Remix an AI Song with Stems: Karaoke, Acapella and More

Quick answer: To remix an AI song with stems, split the finished track into vocals, drums, bass and instruments, then mute, solo or rebalance each part. Mute vocals for a karaoke or instrumental version, solo them for an acapella, mute drums for drum practice, and export your mix as WAV or take the stems into a DAW. On MusicVivo, paid plans do this from the library's Stems & mixer button at no credit cost; expect a little bleed, because the stems are AI-separated.

This guide is for anyone holding a finished AI song who wants a different version of it: a singer who needs a backing track, a drummer who wants to play the drum part live, a creator who needs the vocal quieter under a voiceover, or a producer who wants to rebuild the track in a DAW. All of those start from the same four files.

You will learn what stems are, what each common remix needs, how the MusicVivo stem mixer works, how to move stems into a DAW, and where AI separation reaches its limits so you can plan around them. The songs themselves come from the AI music generator; everything after generation happens in the mixer.

What stems are, and what four of them give you

A finished song arrives as one stereo mix: every voice and instrument combined. Stems split that mix back into groups. MusicVivo separates a song into four:

The fourth stem is often labelled "other" in separation tools, because it holds everything that is not voice, drums or bass. In a piano ballad it is mostly piano; in a synth-pop song it is the synths and pads together. It cannot be split further.

Played together at their original volumes, the four stems sound like the original mix. Every remix below is just a different combination of mute, solo and volume.

Karaoke and instrumental versions

The most common remix: mute the vocal stem, keep the rest.

For karaoke, pair the instrumental with the song's lyrics on screen. Every MusicVivo song comes with a synced .lrc file, which tells a player or video when each line is sung; what is an LRC file explains how to use it. The lyric video feature can also put those lines on screen over the song.

For an instrumental, the muted-vocal version keeps the exact arrangement the vocal was sung over, which matters if you need a backing track for a live singer or a bed under a voiceover. The alternative, regenerating the prompt with vocals set to none, gives a new composition in the same style rather than the same backing. The AI instrumental music guide covers that route when you do not need an exact match.

Keeping a guide vocal

Singers learning a song often want the vocal there but quieter. Instead of muting, pull the vocal stem down to around a quarter of its original level. You can still hear the melody to follow, but your own voice sits on top.

Acapella: solo the vocal

Solo the vocal stem to hear the voice alone. Uses include:

• Checking pronunciation and lyrics word by word, without instruments masking consonants. If something sounds off, lyrics-to-song pronunciation shows how to spell words so the next render sings them right.
• Remixing: placing the vocal over a new beat in a DAW, at the same tempo.
• Learning harmonies in backing vocals, which are easier to pick out without the band.

Expect a soloed vocal to sound a little thinner and less polished than a studio acapella. Reverb tails, cymbal traces and small glitches are more audible when nothing covers them. Over a new beat, those details mostly disappear again.

Drum practice: mute the drums

Drummers get a full band arrangement with an empty seat. Mute the drum stem and play the part yourself, with bass, chords and vocals still guiding the form.

1. Pick a song in your style

   Generate or choose a track with a steady tempo. Note the BPM you set in the prompt.

2. Split and mute

   Open Stems & mixer, mute the drums, and leave the bass up; it is the part you lock in with.

3. Export the practice track

   Export the mix as WAV so you can play it from any device or practice app.

4. Check against the original

   Solo the drum stem to hear what the original groove did, then play your own version.

If you would rather start from a track that never had drums, making backing tracks for drum practice covers drumless prompts, tempo ladders and count-ins. Muting the drum stem is the better choice when you already have a song you like and want to play along to that exact arrangement.

Bass players can do the same with the bass stem: mute it, keep the drums loud, and play the root notes the original part outlined.

Rebalancing a mix

You do not have to mute anything. Small volume changes solve common problems:

These are starting points, not rules. Two habits help:

Turn things down rather than up. Raising one stem makes the whole mix louder and can push it into distortion. Lowering the others gives the same balance with headroom.

Compare against the original. Return all stems to their original levels now and then, and listen for whether your change actually helped.

A typical case is spoken content. A vocal song under a voiceover fights the speaker, because both occupy the same frequency range. Pulling the vocal stem down, or muting it, clears space without losing the song's energy; music under voiceover goes deeper on levels and ducking, and the AI music workflow for content creators shows where a rebalanced mix fits in a regular publishing routine.

