I’m Alex, a member of the Creatune team. This article is a listening protocol for source separation, based on our public interface and its documented behavior. It is not a report of a new generation experiment. The screenshots show the logged-out interface; the sample players are provided by the website.
If you want to learn a bass line, a stem with some residual guitar may still be useful. If you need an exposed vocal for a new arrangement, that same amount of leakage may be unacceptable. “Clean separation” is too vague to be an acceptance criterion.
Start with the next musical task, then decide what to listen for.
1. Choose the smallest useful separation
The Creatune stem splitter currently offers a vocal/instrumental split, a four-part split into vocals, drums, bass and other, and a broader mode with up to twelve instrument stems. Accessing your music or running separation requires signing in. More stems do not automatically mean a better result for your task.
| Next task | Starting output | Main question |
|---|---|---|
| Practise a bass phrase | Four stems | Can I follow note starts and pitch movement? |
| Rehearse singing | Vocal/instrumental split | Does the backing retain useful timing and harmony? |
| Inspect drum timing | Four stems | Are attacks still distinct enough to hear? |
| Build a new arrangement from a particular instrument | Broader separation, if available for that source | Is the required part present and usable when exposed? |
Use audio you have permission to process. Keep an untouched copy of the source. Separation estimates overlapping sources from the mix; it does not recover the original studio multitrack files.
2. Pick three passages before generating
Do not evaluate only the quietest verse. Choose three short passages and write down their timestamps:
- A sparse passage where the desired part is easy to recognise.
- A dense passage where several instruments share the same range.
- A transition containing a pickup, fill, breath or reverb tail.
These passages probe different weaknesses. Dense chords can reveal leakage; a drum fill can reveal softened attacks; a transition can expose an abrupt ambience change. The exact durations are your choice, and are not a product limit.
3. Solo first, then put the parts together
In your audio player or editor, compare each chosen passage in the following order:
- Listen to the original and identify the target part.
- Solo the relevant stem. Note bleed, missing notes, softened transients and unstable texture.
- Listen to complementary stems. Is part of the target instrument assigned elsewhere?
- Recombine the available stems without changing their alignment or adding processing. Compare with the original at a similar listening level.
- Try the actual intended use: a practice loop, an exposed vocal or a rough remix.
A stem can sound strange in isolation but work in context. Conversely, a pleasing recombined mix does not prove that an individual stem will survive being exposed. Do not normalise every stem independently before the recombination check: that changes their balance and makes the comparison harder to interpret.
You can make these comparisons in an external editor; this protocol does not imply that the product includes a multitrack mixing workstation.
4. Use a task-specific acceptance matrix
| Observation | Practice/transcription | Exposed rearrangement |
|---|---|---|
| Desired notes are clear, but another instrument leaks in | May be usable if it does not obscure the phrase | Review the exposed passage; leakage may conflict with new harmony |
| Percussion attacks are softened | Avoid drawing precise timing conclusions | Check whether the groove loses impact |
| Reverb tail fluctuates | Often tolerable for studying notes | Check the tail in the final mix, especially before silence |
| Target instrument partly appears in another stem | Listen to those stems together for reference | May require a different split or a different source |
| Recombined result sounds close to the original | Useful consistency check | Still inspect the individual part that will be exposed |
“Accept” means suitable for the stated use, not artifact-free. If the target notes remain ambiguous, a higher stem count alone is not a solution. Try a cleaner source, a simpler split or a narrower musical objective.
5. Keep a small review record
Source and permission:
Intended task:
Separation mode:
Passages reviewed:
Solo observations:
Complementary-stem observations:
Recombined comparison:
Decision: usable / usable with limits / retry
What I must not infer from this output:
For example, a practice output may help you hear a melody without being reliable enough to measure the exact original attack times. Recording that boundary is more useful than giving the entire separation one unexplained quality score.
The practical goal is modest: identify which musical decisions the separated audio supports, and which decisions still require the original recording.
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