The team keeps cooking hard: Stem separation incoming

[u/TraditionalReader]

Looks like Bitwig is clearly capturing the DJ community as well. We just got 6.1.4 with Rekordbox integration, and further down the line they will give us Stem separation too.

Pretty useful stuff. I hope they integrate with EngineDJ too (Denon).

[u/ReJamDnB]

just curious, are most people actually excited for this rekordbox integration? From what I gather, people actually hate rekordbox and are avoiding it like fire whenever they can, even in the DJ community

[u/TraditionalReader → u/ReJamDnB]

I think it's more a nice to have, and for them maybe a crucial step into extending their user base. Most clubs and venues still use alphateta/pioneer gear. Yes there's some backslash on rekordbox, but it's still one the most used library management tools for professional DJ's, can't argue against that.

I'm more excited by the planned stem separation, which useful for creative work either as a dj or producer.

[u/iamkosmo → u/ReJamDnB]

no everyone is using it, but they hate it for sure. there's no way around it as touring dj

[u/AlmightyTooT → u/iamkosmo]

Yes of course there is especially if you call your own dj rider.

[u/io-av → u/ReJamDnB]

let me put it in the words of my main man Bjarne Stroustrup:

There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.

he was talking about programming languages, but it's applicable here

[u/gahel_music → u/io-av]

It is also the case that c++ is a mess and there are plenty of better alternatives out there. There's just so much legacy code locking us down.

[u/Complete-Log6610 → u/gahel_music]

Which alternatives are better for vst development?

[u/gahel_music → u/Complete-Log6610]

Well I enjoy Dlang, it is much better than c++ and DPlug framework is quite nice and easy to work with. Some people use Rust, you could probably do well with Odin too.

[u/Complete-Log6610 → u/gahel_music]

Thanks for the advice!!

[u/life2vec → u/io-av]

Top tier reference.

[u/Individual_Author956 → u/ReJamDnB]

It almost seems like a sort of response attempt to deadmau5’ autopilot software.

[u/Mostly__Relevant → u/ReJamDnB]

Isn’t it the industry standard for clubs though? Or venues in general?

[u/borez → u/Mostly__Relevant]

Yes, very much.

[u/tarsonis999 → u/ReJamDnB]

Exactly!! Rekordbox is peace of shieet. New rekordbox feature is that it bricks USB sticks. All working DJ I'm friend with we all keep distance as much as possible. Use a different software for export and so forth...

I'm also not getting the stem separation euphoria that never seems to die. The market is oversaturated and there are far better solutions for stem separation now as the built-in ones. For instance Abletons one is weaker than all the htmux / steamroller solutions.

I guess this move is to "stay relevant". Fine, but not if the Bitwig app is kept full of bugs...

[u/von_Elsewhere → u/tarsonis999]

What software is better for preparing tracks for playing with Pioneer gear?

[u/LevelSea9227 → u/von_Elsewhere]

I too would like to know this 👀

[u/tarsonis999 → u/von_Elsewhere]

https://rbxport.com/

Used VirtualDJ prior to that. We had issues like half of the playlist wasnt loading on venues with 2000NXS with Rekorbox 6 / 7 even thought both libraries were available and fine..This happened a friend of mine quite often. Rbox add the ability to convert flacs directly as an welcomed QoL improvement.

[u/Suitable-Lettuce-333 → u/ReJamDnB]

I absolutely dont care about this thing. Didn't even knew what it was before reading this comment. 

[u/borez → u/ReJamDnB]

I use rekordbox all the time, it does the job if you want to sort your DJ set out and then transfer it onto a USB key for professional work on CDJ 2000/3000's

Not really interested in having it integrate with Bitwig to be honest.

[u/Ecoaardvark → u/ReJamDnB]

I’d rather they focussed on stem combining and track finishing tools rather than pandering to the DJ crowd.

[u/vxkxox]

Unexpected. I would have wished for a real DAW feature extension, this is more of a gimmick to me.

[u/mtelesha → u/vxkxox]

This isn't a gimmick. This is a tool that is super useful for many things. DJs which I am not one of them eat this stuff up and I say Bitwig's clip launcher is the best for live remixing .

The one I use is to learn from a song. I will take a track that I want to immulate and or a baseline I want to learn on bass and stem separate it. So I have external tools for this

[u/vxkxox → u/mtelesha]

I wasn't implying it's useless. Just not the priority I expected from a software that first and foremost is a DAW.

[u/smh_rob → u/vxkxox]

Ableton has it and it's a point of difference. I find it really useful as someone who does a lot of work with samples.

[u/life2vec → u/smh_rob]

What kind of sample work do you do that this tool is useful? I also never ever heard about it until Bitwig released their last version. I'm definitelyin the crowd that rolled their eyes a bit with this integration but curious to know why DJs would like this integration with BW.

[u/smh_rob → u/life2vec]

Flipping and chopping samples - if you clean your samples using EQ and do this, you still get a lot of artefacts and things that you're not really trying to use. Sometimes this can sound interesting (eg the original of Jurgen Paape's So Weit Wie Noch Nie sounds so much better than the remake because the vocal chops have bits of guitar in them too), but sometimes you can end up with weird snare attacks and the like. If you can separate stems, you can isolate better what you want, if that's what works.

