Steminize v0.9.4 (pre-release)

Pre-release (0.9.4) — a chord view (scrolling chord timeline, chord diagrams, capo, chords over the lyrics), separate Guitar / Bass / Drums parts in the Scratchpad, drum notation, and a lot of safety and polish groundwork for 1.0.

Steminize is a practice studio for musicians. Split any song into stems (vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and more) on your own computer with Demucs, then practise along: mute or solo parts, loop a section, slow it down or change the key, see the chords and notes, and play your own instrument over the tracks. Learn guitar and bass parts from tab that follows the song, with a trainer that listens to you play and a speed trainer that only speeds up when you're getting it right. Everything runs on your device; nothing is uploaded.

New

• Chord timeline: the Timeline button (next to Chords and Notes) shows a scrolling row of beat boxes in time with the music: the chord is written where it starts, the current beat is lit, bar numbers run along the top. Click a beat to jump to it, click a bar number to loop that bar. A Simple switch shows plain major and minor chords only.
• Chord diagrams: a drop-down under the timeline shows how to play the chord now and the next one as a guitar or ukulele fingering, or on a piano keyboard.
• Capo: shows the shapes to play with a capo on any fret (the sound is the same); Suggest picks the capo that makes most of the song easy open chords.
• Chords over the lyrics: with synced (.lrc) lyrics and Follow along, the Chords button writes each chord above the word where it changes, like a chord sheet.
• Scratchpad parts: separate Guitar, Bass and Drums tabs, each linked to a track (outlined in the track list, with a Play without it button), renameable, plus a + button to add more parts (second guitar, keys, anything).
• Drum notation: type a drum grid in the Drums part and it is drawn as a percussion staff that follows the music, with bar loops and repeats.
• Dark theme from the first paint: no more flash of the light theme at start.
• Safety and help: a warning before separating a very long file; a disk-space check before saving a song and a "last backed up" reminder; older saved songs are brought up to date safely; Reset app preferences in Settings; a visible keyboard focus ring; FAQ, privacy statement and a dependency licence list; bug-report and suggestion forms on GitHub.
• No stray text selection or ghost image when dragging controls.

Please try

The chord features are new and the chord detection is a first draft (roughly 60-75% right): correct a chord by clicking it in the Chords lane and the timeline, diagrams and lyrics all follow. Tell me how they feel on songs you know.

Native audio engine (experimental, desktop only)

Unchanged from 0.9.3. Live input drawer → Native audio (experimental) row → Use native playback, then reopen the song. Not yet tried by the maintainer on Windows or macOS; reports welcome.

First-run warnings (the installers are not signed yet)

• Windows: "Windows protected your PC" → click More info, then Run anyway.
• macOS: "can't verify the developer" → drag Steminize to Applications, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. If that fails: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Steminize.app in Terminal.
• More in the FAQ in the repository.

System requirements

• Windows: 10 or 11 (.exe or .msi).
• macOS: Intel or Apple Silicon (.dmg).
• Linux: the .deb for Ubuntu 22.04 or later, Linux Mint 21 or later and Debian 12 or later (it needs libwebkit2gtk-4.1, which older releases don't have); the .rpm for Fedora-type systems; the AppImage for other distributions.
  • Songs in WAV and FLAC open out of the box. To import MP3 or AAC/M4A on Linux, the .deb/.rpm need gstreamer1.0-libav installed (sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-libav); the AppImage includes it.
  • Native audio uses ALSA. On PipeWire or PulseAudio systems it works through their ALSA plug-ins (pipewire-alsa / libasound2-plugins), which most desktops have.

Steminize v0.9.3 (pre-release)

Pre-release (0.9.3) — Windows fixes for the YouTube import and for a model that could stall while loading, bar-accuracy colours on the tab, and a native-audio playhead fix.

Steminize is a practice studio for musicians. Split any song into stems (vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and more) on your own computer with Demucs, then practise along: mute or solo parts, loop a section, slow it down or change the key, see the chords and notes, and play your own instrument over the tracks. Learn guitar and bass parts from tab that follows the song, with a trainer that listens to you play and a speed trainer that only speeds up when you're getting it right. Everything runs on your device; nothing is uploaded.

New

• Bar-accuracy colours: with the tab Trainer on, each bar number is coloured by how well you played that bar the last time round (green clean, amber part right, red missed). Hover a bar number for the count (for example "3 of 4 notes"). The colours are kept with the song; Clear bar colours forgets them.

