Are REAL TIME stems ever going to be a thing?

unu_taiyo
unu_taiyo Member Posts: 9 Member
edited April 28 in Traktor Software & Hardware

Traktor is the only software on the market that requires you to generate stems before using it. Since this is a process that is done solely by the CPU , it takes too long to use if you don't prepare your sets ahead of time.

There are some things to like about the way Traktor handles stems, it's cool to see how a track is visually divided into 4 separate tracks, but for the most part this system is an absolute overkill for what most DJs use stems for these days.

Sometimes all you want is to fade the vocals out of the mix in the last few seconds of a song so they don't interfere with the next track. In such cases, most of us would gladly sacrifice the quality of the separation in favor of being able to react instantly to everything that happens in the mix, without any prep.

Personally i'd love to see Traktor having 2 ways of doing stems, a fast, real time one for more reactive mixing (like stem EQ from VDJ or Neural Mix from Djay) and the current separation system for the tracks you actually play often and want more control over the stem.

TL;DR

Is an alternative stem system being worked on/consconsidered or Traktor is going to stay behind every other software forever in this regard and the slow and clunky "Generate stems" thing is all we're going to have?

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Comments

  • PK The DJ
    PK The DJ Member Posts: 2,655 Expert

    No, Traktor is not the only software that requires stems processing in advance. It's also not the only software that uses the CPU.

    Denon DJ's Engine system requires stems to be separated in advance on the desktop software before being copied over to their standalone players. The separated stems cannot even be checked/previewed on the desktop. They have to be synced to the players, and aside from Prime 4+ users, everyone has to purchase a separate license to use stems. The stems files are also encrypted.

  • unu_taiyo
    unu_taiyo Member Posts: 9 Member

    That's fair, but Engine is more of a song preparation tool for their standalone systems, it makes a lot of sense in their case

  • Dubalab
    Dubalab Member Posts: 16 Member

    All these features people are asking for will arrive with Traktor 5 or “soon”.

  • Simon A. Billington
    Simon A. Billington Member Posts: 124 Helper

    Splitting audio into stems is very processor intensive and creates a lot of latency. There isn't really a practical way of doing it real time, not for a number or years. Computers have to get faster and become more capable first.

  • lord-carlos
    lord-carlos Member Posts: 4,113 Expert
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/224367#Comment_224367

    They don't mean "live" / "realtime" stems, they just want very very fast GPU accelerated stem separation on load, like other DJ software do.

    Good idea, sh*te word.

  • unu_taiyo
    unu_taiyo Member Posts: 9 Member
    edited May 7
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/224374#Comment_224374

    Thank you lord, that's exaexactly what i mean by that. I'm not expecting them to break the rules of physics, just match it to what others are doing. I'm personally tired of having to jump between different DJs softwares depending what kind of set i'm playing.

    Normally Traktor is my go to software but there is no way i'm going to analyze stems for my entire libary of a few thousand tracks when i'm playing an open format set for half a day without any prep.

    About it being more heavy on the resources, this is why i'd love them to make it optional, some of us are running Traktor on more than capable rigs

  • Simon A. Billington
    Simon A. Billington Member Posts: 124 Helper
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/224374#Comment_224374

    Ah…. Yeah that makes alot more sense. Though it will definitely slow down load times, so its something you wouldn't want to do between songs, but between sets would work.

  • unu_taiyo
    unu_taiyo Member Posts: 9 Member

    Sorry for the confusion. The “real-time” stems were literally how all the big DJ software companies have always referred to GPU-accelerated stems since it became a thing so I never thought of phrasing it better when I wrote this post. Again, I would love this to be an optional solution for quick mashups and transitions, not a replacement for an already existing method.

    To be honest, I'd just like to know if this is even something NI plans to include in future updates, because if not, I'm willing to sacrifice the screens and motorized jog wheels of my s4mk3 and fully commit to VDJ because that's something that always drives me mad while playing long open format sets without a premade setlist.

  • re5etuk
    re5etuk Member Posts: 6 Member

    I’ve used a mac based dj app that did real-time separation .. the quality was ok .. this was a few years ago. I think I also used it on my old iPad Pro in demo mode .. can’t recall the name but to me, as a user, it seemed real-time .. on mac M1 Pro.

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