Stem Separation

Stem separation splits a finished song into its parts — vocals, drums, bass, and other — so you can remix and recombine them. It's one of the most powerful things you can do in Silverdaw: pull an acapella out of a track, isolate a drum break, or drop the bass line onto its own track.

Like everything else in Silverdaw, it's non-destructive: your original file is never changed.

First time only: a one-off download

The first time you separate stems, Silverdaw downloads its high-quality separation models (about 1 GB) — so you'll need an internet connection that once. After that, separation works offline. A smaller built-in backup model needs no download at all, so you can start separating stems straight away even while the main models are still downloading.

Separating a track

Right-click a clip and choose Separate Stems. Silverdaw analyses the audio and produces the separate parts, each of which can go onto its own track for you to remix. Every stem keeps the original clip's tempo, key, and artwork, so it stays in step with the rest of your project.

Screenshot placeholder — replace with: the Separate Stems dialog, showing the stem choices (vocals, drums, bass, other) and the Quality control (Fast, Balanced, Best).

The separation models

Silverdaw uses high-quality RoFormer models to do the separation. The first time you separate stems, these models are downloaded once (about 1 GB) and then reused from then on. There's also a smaller built-in backup model that needs no setup at all, so you can separate stems even before the main models finish downloading.

You can manage the models in Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Stems. The Separation models section shows their status (Not downloaded, Partly installed, or Installed) and a Download models (~1 GB) button to fetch them.

Using models you already have

If you've already downloaded the models — for example on another machine, or because someone shared them with you — you can point Silverdaw at them instead of downloading again:

1. Open Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Stems.
2. Under Separation models, find "Already have a model? Point Silverdaw at the folder that contains it instead of downloading it again."
3. Click Locate… next to Vocal model and choose the folder that contains the vocal model.
4. Click Locate… next to Drums & bass model and choose that model's folder.

Each model's status changes to Installed once Silverdaw has checked the folder. If a folder doesn't contain the expected model, Silverdaw tells you so you can try another.

The backup model has its own Locate existing model… button in the Backup model section, which works the same way.

Speed, quality, and cleanup

You can trade speed for polish:

• When you run Separate Stems, the dialog offers a Quality setting — Fast, Balanced, or Best — so you can pick how much time Silverdaw spends for cleaner results.
• GPU acceleration is optional. If you have a compatible graphics card, separation can run faster; if not, it still works on the processor. You can turn it on in Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Stems.
• An optional cleanup can tidy up the separated parts, with Light, Medium, or Strong strength. This is set in Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Stems.

After separating

Once you have your stems on separate tracks, they behave like any other clips. You can mute the vocals to make an instrumental, keep only the drums as a loop, add effects, or slice them into loops — all the usual editing applies.