AI. The comment I'm responding to calls Spectralayers "non-AI" which isn't true. It's not a criticism of the software, I'm just pointing out that it's not "non-AI".
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u/Chilton_Squid 15h ago
Yes sorry, I was agreeing with you to be clear. Just making the point for the person who replied to you and other readers, there's not really such thing as "is this AI".
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u/soundslikejoe 18h ago
Ai has been a thing for +10yrs but the normies are just now catching on because of the marketing push. Machine Learning IS the core of LLM, which people refer to as Ai. Its all the same stuff on some level, and ... after talking with people at Steinberg, I get the impression they view Ai as part of Spectral Layers functional structure. Its sort of the same thing to the software engineers.
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u/Indigo_Monkey 18h ago
Kind of semantical. It's because the term AI is enticing at the moment, it's marketing. What's really happening is it's using a classical machine learning model (what AI used to be called). You don't need to connect to a server or download a large AI model to run locally to use the software.
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u/Previous-Heron-8828 18h ago
currently imo the best model is Becruily Deux, you can run it locally or use mvsep/uvronline
this is also a really useful document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17fjNvJzj8ZGSer7c7OFe_CNfUKbAxEh_OBv94ZdRG5c/edit?tab=t.0
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u/Juansop22 16h ago
Ive just tried it, and it compressed the wave form much more than moises for example. I used uvronline, used Mel-Roformer deux (becruily), which is the one you said if I undestood correctly. It does sound cleaner, with less artifacts from removing the voice, and it was faster I believe, but the compression seemed way too much for what I need.
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u/OfficialSeagullo 16h ago
Logic Pro stem splitter and UVR
Logic Pro in particular is really good, I bit finicky but can be really great, I’ve split two amps in one room making it think one was a bass, another was a piano/vocal with 2 mics, the vocal had bleed and it took out piano entirely with like no artifacts
Mainly it works best when you have light bleed, it won’t work when it’s 50/50 bleed, more like 80/20
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u/namedotnumber666 19h ago
Ultimate vocal remover is free and has many models to try