How to Choose the Best Vocal Stem Separation Tool
Vocal stem separation has quietly become a core technology across music production. Whether you're remastering a track, mixing in spatial audio, or
But with so many tools now offering “vocal removal” or “stem separation,” how do you know which ones are worth using?
This guide breaks down what makes a good vocal stem, how to evaluate separation quality, and what creators, audio engineers, mixers, and other professionals, look for in a model.
What Makes a Good Vocal Stem?
At its core, vocal separation means pulling the voice out of a fully mixed track—removing drums, bass, guitars, and everything else. The result should be a clean, isolated vocal that sounds natural and usable on its own. But that’s not always what you get, with some tools they leave behind remnants of the backing track or confuse effects from other instruments like guitar as a vocal stem.
A good separation tool handles that—cleanly, consistently, and across genres.
How Is Vocal Isolation Quality Measured?
There are two primary ways to assess a separation tool:
- Perceptual listening tests – Do the vocals sound full and realistic? Are there any artifacts or instrument bleed? This is often the best way to understand how the model will hold up in a real project.
- Objective benchmarks – The most common metric in stem separation research is SDR (Signal-to-Distortion Ratio), which measures how much interference or distortion remains after separation. Higher scores indicate cleaner output.
While SDR has its limitations—it doesn’t always align perfectly with human perception—it remains one of the most useful tools for comparing performance across models. In recent third-party evaluations and internal benchmarks, AudioShake’s vocals model has delivered best-in-class SDR scores and perceptual quality across difficult use cases, from vintage recordings to reverb-heavy pop tracks.
Can You Hear It Before You Commit?
If you're exploring tools for your own projects, the best approach is often just listening. Some platforms let you upload a track and preview stems directly, giving you a sense of how the model handles your particular audio.
AudioShake Indie is one option that offers this. It’s a browser-based tool that uses the same models trusted found across other platforms like AudioShake Live or AudioShake API.
This kind of hands-on approach is one of the best ways to evaluate quality—especially if your music has challenging characteristics like layered instruments, live reverb, or subtle backing vocals.
What Are the Professionals Using?
AudioShake’s vocal stem separation is used across some of the most demanding environments in the industry. Major labels like Universal Music Group, Disney Music Group, and Warner Records use AudioShake to separate vocals from legacy recordings, remaster catalogs for sync, and create clean stems for remixes and archival preservation.
All of these use cases—whether high-volume studio workflows or precision-focused archival projects—run on the same core vocal model found in AudioShake Indie. The exact same separation technology that powers professional tools is available for creators to try out and use on individual tracks.
So whether you’re isolating vocals for a sync opportunity or building the next big music app, you’re working with the same trusted, industry-grade audio foundation.