Fixed

• Windows: a black command window no longer flashes up for every YouTube search and download.
• A model that sat on "Loading model…" for ever (seen on a Windows machine, most likely a graphics card or driver that never answered). If the graphics card hasn't loaded the model within 60 seconds, Steminize now uses the CPU instead, says so, and starts on the CPU next time (with Device on Auto). Setting Device to GPU in Settings tries the graphics card again.
• "Loading model…" now counts the seconds, so it's clear it's working. If the saved model can't be read, you get an error rather than a hang.
• Native audio (experimental): when the tempo isn't 100% or the pitch is shifted, the playhead no longer runs about 60 ms ahead of the sound.

Native audio engine (experimental, desktop only)

Unchanged from 0.9.2: lower delay for playing along and recording. Live input drawer → Native audio (experimental) row → Use native playback, then reopen the song. Not yet tried by the maintainer on Windows or macOS; reports welcome.

System requirements

• Windows: 10 or 11 (.exe or .msi).
• macOS: Intel or Apple Silicon (.dmg).
• Linux: the .deb for Ubuntu 22.04 or later, Linux Mint 21 or later and Debian 12 or later (it needs libwebkit2gtk-4.1, which older releases don't have); the .rpm for Fedora-type systems; the AppImage for other distributions.
  • Songs in WAV and FLAC open out of the box. To import MP3 or AAC/M4A on Linux, the .deb/.rpm need gstreamer1.0-libav installed (sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-libav); the AppImage includes it.
  • Native audio uses ALSA. On PipeWire or PulseAudio systems it works through their ALSA plug-ins (pipewire-alsa / libasound2-plugins), which most desktops have.

Steminize v0.9.2 (pre-release)

Pre-release (0.9.2) — adds an experimental native audio engine for much lower delay when you play along and record, plus a round of live-input fixes.

Steminize is a practice studio for musicians. Split any song into stems (vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and more) on your own computer with Demucs, then practise along: mute or solo parts, loop a section, slow it down or change the key, see the chords and notes, and play your own instrument over the tracks. Learn guitar and bass parts from tab that follows the song, with a trainer that listens to you play and a speed trainer that only speeds up when you're getting it right. Everything runs on your device; nothing is uploaded.

New: native audio engine (experimental, desktop app only)

Until now all audio went through the app's web view, which adds a lot of delay (about 240 ms round trip measured on Linux with a USB interface). The new engine talks to your sound card directly, with a buffer size you choose, so playing and recording can be tight (about 10 ms measured through PipeWire).

• Turn it on: Live input drawer, Native audio (experimental) row. Pick your output, tick Use native playback, then reopen the song. The panel marks the recommended device for your system.
• What runs natively: playback of songs saved in your library (play, loop, tempo and pitch, mixer, EQ, count-in and click, the speed trainer), your live input with monitoring, the meter, the tuner and the tab trainer, and recording. Takes line up with the song on their own: press Measure once with an output patched to an input, and takes land within about a millisecond.
• Safe to try: if the sound device is lost the app switches back to the normal engine and carries on from the same place. Turning the tick off returns everything to how it was. Songs not saved in the library still use the normal engine.
• Time-stretch sounds slightly different at slow tempos (a different algorithm).
• Not tested by the maintainer on Windows or macOS (it builds and its tests pass there, but nobody has played through it yet), and not yet on the Linux AppImage. Reports welcome.

Also in this release

• Live input: pick the input channel (Input 1 / Input 2 / both summed), which fixes a quiet signal from interfaces that leave one channel empty. The level slider goes higher. Recording, the meter, the tuner and the trainer work with Level at 0, for hearing yourself through the interface's direct monitoring.
• Lining up takes in the normal engine: a Low-latency audio option, and Line up buttons under a take to slide it against the new beat lines on every track, then Use as latency.
• Beat lines on every track once you zoom in (where the click sounds).
• Interface text can no longer be selected by dragging; no more ghost image when resizing a track.

System requirements

• Windows: 10 or 11 (.exe or .msi).
• macOS: Intel or Apple Silicon (.dmg).
• Linux: the .deb for Ubuntu 22.04 or later, Linux Mint 21 or later and Debian 12 or later (it needs libwebkit2gtk-4.1, which older releases don't have); the .rpm for Fedora-type systems; the AppImage for other distributions.
  • Songs in WAV and FLAC open out of the box. To import MP3 or AAC/M4A on Linux, the .deb/.rpm need gstreamer1.0-libav installed (sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-libav); the AppImage includes it.
  • Native audio uses ALSA. On PipeWire or PulseAudio systems it works through their ALSA plug-ins (pipewire-alsa / libasound2-plugins), which most desktops have.