Stem Separation in Logic Pro, Ableton, FL Studio and Audacity (vs an Online Splitter)

If you are new to the idea, what a stem is and how AI stem separation works cover the background. This guide is purely practical: what each app offers and how to run it. Checked against each vendor’s documentation in September 2026.

Logic Pro: Stem Splitter

Version and edition: Stem Splitter arrived in Logic Pro 11 and is part of Logic Pro itself, with no separate tier to buy. Logic Pro 11.2 expanded it from four stems to six, and it remains in the current Logic Pro 12 releases.

Stems: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other. Presets pull out common combinations, such as an acapella or an instrumental, and you can combine any unselected stems into a single submix.

Requirements: a Mac with an M1 or later Apple silicon chip. Logic Pro for iPad has Stem Splitter too, again on M1 or later models. Intel Macs do not get it.

How to split stems in Logic Pro

1. Import the song and select its audio region in the Tracks area.
2. Control-click the region and choose Processing > Stem Splitter.
3. Pick a preset, or tick the stems you want extracted individually. Tick Submix to also export the unticked stems as one combined track.
4. Click Apply.

Logic creates a summing stack under the original track, with one subtrack per stem, and mutes the original region so you can audition straight away. On iPad, tap the region, tap it again and choose Stem Splitter.

Workflow notes: this is the most complete built-in option of the four. Six stems means guitar and piano parts come out on their own, which matters for anyone learning or replacing those parts. The submix option is a genuine time saver: one click gives you a drumless or bassless backing track without bouncing anything. Everything processes on the device.

Ableton Live: Stem Separation

Version and edition: Live 12 Suite, from version 12.3. It is not included in Live Standard, Intro or Lite, so Standard owners need to upgrade to Suite to use it.

Stems: vocals, drums, bass and others. Guitar, piano, synths and everything else share the others stem.

Requirements: Windows or Mac, including Apple silicon. It runs locally with no internet connection needed. Ableton notes that older Intel Macs and Windows machines running on CPU take noticeably longer, and Live 12.4 added GPU processing on macOS 26.4 and later.

How to split stems in Ableton Live

1. Right-click an audio clip in Session or Arrangement View, or an audio file in the browser.
2. Choose Separate Stems to New Audio Tracks (also in the Create menu).
3. Choose High Quality or High Speed, and select the stems you want.
4. Confirm, and each stem lands on its own new audio track.

In Live 12.4 and later you can also make a time selection in Arrangement View and use Separate Stems for Time Selection to process just that section, and Merge to single track combines selected stems, for example everything except the vocal.

Workflow notes: High Quality mode runs dedicated passes for vocals, drums and bass and measures more accurately, so use it for anything you plan to release. High Speed is fine for sketching ideas. Separating a short time selection is ideal for sampling, since you are not waiting on a whole song to grab four bars.

FL Studio: Extract stems

Version and edition: FL Studio 21.2 and later, in Producer Edition and above. Fruity Edition does not include it.

Stems: vocals, drums, bass and instruments. The instruments stem holds guitar, piano, keys, synths and anything else that is not a vocal, drum or bass part.

Requirements: Windows or Mac. The separation component downloads the first time you use it, which needs a licensed copy (trial versions cannot download it). Image-Line documents a way to copy the downloaded files to an offline studio machine.

How to split stems in FL Studio

1. Drag the song into the Playlist as an audio clip.
2. Open the clip menu (top-left corner of the clip) and choose Extract stems from sample.
3. Tick the stems you want: drums, bass, instruments, vocals.
4. Click Extract. The stems are placed on separate Playlist tracks.

Workflow notes: FL Studio 2025.2 added an option in the Extract Stems popup to route each stem to its own Mixer track, which saves setup time when you want to process stems with effects. For beat makers flipping samples, four stems covers most jobs. If you need a guitar or piano line on its own, it will still be sitting inside the instruments stem.

Audacity: OpenVINO Music Separation

Version and edition: Audacity is free, and stem separation comes from the free OpenVINO AI plugins, a separate download from the Audacity website. The plugins target Audacity 3.7.x (3.7.4 or later on Mac), and the Audacity team notes they are not yet compatible with the newest Audacity release, so check before you update.

Stems: a 2-stem mode (vocals and instrumental) and a 4-stem mode (drums, bass, other instruments and vocals).

Requirements: installers are offered for Windows and macOS (Apple silicon and Intel, macOS 12 or later), and Linux users can build from the project on GitHub. Processing runs offline on your CPU, GPU or NPU, chosen in the effect’s inference device setting.

How to split stems in Audacity

1. Install Audacity 3.7.x and the OpenVINO AI plugins.
2. Import the song and select the track.
3. Choose Effect > OpenVINO AI Effects > OpenVINO Music Separation.
4. Pick 2-Stem or 4-Stem, choose an inference device, and apply. New tracks appear, labelled with each stem name.

Workflow notes: the first run on a device takes extra time while the model compiles, then later runs are quicker. A higher shift count can improve results at the cost of proportionally longer processing. If you cannot install the plugins, Audacity’s built-in Vocal Reduction and Isolation effect uses phase cancellation instead; it works on centre-panned vocals and varies a lot from mix to mix. If “Audacity remove vocals” is all you need, the OpenVINO 2-stem mode is the route to take.

Side-by-side comparison

When the DAW is the better choice

Built-in separation is excellent when the song is already part of a project. You split, and the stems sit on the timeline at the right tempo, ready for effects, edits and automation. Nothing leaves your computer, it works on a plane or in a studio with no internet, and there is no upload or file size limit to think about. If you own Logic Pro on Apple silicon, you already have six stems on tap. For producers building a remix, a sample flip or a mashup inside a session, staying in the DAW is the fastest path.

When an online splitter makes more sense

An online splitter such as StemConsole is built for a different situation: you want to hear the parts of a song right now, not start a project.

• No DAW, or not the right edition. Ableton Standard, FL Studio Fruity and Intel Macs do not get built-in separation. The browser needs nothing installed.
• On a phone. StemConsole runs in a mobile browser, so you can split a song at rehearsal and play along from your phone.
• Guitar or piano stems without Logic. Full Separation gives six stems, including guitar and piano on their own, whatever computer you use. See isolate guitar and isolate piano.
• Sharing with a bandmate. Saved sessions and share links let someone else open the split in their browser, with no project file to send.
• Practice. The live mixer lets you solo, mute and balance parts, and Pro adds speed change without pitch change, key change without speed change, named loops, count-in and tap tempo. That is a practice room rather than a production timeline. See slow down a song and loop a section.

On the free plan you get Vocal Remover (vocals and instrumental) and Quick Split (vocals, drums, bass, other), your first split with no account, then 5 splits a month with a free account (up to 2 of them Quick Split), MP3 downloads and no watermarks. Pro is US$6.99 a month or US$49 a year, with a 7-day free trial for eligible users (card required), and adds 6-stem Full Separation, WAV and the practice tools. A US$1.99 credit buys a single Full Separation with no subscription. Uploads can be MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, M4A, AAC or WMA up to 200MB. StemConsole does not import YouTube links, is not a DAW plugin and does not detect BPM or key, so producers will still bring the stems into their DAW for the next step.

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