Serato has a separate folder or crate for Stems. I’ve just started using it because my laptop is newer and hasn’t had any issue creating stems on the fly. I’m wondering if Denon could implement their stem separation, not on the player side but on a CPU side, where more processor power and (more importantly) time, are both available. So once exported, the players would only have to playback already separated tracks. Players would not separate stems on the fly, only playback what Engine Software analyzed and exported. This model would sit between Serato’s implementation of on-the-fly separation and Native Instruments’ pre-purchse, pre-rendered (and very limited) stem playback-only model.
I have zero background in programming so I’m only guessing Engine Software on a computer could conduct an additional analysis, create a new folder, then export the track, metadata and stem folder (render / pre-calculation…), all in one huge export. I’m guessing this is what the MPCs are currently doing, taking time to render out separate files. For me Denon exports already take a very long time with certain USB drives and yes, you’d probably need an additional 30-50% of space.
I’m happy to let my computer run all weekend (week, month…) churning out stems, then exporting to an even larger hard drive or SD card. I also love my SC5000m and all the enhancements provided over the years but I doubt it has the horsepower to ever perform stem separation on the fly. CPU separation seems like a fix. I’m guessing we’ll hear something from Denon in the coming weeks to offset whatever ruling comes from NZ regarding Serator and Pioneer/AT. (That’s this week, right?)
@donny yes this idea has already been put forward by a few people, including me.
The MPC (computer based) separation is fairly quick and creates a new separate WAV file for each of the stems. When it comes to standalone, I imagine it will be similar, unlike the “on the fly” system favoured by DJs.
I’d prefer on the fly separation personally, as I’ve got no need to keep the files or eat up my drive space. Also that method allows for use with streamed tracks (at least on the services that haven’t clamped down) as there’s no file being saved.
I didn’t realize MPC was creating full WAV files. I don’t know what Serato is creating, I’ll check later. I’m guessing if the overall library would end up being 50% larger, I’d be fine with that. Three or four additional WAVs could easily be 400% larger for uncompressed audio files, and a lot more (percentage-wise) for mp3 files. Following the Serato, make-a-crate model, you would only have to separate the tracks you want. But yea, that library gets big, fast.
I will say, i think one strength Denon has is because you can export different playlists onto different media and because their players usually have two or three options when it comes to inputs (vs. Pioneer’s one), DJs could mix and match playlists (and stems) as needed.
I totally prefer on the fly too. I’m still frustrated with NI and their lack of vision…with everything. I’m daydreaming of how they can keep my lowly 5000m (and everything with that chip) in the stem game. A future SC7000 or whatever could have a more robust processor to separate on the fly.
Yeah, MPC samples are all WAV as it’s for production. DJ software uses compressed multichannel files - of course all slightly different from each other.
This is because if they were to use lossy compression, the quality would degrade. Compression (mostly) works by removing information, thus when you compress anything from a (lossy) compressed source, the quality degrades.
