When you want to cover a song and no official backing track exists, you are a bit stuck.
And practising with the original vocal still in there, fighting your own voice, is awkward — anyone who sings, or streams, has run into this at least once.
This is where stem separation turns out to be very handy indeed. You can pull the vocal out on its own, or take the vocal away and keep only the backing.
So this time: how to actually make a backing track for a cover, and a few small tricks for getting it as clean as possible.
Three steps, and that is the whole job
You need no specialist knowledge and no heavy software. With a browser-based tool, this takes almost no time.
Step 1: get the audio file ready. This matters more than it looks — starting from the best quality you have, WAV or a high-bitrate MP3, is the trick for ending up with less noise later.
Step 2: drop the file onto the page. The AI splits the song neatly into parts — vocals, instruments, drums and so on.
Step 3: when it finishes you have a vocal-only file and a backing-only file with the vocal gone. Pick the track you want, download it, and your backing track is done.
A few notes and tricks for a clean result
The technology has come a long way and the results are far cleaner than they used to be — but depending on the song you can still be left with a sort of "afterimage" of the vocal, or a distinctive watery, swishing artefact.
When that happens and you want to push the quality a bit further, there are two things worth trying.
Trick 1: shave a little off the top for leftover backing vocals
The first is backing vocals and harmonies. The lead vocal comes out cleanly, but harmonies spread out to the left and right can linger in the backing. To get rid of them properly, taking a small amount off a specific high band with an EQ works well.
Switching back and forth between the vocal-only track and the backing-only track while you adjust, until it sounds most natural, is another good way to work.
Trick 2: let your own voice blend it in
The second one is easy to miss: put your own voice on top and let the backing blend in. A backing track with a little noise you notice when it is playing on its own very often stops being noticeable at all once your vocal is mixed over it.
Rather than obsessing over the sound of the backing track by itself, judging it by the overall balance once your voice is on it is the trick that actually works.
In short: go and cover the song you gave up on
Even for songs with no official off-vocal release, stem separation will get you a surprisingly clean instrumental with surprisingly little effort.
Backing tracks for covers, obviously — but also pulling out just the vocal to study someone’s phrasing and pitching, or practising against a backing in a key that suits you. There is plenty you can do with it.
If there is a song you gave up on because there was no backing track, it is worth trying a free browser-based stem separator.
The stem separation in this article runs free in your browser — no sign-up, and your audio never leaves your device.