Using the MusicVivo stem mixer

Stems are available on paid subscriptions (Starter, Creator and Pro), not on the Free plan. Splitting a song costs no credits.

1. Open the song in your library and press Stems & mixer.
2. Wait for separation. It takes about as long as the song: roughly three minutes for a three-minute track. It runs once per song.
3. Mix in the browser. Each stem has mute, solo and volume. Press play to hear all four together, in sync.
4. Export. Download your current mix as a WAV, or download each stem as an MP3.

The WAV export is your mix exactly as you set it, as one file. It is the format to use when the result goes into another program, because each extra MP3 encode costs a little detail; AI music exports explains why one master and one final export is the safe workflow. Plan details are on the pricing page.

Taking stems into a DAW

For anything beyond mute, solo and volume, download the four stem MP3s and open them in a DAW such as Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic or Reaper.

1. Set the project tempo to the BPM you used when generating. BPM and key in AI music explains why the prompt tempo is the number to trust.
2. Import all four stems onto separate audio tracks with automatic warping or time-stretching turned off.
3. Line them up at the same start point. They are the same length and start together, so they should stay aligned.
4. Remix. Add your own drums over a muted drum stem, filter the instruments for a breakdown, put effects on the vocal, or cut sections into a new arrangement.

The process is close to working with any mixed audio file; exporting AI beats for DAWs and videos covers grid alignment, clean loop points and cutting for video in more detail.

Worked example: one song, four versions

Source: a three-minute pop-rock song at 120 BPM with a female lead vocal, made on a paid plan.

Version 1, karaoke. Mute vocals, export WAV, play it with the .lrc lyrics on screen.

Version 2, guide track for a singer. Vocals at about 25 percent, everything else at full level, export WAV.

Version 3, drum practice. Mute drums, keep bass at full level, export WAV, practice along.

Version 4, DAW remix. Download all four MP3 stems, set the project to 120 BPM, keep the vocal, replace the drums with a new pattern and filter the instruments in the verses.

One separation, which took about three minutes and no credits, produced all four.

Honest limits of AI-separated stems

Knowing the limits up front saves time.

Bleed. A trace of one part can remain in another, because the separation model works out each part from the finished stereo mix.

Artifacts. Soloed stems can have small watery or phasey sounds where parts overlapped in the mix. Played together, they mostly cancel out.

Not the original multitrack. The stems are estimates, not the separate recordings a studio session would produce.

No MIDI. You cannot change individual notes or swap instrument sounds inside a stem.

Four groups only. Everything that is not vocals, drums or bass shares the instruments stem.

Dense mixes separate less cleanly. A sparse song with a clear voice, a simple drum part and one or two instruments splits more cleanly than a wall of distorted guitars and layered synths. If you know in advance that you want a karaoke or practice version, a prompt with fewer, clearly different instruments gives the separation an easier job.

People also ask

What are stems in music? Stems are separate audio files for groups of parts, such as vocals, drums, bass and everything else. Together they add up to the full mix, and changing them lets you make new versions.

How do I make a karaoke version of an AI song? Mute the vocal stem and export the rest. On paid MusicVivo plans, Stems & mixer does this at no credit cost, and the .lrc file puts the words on screen.

Are AI-separated stems as clean as the original multitrack? No. Expect slight bleed and occasional artifacts when a stem is soloed. They are fine for karaoke, practice and most remixes.

Can I get MIDI from stems? No, stems are audio. Some separate tools try audio-to-MIDI conversion, but MusicVivo provides audio stems only.

Do stems cost credits on MusicVivo? No. Stems are included on paid subscriptions at no credit cost and are not available on Free.

Related reading

• AI Music Exports: Audio, LRC Lyrics and Cover Art
• How to Make Instrumental Music with AI
• Making Backing Tracks for Drum Practice
• Exporting AI Beats for DAWs and Videos
• Setting BPM and Key When Generating AI Music
• What Is an LRC File? Synced Lyrics Explained
• How to Make a Lyric Video for YouTube, TikTok and Reels

Product and company names mentioned in this article are trademarks of their respective owners. MusicVivo is an independent product and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by any of them. Comparisons are based on publicly available information at the time of writing; check each provider's own site for current features, pricing and terms.