Free Stem Splitters, Compared Honestly

A stem splitter pulls a finished song apart into its parts: the vocal, the drums, the bass and the other instruments. A few years ago that needed expensive studio software and still sounded rough. Today free tools do it well enough for karaoke tracks, practice tracks, acapellas for remixes and clean dialogue under a video.

They are not all free in the same way. Some are free with no limit but need a computer; some are free online but cap you at a few songs a day or two to four stems; some are free trials that ask you to pay before you can download. We make Autunes, which has its own paid splitter, so we list the free options first and are plain about where ours fits. Free tiers change often, so check each tool's own page before relying on a limit.

Summarised from each tool's own pages and app listings, November 2026:

UVR is a free, open-source desktop app that runs the same kinds of separation models many paid services use. It has no account, no upload and no song limit, because everything happens on your own machine. The trade-off is setup and speed: you download the installer from the project's official GitHub page, choose a model, and wait. On a laptop without a graphics card a four-minute song can take several minutes per model.

How to use it, in short:

BandLab is a free music-making app, and its Splitter takes a song you import and gives you two stems (vocals and everything else) or four (vocals, drums, bass and other). It runs in the browser and in the app, so it is the easiest free option if you only have a phone. The limits are the catch: BandLab has described a cap of a couple of splits a day on the free tier, and guitar and piano are not separate stems.

Moises is built for people who play. The free plan separates vocals, drums and bass and wraps them in practice tools: chord detection, a metronome, and speed and key changes. If you want to mute the bass and play it yourself, it is excellent. More stems, more songs and higher-quality separation are on its paid plans.

LALAL.AI is a specialist separation service known for clean results and a long list of stem types, from vocals and drums to strings, synths and wind instruments. It sells processing minutes, and a split into several stem types uses more minutes than the song is long. The free allowance is best treated as a quality test. See its pricing page for current packs.

The tool matters less than the file you give it. A few habits make a bigger difference than switching apps:

Free tools start to hurt in three situations: when you need guitar and piano as separate stems, when you split many songs a week and the daily limits get in the way, or when the split is only the first step and you want to keep working on the song.

That third case is where Autunes fits. Autunes is a song maker first. Its splitter sits in the same Studio where you make songs, add an instrument layer, remix into a new genre, re-sing a line and make a lyric video, so a split is one step in a project rather than a file you carry between apps. It gives six stems, including guitar and piano, usually in about a minute for a four-minute song, and failed splits are refunded.

It costs 5 credits a song on Pro (₹599, about US$7, for 300 credits) or Creator (₹2,999, about US$36, for 1,600 credits). Plans are passes and do not renew on their own. Uploads take MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A or OGG up to 50 MB and 10 minutes, and you confirm you own the audio or have the rights to it.

Every splitter, free or paid, works on any audio you give it. Splitting a film song to practise at home is one thing; publishing its acapella or karaoke track on YouTube or Instagram needs the rights holder's permission and can get your video muted or removed.