How to Learn a Song by Ear with Stems

Mark the form before you chase a lick

Open the song and drop markers on the intro, the verse, the chorus, and the bridge before you try to learn a single phrase. The player already offers those names, plus solo and outro, and you can type your own. Markers are how you stop scrubbing. A chorus that feels different from the verse is a different practice problem, and you want to land on it in one click.

Most people start in the middle of the chorus because that is the part they can already hum. Start at the top of the form instead. Once the sections are marked, the rest of this page is the order to work in. The stem splitter is the place the file opens. This page is the sequence, not a second player.

Read the tempo and the key while the song is still whole

The BPM and key finder reads both from the mix you dropped in. You do not need a split for that reading, and it is worth doing before you mute anything. A tempo that locked onto hats will make the click race later. A key that names the relative major will send a guitarist to the wrong shape. Write both numbers down while the song is still one file. If you also want chord names on the waveform before any split, the chord finder reads them from that same mix.

If the page says the tempo or the key is unclear, believe it. Loop a steady four bars and count them yourself. An honest blank is more useful than a confident wrong figure, and the click will follow whatever number you accept.

Solo two bars of the part you are learning

When you are ready for the notes, split the song and solo the stem that holds them. Loop two bars, not a whole section. Two bars is short enough to sing back. If you cannot sing the phrase, you are not ready to play it. Collect the notes first. Performing comes after the mute.

Each tool page starts from a different mute, which is handy on the second pass. The first pass is always the solo. Hear the line with the band gone, then decide what to turn down.

Slow the loop and leave the pitch alone

Slow down music without changing the pitch is a different control from the key. Use it on the two-bar loop until every attack is obvious, then step the speed back up. The notes you found while it was slow are the notes on the record, because the pitch never moved. When the loop itself is the whole job, with a count-in and a speed trainer on that phrase, open loop part of a song.

The very slowest settings smear drums and strums. Use those for pitch, and a moderate setting when you care where a snare or a pick landed. The slider also goes above the original tempo, up to one and a half times, which is useful once the phrase is clean and you want the real tempo to feel easy.

Put the bass next to the kick

Before you decide a bass line is syncopated, solo the bass and then the drums on the same two bars. A note that feels early is often sitting on the kick. A note that feels late is often the pickup into the next downbeat. Drummers should do the same check from the other chair. The kick is the bass player's grid, and the bass is the drummer's. If the two disagree in your playing, the band will feel it even when each part is "right" on its own.

Kick and bass also share the lowest notes, so muting one can thin the other. That thinning is overlap. It is not the muted part still playing. Learn the line from the solo, then accept a lighter kick when the bass is out.

Mute your part and play with everyone else

Soloing teaches the notes. Muting is the test. Put the stem back down and play those two bars with the rest of the record still going. The vocal remover starts with the lead down. The drum remover starts with the kit down. The bass remover starts with the bass down. The guitar remover starts with the guitar down and with Other down as well, so piano is what stays under your hands until you raise Other. On six stems, raising Other does not bring the guitar back. Remove the piano from a song starts with Piano down. Need more than one part out? The backing track maker mutes any mix of those stems.

Use the count-in so the first note of the loop does not depend on the part you just removed. It is four clicks at the estimated tempo, not a detected waltz or a detected 6/8. When the two bars are clean, widen the loop to the bar before and the bar after. The entrance and the exit are where most practice falls apart.

If you are still choosing how to get the drums out, see five free methods compared.

Change the key only after the part is in your hands

Learn the part in the recorded key first. Then, if a singer needs it lower, or a guitar in standard tuning is meeting a tuned-down record, change the key of the song in semitones. The speed stays put. Tell the band the number of semitones, not "a bit lower." The control stops at twelve semitones up or down. Export after you move it if rehearsal is on another device.

The key label on the player still describes the file you opened. If you moved the pitch, add or subtract those semitones yourself. The tempo label is the original tempo too. Slowing playback does not rewrite it.

Leave with a file, not an account

Export the mix as WAV or MP3, or one stem as WAV. The file is written in this browser, with the speed and pitch you have set. A mix is the right file for rehearsal. A single stem is the right file for the commute, when you still want the line and not the whole band. There is no account to sync, so the download is the copy that leaves the machine.

Songs longer than 20 minutes do not open. Trim a long live tape to the section you mean to learn, then run that file through the same order: markers, tempo, solo, slow, mute, key, export.

What a split will not tell you

A split is a practice aid. It will not draw a chart, and it will not decide which of two doubled guitars you should learn. Both land in the guitar stem. Parts that were printed with reverb can leave a tail after you mute them. A distorted guitar can leave a fizz somewhere else. None of that is a reason to skip the order above. It is a reason to trust your ear when the stem and the record disagree, and to use the split to get a part out of the way rather than as a finished transcription.

You can paste a file. You cannot paste a link. The pages open mp3, wav, flac, m4a, or an mp4 that has a soundtrack, and only audio you have the right to practice with.