What the guitar stem is, and what it is not
A guitar extractor takes a finished stereo mix and estimates which parts of the signal belong to guitar. TuneSplit uses Demucs htdemucs_6s, a neural network trained to split music into six groups: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other. The guitar stem is audio, not tab or notation, and it is one file: there is no split into lead and rhythm, or acoustic and electric.
The six-source model is a separate model from the four-source one, and its guitar and piano outputs are the weakest of its six. Vocals, drums and bass are the strong stems. Guitar is useful when the arrangement is clear and often rough when it is crowded. We would rather say that than promise a clean stem every time.
Where does the guitar end up
| Sound in the song | Usually lands in | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Electric rhythm guitar, clean or crunchy | Guitar | Best case: a steady part in a sparse mix |
| Acoustic strumming | Guitar | Can be partly shared with Other or Piano |
| Heavily distorted lead | Guitar, with leakage | Fuzz spreads energy into the mids and can bleed into Other |
| Layered, wall-of-sound guitars | Guitar and Other | Some layers may land in Other |
| Guitar with chorus, reverb or delay | Guitar, with a smeared tail | Effects tails can leak into Other |
| Synth pad or keys | Other or Piano | Not guitar, but sometimes mistaken for it |
Always listen to the Other stem as well. If part of the guitar seems missing from the Guitar file, it is often sitting there.
Isolate guitar to learn a riff
Hearing a riff without drums and vocals makes it much easier to pick out the notes. A practical routine:
- Split the song with the 6-stem option and download the Guitar stem.
- Listen once with no instrument in your hands, only to hear the shape of the part.
- Find the key with the song key finder and the tempo with the BPM finder.
- Slow the stem to 70 to 80 percent with the tempo changer. Speed changes without changing pitch, so you can still tune to it.
- Loop one or two bars at a time. Add speed only when a loop feels easy.
- Compare against the full mix, because bleed and missing notes in the stem are easy to mistake for your own mistakes.
If a note is unclear, check it against the full mix before trusting the stem. Where a stem sounds odd, the model may have guessed.
Remove guitar and play it yourself
The search phrase remove guitar from a song is a different job from isolating it, and the tool handles it differently. There is no single remove-guitar button: you get stems, and you build the mix.
| What you want | How to get it | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Guitar only | Download the Guitar stem | One MP3 with the guitar |
| Song without guitar | Download Vocals, Drums, Bass, Piano and Other, and play them together | A play-along backing track |
| Song without guitar and vocals | Download Drums, Bass, Piano and Other | Band-only backing for guitar and singer |
| Rhythm section only | Download Bass and Drums | A bass-and-drums loop |
Import the stems into a free editor such as Audacity or GarageBand, line them up at the start, and mute or leave out the guitar. Because all stems come from the same split they stay aligned. The sum is only approximately the original, and if the model sent some guitar into Other you may still hear a faint ghost of it. Check by ear.
Quality: what to expect
- Stronger: a clear, mid-gain guitar in a sparse mix, such as singer-songwriter or a simple rock band.
- Weaker: dense mixes with several guitars, or guitar and keys playing the same register.
- Heavy distortion and wide stereo layering blur the boundary with Other.
- Reverb and delay tails often smear, and you may hear a watery edge on the stem.
- A low-bitrate MP3 source gives the model less to work with. Use WAV or FLAC if you have it.
- Live recordings add room sound that blurs the instruments together.
The 4-stem and 2-stem options use the stronger four-source model. If you only need vocals, drums or bass, use those options. Choose 6 stems when guitar or piano is specifically what you want.
Pair it with the tempo, pitch and key tools
- Tempo changer: play the stem between 50 and 150 percent of its speed in your browser, without changing its pitch.
- Pitch and speed changer: shift the stem by up to 12 semitones, useful if a song sits too high or low for your voice.
- BPM finder and song key finder: read tempo, key and Camelot code before you learn or transpose.
- Bass extractor and drum extractor: the same split, focused on the rhythm section.
Stems download as MP3. For heavy editing, bring them into your DAW.
Guitar extractor facts at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Price, free tier | 1 full split a day, no credits needed |
| Download format | MP3, one file per stem |
| Sign-up | Not needed for free files |
| File deletion | Uploads and results deleted within 24 hours |
| Model | Demucs htdemucs_6s, 6 stems: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano, other |
| Limits | Up to 10 minutes per free file; MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG or MP4 in |
| After the free files | 30 credits per started 5 minutes |
Your upload, your rights
Only upload recordings you own or are licensed to use: your own songs, sessions you produced, public domain recordings, tracks from collaborators who agree. Extracting a guitar part does not transfer ownership of it, and publishing someone else's riff without permission can infringe their rights. Learning a part for private practice is different from releasing a sample.
Free songs are for personal use. Your upload sits in private storage, is used only to make your result, is never used for training, and is deleted within 24 hours. Rights holders can use the DMCA contact on the Terms page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I isolate guitar from a song?
Upload the song to the tool above with the 6-stem option selected. After a minute or so you get six players: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other. Play the Guitar one, check it against the full mix, and press Download to save it as an MP3.
Can I remove guitar from a song?
Not in one click. TuneSplit returns stems, so you download vocals, drums, bass, piano and other and layer them in a free editor, leaving the guitar out. That gives a play-along backing track. Some guitar may remain in Other, so check by ear.
Is the guitar extractor free?
Within limits. You get 1 free full split a day, up to 10 minutes each, with MP3 downloads and no sign-up. After that, each started 5 minutes costs 30 credits.
How good is the guitar stem?
Usable, not perfect. The six-source Demucs model is clearly weaker on guitar and piano than on vocals, drums and bass. Sparse mixes with one clear guitar work best. Dense or heavily distorted arrangements show more bleed.
Does it separate acoustic from electric, or lead from rhythm?
No. All guitars go into one Guitar stem, and some may land in Other. We do not claim a lead or rhythm split or an acoustic and electric split.
Why is some guitar in the Other stem?
Layered, distorted or effect-heavy guitars can look like synths or strings to the model, so part of the sound goes to Other. Play Other with the Guitar stem to hear the whole picture.
Will the stem give me tab or notation?
No. You get audio. Slow it down, loop it and use your ear, or use a separate transcription tool.
What formats can I upload and download?
You can upload MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG and MP4 files. For an MP4 video, the audio track is processed. Every stem downloads as an MP3.
Is it safe to upload my song?
Files go to private storage, are used only to make your result and are deleted within 24 hours. They are never used for training. Upload only audio you own or have rights to.
How is this different from the 4-stem splitter?
The 4-stem option has no guitar file: guitar is inside Other. The 6-stem option adds Guitar and Piano as separate files, with the trade-off that those two stems are less clean than the main four.