Just wanted to share this, I’m a DJ and I just did the My Girl lesson and then I had an idea, using STEMS, I was able to cut the bass and insert my own bass, it actually sounded pretty good! 
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Not sure what stems is but it sounds like a great idea.
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The process of splitting the tracks and mixing in our own bass lines is the foundation of the 50 Songs Challenge. We then record ourselves playing and post the videos online to get feedback from other Buzzers.
Several of us are going through the list of songs. If you had fun with My Girl, I encourage you to check out the FAQ.
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sorry the song is broken-down into bass, drums, melody and vocals. I use Engine DJ to do this; I’m sure other software works too
And here is the thread for the song My Girl to give you a better idea of what this is all about.
Yeah a bunch of people do this, search for the “post your covers” threads. I’ll link the latest one below. Most people are using Moises for stem splitting; it’s built in to a few DAW now too (Logic, Studio One, RipX, etc.)
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It can be done with free and open source software. I use Audacity + the OpenVino plugins:
The result is quite convincing on lots of songs, not perfect but enough for practicing or recording over.
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I only have Presonus Audiobox as a DAI. No Scarlett etc.
I have to find the laptop and see if it still works. The two videos are way above my pay grade but will try to figure this stuff out. I think I gave up after creating drum tracks and they never sounded good no matter what I tried.
yeah, I’m not that tech savvy either, Engine is free and will run on any computer. Good luck
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What is Engine? An app?
Some of the many other threads on this:
It’s also covered in here:
and is the way most people are preparing backing tracks for the thousands of covers people are posting per year:
Engine DJ is a free DJ app
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Can I download originals that are on cassettes and remove sections from them? I had wanted to go back into a studio with 2” reels but they would need to be cooked from what my cousin told me. He is a producer but is strictly digital but has friends with 2” machines.. I am not going to spend the money on something like that if the cassettes still work (after I glue the felts back in) and it gets me where I want to go with those recordings.
Dude, I have no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds serious. I have no idea if Engine DJ will work for you but since its free what do you have to lose Good luck!
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Lol. Sorry about the drift.
I want to get an app which will allow me to record finished songs from an external source (cd, cassette, turntable etc.) And pull vocals or imstruments out to isolate whatever I want. For bass mostly so I can record my own version of the bass lines.
I have Presonus Audiobox and all the plugins on a laptop already. As soon as I find the laptop I can start the learning process again. Right now my youtube is playing all the DAI/DAW content I think will be of help.
Moises etc. seems to be the go-to but will keep absorbing any info available. This old dude is still a rock and spear guy at heart. My teenage son will be helping get me up to speed. If it works out I will have him do vocals for Sinatra and/or Elvis if he wants. The boy has talent.
Way over my head but good luck
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Yeah you want a real DAW and some have stem separation built in. Presonus Studio One should have a steep discount for you if you own their DAI and it’s fine.
Audacity is a good audio editor and recorder but not nearly as well suited to actual music production as an actual DAW.
I think Studio One has stem separation built in? Might want to check. Another option for that would be RipX. Most people here use Moises online for that but I don’t know what their take on processing uploaded original works is - I assume it’s okay but you might want to be careful around your copyright.
One word of warning - with stem separation, it’s applying heavy audio processing and the separated stems are imperfect (both bleed through and loss). Recombining them will not result in nearly as high audio quality as the original track and there will be substantial phase shifts. You’ll see what I mean. Honestly it can sound pretty bad.
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yeah, as like a practice tool or something stem splitting is fine. but as a finished, polished, ready for production product then no. it’s just not there yet.
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I’ve cut 10 seconds of two songs so you can hear the results you can achieve using Audacity + OpenVino AI plugins.
This is “Canary in a Coalmine” with bass: canary_in_a_coalmine
This is it with the bass removed: canary_in_a_coalmine_no_bass
This is “Smooth operator” with bass: smooth_operator
And this is it with the bass removed: smooth_operator_no_bass
Pretty good for practice purposes in my opinion. Works best with bass prominent songs, but so far has done quite a good job with a handful of em. And it’s free and pretty straight forward process.
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My head has been spinning trying to understand the acronyms here, so I asked Google about “daw vs dai vs dac” and got this AI-generated summary:
A DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is software used for recording and producing music, while a DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) is hardware that translates digital files into the analog sound you hear through speakers. A DAI (Digital Audio Interface) is hardware that connects microphones and instruments to your computer, containing both a DAC and an ADC.
Note that a DAC only goes one direction, while a DAI can change digital to analog or analog to digital. I bought a small, inexpensive DAI many years ago for ripping my cassettes and CDs into iTunes.
Thanks to this thread for telling me about OpenVIno to add to my Audacity.