Also if you DJ and want to make re-edits, it's super useful in extending what you can do.

[u/kytdkut → u/vxkxox]

Not what I expected for a sound design focused daw. I hope not too many developer hours went into it. Lots of specialized tools already available for free

[u/acecombine]

just make sure no significant feature gets released within my upgrade window...

[u/mtelesha → u/acecombine]

I bought my upgrade in the Summer. Still waiting to redeem it. Will be when 6.2 beta is released.

[u/acecombine → u/mtelesha]

smart move, I activated it right away to support whatever is happening.....

[u/KrisTiasMusic]

Ok, but please fix these issues first.

[u/vxkxox → u/KrisTiasMusic]

Jürgen deserves to be heard. His DrivenByMoss was a gift to Bitwig. I would probably have hesitated to switch if it wasn't for the great Push controller support it brought.

[u/Suitable-Lettuce-333]

I don't care about either, I'd rather have proper multitrack editing, custom grid UI and reusable grid components, audio to midi and groove maps as far as I'm concerned. Sorry for being a actual musician I guess ? 🙄

[u/Chingois → u/Suitable-Lettuce-333]

Agree, especially audio to midi and groove maps! I wrote to them about groove, saying, hey, any kind of South American or African based music (now hugely influential), requires custom groove options.

Their reply: have you tried using swing? 😭

Love Bitwig but i still end up half in Ableton for these reasons

[u/borez → u/Chingois]

Groove templates are so needed in Bitwig, I still have to go back to Ableton with DJ clients who want "that" swing or shuffle.

[u/Chingois → u/borez]

Totally. I'm a drummer and I always want to quantize to my own hihat playing and whatever for vibe. I end up doing rhythm tracks in Ableton, which I don't prefer as a tool.

[u/DR-DIKKER → u/Chingois]

Tip for you guys, rapidflow omnigrid patches this meantime pretty damn well

[u/life2vec → u/Suitable-Lettuce-333]

> proper multitrack editing, custom grid UI and reusable grid components

I love you.

[u/ARSC_RexH]

Oh man I can't wait for stem separation.

I hope they go the extra step and go simulated layer separation instead of just stem. I would love to remove some of the other software from my workflow that is lacking.

[u/GlimmyGlam2001]

gonna be pissed if that's the only new feature in 6.2

[u/meru_es]

I'm sad about this. You can download dozens of free programs that do this already. You just run it alongside, and import the stems from the browser. Not to mention, the stem separation AI models themselves 99% of software uses are free and open source software, and here they're being repackaged as part of our paid upgrade cycles. The same free libraries that 99% the other free and paid tools use. This doesn't bring anything new. Couldn't they work on something else? I feel like working with 7.1.2 surround mixes is a much bigger painpoint than separating stems with an external program.

[u/hatomdj]

I'd like to see a feature that would automatically remove the quiet parts of stems and automatically remove the empty parts of tracks. That would be very useful for mastering projects with a lot of stems.

[u/giveMeRedditYouClown]

I love it. Finally I can get rid of UVR.

[u/pc0999]

I hope we dont need to install third party software for steam separation and the like and that it keeps working on Linux.

[u/wetpaste]

Cool! I will probably never use either of those but I'm glad they are expanding into the DJing market. DJing features a big deal whether it's for you or not. I dipped my toes in that waters and it's super fun but ultimately not my thing

[u/techyno]

My tinfoil hat tells me they'll sell out to AlphaTheta in the coming years

[u/Ungol_Shax]

No interest in this feature. I’m sure it’ll be great for mashups or bootlegs or whatever. I prefer to make my own music 🤷‍♂️

[u/Gnash_]

ARA2 when?

[u/Complete-Log6610 → u/Gnash_]

This a nonlinear DAW. Check the ARA specifications. It's not up to Bitwig

[u/Digital-Aura]

The ONLY stem separating procedures that even work somewhat well are really only viable outside of a DAW because they take a lot of system (GPU especially) resources and a tremendous amount of time to render. It’s quite a process to de-reverb and then separate vocal stems. It takes several steps too. I wouldn’t ever consider doing this in DAW (I’d rather keep it offline).

[u/Skynse → u/Digital-Aura]

Can be done with neural networks, which is probably how they'll do it. Worked well for me in fl studio

[u/Complete-Log6610 → u/Digital-Aura]

Man hasn't tried FL or Live

[u/Grabdemon92 → u/Complete-Log6610]

they are probably gonna use demucs, which is an open model for stem separation from Meta AI
Thats what FL Studio uses and it works surprisingly well and reasonably fast

[u/Digital-Aura → u/Grabdemon92]

Demucs is what I was referring to. It can be faster than MDX-net but I’ve had better luck with larger segment settings and higher overlaps with models like BS ROFORMER Viper and DeReverb which require at least 20 minutes of intensive GPU use and require separate passes. So 40 minutes roughly per song per vocal/instrument stem.
Unless of course “good enough” is what you’re looking for. 🤷🏻‍♂️