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.