If you make your own launch videos, ads, reels or podcast episodes, you have probably hit this problem: the music you want to use has vocals, and the vocals fight with your voiceover. Stem separation fixes that by splitting a track into vocals, drums, bass and other instruments, so you keep the parts that help and drop the parts that compete. Here is a practical workflow, written for founders who do their own marketing.
1. Start with music you are allowed to use
This is the step people skip. Removing the vocals from a song does not change who owns it. For commercial content, use tracks you have licensed (stock libraries, a commissioned composer, or royalty-free music whose licence covers your use), or your own recordings. Stem separation is a production tool, not a licence.
2. Decide what the music bed needs to do
- Under a voiceover: remove the vocals completely. Speech and singing occupy the same frequency range, so even quiet vocals hurt clarity.
- Under on-screen text or B-roll: you may keep the full instrumental, or only drums and bass for a lighter, rhythmic feel.
- For intros and outros: keep everything, then cut to the instrumental when someone starts talking.
3. Separate the track
I use Remove Vocal, a browser-based AI vocal remover we build, but the steps are the same with any stem splitter:
- Hi-Fi 2 stems (vocals instrumental) for the cleanest instrumental under speech.
- 4 stems (vocals, drums, bass, other) if you want to thin the bed out further, for example keeping drums and bass only.
- 6 stems (adds guitar and piano) when one instrument clashes with your voice and you want to lower just that part.
It accepts audio (MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, OGG) and video (MP4, WebM, MOV, AVI) up to 500 MB, and you can preview each stem in the browser before downloading. If you already have a video with a song baked in, you can export the video with the new soundtrack.
4. Fit the music to the edit
- Tempo: slow the bed slightly for calm explainer videos, or speed it up for short ads. Pitch and tempo are separate controls, so the key does not drift.
- Key: a small pitch shift can make a track sit better under a deep or high voice.
- Length: loop a clean four- or eight-bar section of the instrumental in your editor to cover a longer voiceover.
5. Mix it so people can hear you
- Keep the music roughly 15 to 20 dB below the voice while someone is speaking, and bring it up between sentences.
- Use ducking (sidechain compression) in your editor so the music dips automatically when the voice starts.
- Cut a little of the music around 1 to 4 kHz, where speech intelligibility lives.
- Listen on phone speakers. Most of your audience will.
Quick checklist
- Licence covers commercial use
- Vocals removed under any speech
- Stems previewed for leftover vocals in quiet parts
- Tempo and length fit the edit
- Music ducked under the voice and checked on a phone
Pricing for transparency: Remove Vocal has unlimited plans at $2.99 per week or $5.99 per month. If you want to try it on your next video, here is the online AI vocal remover and stem splitter.
How do other founders here handle music in their marketing videos: stock libraries, custom music, or something else? Happy to answer questions in the comments, or by email at support@remove-vocal.com.