How-to guide
How to remove drums from a song
Removing drums from a finished song used to mean EQ tricks that also gutted the bass and vocals. AI stem separation does it differently: a neural network listens for the drum kit and pulls it out of the mix, leaving the rest. This guide walks through doing it with DrumSplit, what to expect, and where the result can fall short.
What you get
DrumSplit takes one song and returns a ZIP of 24-bit WAV files:
- Music: the song with all drums removed (this is the file you want)
- DrumBus: all the drums together
- Kick, Snare, HiHats, Toms, Cymbals: each kit piece on its own
So removing drums is one of seven outputs. If you only need the drumless track, ignore the rest. If you later want to hear just the kick, it is already there.
Step by step
- Pick the best file you have. A WAV or FLAC rip, or a high-bitrate MP3, gives the model more to work with than a low-bitrate download or a file ripped from a video. DrumSplit accepts MP3, WAV, FLAC and AIFF (the upload box also accepts OGG and M4A), up to 100 MB and 8 minutes per track.
- Open drumsplit.io and drop the file in. You do not need an account to pay for a split.
- Choose a mode.
- Natural suits live or acoustic drums and most general material.
- Puncher adds transient emphasis and is aimed at EDM, hip-hop and pop with heavily compressed drums.
- Direct skips the first stage and is for audio that is already just drums. It is not what you want for removing drums from a full song.
- Pay for the split. One split is $0.99. Packs bring it down: 10 for $4.99, 50 for $14.99, 150 for $29.99. There is no subscription and the site says splits never expire. There is no free split on the site at the moment, so the first one costs the single-split price.
- Wait a few minutes. The separation runs on a GPU in the cloud. Most songs come back in a few minutes.
- Download the ZIP and open the Music file. Your results stay in My Splits for 24 hours, so download them before then.
Tips that change the result
Start with the best source. Compression artifacts in a low-bitrate MP3 sit right where cymbals and vocals overlap, and the model has to guess. Better input, cleaner output.
Match the mode to the drums. If the song has a tight, compressed drum machine, try Puncher. If it has a kit played in a room, Natural. If the first result sounds off, running the same song in the other mode costs another split, so decide using the genre before you pay.
Listen to the cymbal range. Cymbals and hi-hats are long, noisy and spread across the same frequencies as vocal sibilance and guitar fizz. This is where you are most likely to hear a faint shimmer left behind, or a slight dullness in the other instruments. Soloing the Music file and listening on headphones tells you quickly.
Check the quiet bars. Drum removal is easiest to judge in sections where the drums drop out or sit low. If you hear pumping or watery artifacts there, that is separation residue, not a problem with your playback.
Do not stack processing first. Run the original, unmastered-for-streaming file if you have it. Do not normalize, limit or convert to a lossy format before uploading.
What separation cannot do
- It cannot make a perfect file. The drumless track is a reconstruction. Expect occasional faint leftovers or small artifacts, especially on dense mixes, and tracks where the drums share a sound with another instrument (a synth kick under a bass, a clap layered with a vocal chop).
- It cannot recover what was never there. If the original mix has the drums baked into a sampled loop with other instruments, the other instruments may be partly removed with it.
- It will not fix a bad recording. Heavy room reverb on a live recording will leave a ghost of the kit in the Music file.
- Percussion that is not a kit is a judgment call. Shakers, congas and tambourines may end up in either file.
Alternatives, honestly
- Moises is a practice app with phone apps, tempo and key controls and a drum stem. It is subscription based; check its plans page for current pricing and what the free trial includes.
- LALAL.AI offers a drums option that its own guide describes as a single track, with plan pricing on its site.
- Demucs is free and open source, runs on your own computer, and is a good option if you are comfortable with a command line and want a drum/no-drum split. It gives you one drum stem rather than separate kit pieces.
- A DAW's built-in stem separation is convenient if you already live in that DAW.
DrumSplit's difference is the pay-per-song model and the individual kit stems alongside the drumless file. If you want one drumless file once in a while, a pay-per-song tool avoids a subscription. If you separate every day, compare the per-month cost of a subscription against pack pricing.
Legal note
A drumless version of a commercial recording is fine for private practice. Publishing or distributing it still needs the rights holder's permission.
FAQ
Does it work on MP3s? Yes. Higher bitrate files give cleaner results.
How long does it take? Typically a few minutes per song.
Can I remove the drums from a YouTube video or streaming track? You need an audio file you are entitled to use. Download or capture the audio yourself first, then upload it.
Can I keep the bass and vocals? Yes. The Music file keeps everything except the drums.
Is there a free version? Not on the site currently. A single split is $0.99.
What if it sounds wrong? Try the other mode on the same song, or use a higher quality source.
Try DrumSplit
Upload a song to the drum splitter & drum stem separator and get 7 files: kick, snare, hi-hats, toms, cymbals, a drum bus and the music without drums. From $0.99 per split. No subscription. Purchased credits never expire.
Try DrumSplit