Isolate instruments within a song

Hello,

Is there a way to isolate or remove instruments from a particular song ? For example, it would be cool to eliminate the guitar from a song so that I could play along with the rest of the band to see how my playing sounds. All of my music sources are streaming though so that may prove to be a challenge.

Any ideas / thoughts welcomed - thank you !

Kevin

I use Karaoke Version to create jam tracks for us to use to jam over.  You can pick what tracks you want. 

There are several computer programs (AI related) that claim to be able to do this.  I can't vouch for any of them, because I haven't used them.  The traditional way of doing it is the "karaoke versions" that William mentioned.  There are websites that offer such backing tracks for sale.

For a while there were sites that published the stem tracks (isolated tracks) from various well-known songs that I think they got from reverse engineering the Rock Star video games.  But I think those even came from the original studio recordings, just mixed down without the vocals, or guitar or whatever instrument you were supposed to play along with.

I've typically just made my own from scratch in my studio.  It's a lot of work, but you can learn a lot doing it that way.  Hope that helps!

Playing guitar is all about patience and consistency! If you're working on tricky solos, slow it down and gradually increase speed. Also, don’t hesitate to experiment with different picking techniques and finger placements—it can make a huge difference in mastering difficult sections.

I'm a little late, but check out Moises. I use this to remove guitars to play along with. Works well for me.

Many songs have official or fan-made instrumental versions available on YouTube, Apple Music, or Spotify. Searching for "song name + backing track" or "instrumental" may get you what you need. 

fnf

AI-Powered Stem Separation Tools (Best for Instrument Removal)
These tools use machine learning to separate vocals, drums, bass, and other instruments. You can remove or isolate parts of a song.

Yeah, you’ve actually got a few solid options for this, even if you’re working with streaming sources.

If you’re okay uploading the track manually, sites like Moises or LALAL.AI let you separate vocals, drums, guitars, etc., from songs pretty cleanly. You just upload the track (you might need to record or download the stream first), and it gives you separate stems to mute or play with

Hi! Tools like Moises or Lalal.ai can isolate/remove instruments using AI, even with streaming tracks. Just upload the song, pick the instrument to remove, and play along. Hope this helps!

RipX Daw is a good program for this.

You can use tools like Moises or LALAL.AI to isolate or remove instruments. Record streaming audio first, then upload to separate tracks and play along with your own part.

I recently did a review of SongMaster Pro which is pretty good at this (and a lot else). It has a feature that lets you create stems for drums, bass, vocals, guitars, piano and the rest. You can create as many or few of those tracks as you want. Anything not separated out is put in the "rest" track. I have used it and I think it works very well although it's not perfect.  SongMaster Pro has a lot of other features for learning a song including the ability to speed up/slow down while pitch adjusting. It will also let you pitch adjust a song at full speed that is tuned down but you don't feel like re-tuning your guitar (for example some recently added Green Day songs!).

Just watched your video Tod, very well done. I was hoping you would have played what you stemmed but your video has me interested enough that I will try a demo. Price is reasonable and I like that the developer is quick to resolve issues. I have been using Band in a Box and Fadr for stems, but the results are not ideal, especially with bass tracks. 

Yes, there are tools like Moises.ai, LALAL.AI, and Spleeter that let you isolate or remove specific instruments from songs. However, since you're using streaming services, you’d need to download the track first, which can be tricky due to DRM. If you have a local copy, these tools work really well for practice!

Yes, use tools like Moises.ai or LALAL.AI to remove guitar from a song—just upload the audio (record from streaming if needed) and mute the guitar track to play along.

Thanks so much for the awesome suggestions—this thread has been super helpful!

I tried out Moises and LALAL.AI based on your recommendations, and they really do a solid job at isolating instruments. I also checked out SongMaster Pro after Tod’s detailed post—very cool features, especially for slowing down tricky parts while keeping pitch intact.

Since most of my music is from streaming platforms, I had to first record the audio from my system using something like Audacity or Audio Hijack, then upload the file to the tool. It's a small extra step, but totally worth it to get a jam-ready track without guitar!

Really appreciate all the input here—my practice sessions just got a lot more fun 😄

Chris

Interesting thread, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s always good to read different perspectives from the community.

Yes, it’s possible but not perfect. You’d need software that uses AI or spectral editing to separate stems (like guitar, vocals, drums, etc.). Examples include iZotope RX, Moises.ai, or Lalal.ai. The challenge is streaming sources—usually you need to download the audio file first, since most tools require a local file to process.

Yes,you can remove or isolate instruments using online stem-separation tools like Moises or LALAL.AI. They let you upload a song and split it into parts such as vocals, drums and guitar. Streaming makes it tricky, so you may need to download the track first. Once separated, you can mute the guitar and play along with the rest 

The Pro version of Ultimate Guitar ->Tabs has backing tracks and instrument isolation/muting options. It is not the original recording of the song, but I find it useful.