When NI launched Stems, it was a great idea. It was the cost to the labels that made the idea hard. The label I was working for looked into the idea. To have proper mastering, our costs per track for mixdown and mastering would have almost quadrupled. That aside, I loved NI’s implementation for stems. It just worked and always sounded good and gave you a different way to perform your own tracks as a producer.
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Yup, that’s true. The only stems they ever got labels to release were some obscure tech-house tracks nobody really cared about. The more interesting ones would have been some classics with well-known acapellas, etc.
If your DJ software of choice supports pre-analysed stems, let me know. Maybe I can change your mind 
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I’m ok, I’ve got 3 decks set up and an acapellas folder 
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The problem then was that the stems needed to be submitted by the artist/label/producer and there where no mainstream tracks or old tracks to get a hold of, mostly elektronic music. Thats why it didn’t stick that time.
This is something compleatly else.
As an IT professional by day, it is absurd to hear DJs say “it will never come to a standalone DJ controller.” I imagine there are folks on here that remember spinning with vinyl, dial up internet or Nokia flip phones with black and white displays…just use that precedence. Maybe stems won’t be available on standalone controllers within the next few months, but it certainly will indeed occur. I have read others in this thread dismiss the idea entirely. Maybe some of you guys have not used it regularly to grasp how much it separates your mixes from someone not using it. I am here to tell ya, earlier today being able to loop the drum stems from Nicki Minaj “Starships” over Journey “Don’t Stop Believin’” gave the marathon runners an energy boost that would have never been so cleanly achieved by simply using the filter knob. Just request it in a timely and consistent manner and be patient. Only a matter of time. I will concede on the preparation aspect. Prepping is wack to me…just something else that consumes time. I personally prefer the liberty of on-the-fly ideas. As a performer in a small band, that fosters creativity. So I will say when it happens, let’s skip the prepping part and go straight for the on-the-fly method. Just my two cents…cheers!
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Nobody has said that, what has been said is it’s highly unlikely to come on the current gen of hardware due to processing limitations.
And this has come from respected industry leaders, not ‘DJs’… I think it’s safe to say these people are worth listening to.
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Not denying any member is listenable, however I did not say anyone here said that. I made a statement supported by my professional observations as a fellow industry leader…and a DJ
The craziness people have been trying with the sample players show that, yes, each player can play 6 tracks at once. :-p
Your comment literally says this… so you did say that.
Also by ‘industry leader’ I’m referring to people like Phil Morse and Mojaxx who repeatedly stated it won’t arrive on current gen hardware. You would like to assume they have enough of a relationship with these companies to fact find.
Playing samples on a sample bank is nowhere near the same type of process as the stems functionality. There is no synchronisation of music in there.
I agree that it does prove multiple threads of music are at least playable though.
Umm…you said it…1 post before…
Why double down when you can just say sorry and edit your post to clarify?
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He’s also an ‘IT professional’ in one post then a ‘fellow industry leader’ in the DJ sector in the next.
I’m definitely getting a strong whiff of something.
I really don’t care about that, you are free to call yourself however you want here, king of Zamuda if want.
It is just a weird thing not to notice and a even weirder hill to die on by claiming you didn’t.
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There is a difference between the resources needed for the simple reading of 6 tracks and the resources needed for the calculation of the stem separation which are complex calculations of an algorithm. Just imagine that the computing power needed for the stems 2.0 of virtual dj is at least that of a GTX 1650 GPU. And I mean at least that. This means that even with this kind of GPU the real time calculation of the stems takes some time. If you want the calculation to be faster, in the order of a few seconds only, you need an even more powerful GPU.
So don’t get me wrong, real time stems separation will never be available on the current generation of prime equipment whose hardware architecture is equivalent to the power of a 2017 mid-range Android tablet.
Maybe the next generation of prime devices will have this feature but it would require a complete hardware redesign with much more powerful CPU/GPU. And therefore with a price at the purchase of the equipment of 30 to 40 % higher
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Very true SlayFM.
That is how i see it, a much more powerful machine with the price to reflect that additional power.
Stems can be precomputed and stems files exported to a thumb drive.
You’re absolutely right, and that will reduce processing power needed.
But to give an example, use Serato in 4 deck mode and set it to its highest performance settings, sync all 4 tracks then start adding some effects to those tracks and see what happens, itll freeze up/glitch due to it overloading the computer. Now imagine doubling that load to play 2 stems tracks together (8 streams of music)
This doesn’t happen to me on either of my machines (using dvs for all 4 decks or lc6000’s). I see you are still running 2.5.5 on an older MacBook tho.
Traktor stems was able to run just fun on 4 decks while using a pair of Traktor D2’s on an old Intel core duo back in the day. That’s 16 tracks playing at once, while using Traktor fx. So, just playing tracks does not require the cpu power you are thinking it does.
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So then why are Serato/VDJ warning people about needing a powerful computer to run stems? and why are people in the industry discussing this very problem on an almost daily basis on their various media channels?
Its not as if im just sat here making this stuff up off my own back, its all information that is out there in the domain, from people with far more experience than ill ever have.
Here is Serato’s release notes page, they have a tab on the right to describe the system requirements recommended.