From acapella to remix
From acapella to remix: extract the vocal with Stems, dress it with Lontana
For a remix, everything starts with the vocal. Stems extracts it from the song and drops it into your project; Lontana Reverb and Lontana Delay give it your production's space instead of the original's.
Products
Edition needed
- NAUPLY Stems Free is enough to extract the vocal (2 stems); Premium and Pro give cleaner vocals (MEDIUM and MAXIMUM quality).
- NAUPLY Stems Pro to lock the vocal to the project tempo.
- Lontana Reverb and Lontana Delay: free with a NAUPLY account.
Steps
1Extract the vocal
Load the song into Stems and separate it: the vocal stem holds the acapella, the instrumental stem everything else.
NAUPLY Stems →2Lock it to your project (Pro)
“LOCK TO PROJECT” fits the vocal to your session's tempo, then “Export locked vocal” writes a file that starts exactly at bar 1.
NAUPLY Stems →3Drop it into the project
Without locking, drag the vocal's “⇱ DRAG” handle onto an audio track; with locking, drop the exported file at bar 1.
NAUPLY Stems →4Give it a new space
The extracted vocal keeps a little of the original reverb: add Lontana Reverb on a send, with a space that suits your production.
NAUPLY Lontana Reverb →5Lift the ends of phrases
Lontana Delay on a send, on a few chosen words or the whole vocal, to give the remix some depth.
NAUPLY Lontana Delay →
Good to know
- A remix of a song you don't own the rights to can't be released without the rights holders' permission.
- A separated vocal is never perfectly isolated: a little cymbal or original reverb can remain, especially in BASIC quality.
Frequently asked questions
- Which edition of Stems for an acapella?
- The Free edition is enough to separate vocals and instrumental. Premium and Pro give cleaner vocals, and Pro locks the vocal to your project's tempo.
- Why add reverb to a vocal that already has some?
- To place it in your song's space: a reverb shared by your tracks makes the remix coherent, while the original space gives the extraction away.