Drum Remover

How to remove the drums from a song

1. Upload the song. MP3, WAV, M4A or FLAC, up to 10 minutes. You sign in with Google the first time.
2. Press Remove the drums. The button shows what the song will cost before anything runs: 1 credit for every minute of music. New accounts start with 5 credits, enough for one song up to 5 minutes long. Most songs take 1 to 3 minutes, a little longer when the queue is busy.
3. Listen, then download. You get two reels: Without the drums and Drums only. Click a reel to hear just that file, and watch the small waveform beside it to see where the sound sits. Each file downloads on its own as an MP3 at 320 kbps.

If the process fails, your credits are returned.

What you get

• Without the drums. Bass, guitars, keys, vocals and everything else, with the kit taken out. This is the one to play over.
• Drums only. The kit on its own: kick, snare, hi-hat, toms, cymbals. Useful when you want to hear exactly what the drummer played.

Both files are the same length as the original, so they line up if you drop them into a DAW next to the song.

Why people remove the drums

Practise along with a real track. Drummers get the most out of a song once the drums are gone. Play your own part over the band, then compare it with the Drums only file. Loop a hard fill in your player, learn it from the isolated version, and go back to the Without file to try it in context.

Record a drum cover. For a video you need the original band without the original drummer. Use the Without the drums file as the backing and record your own take on top. Check that you have the right to post a cover of the song before you publish.

Sample a drum break. Producers look for a clean break from an old record. Drums only gives you the kit with most of the other instruments gone, so you can chop it. Room sound and tape noise often come along with the drums, and that is part of why a break from an old record sounds the way it does.

Remix or mash up. Take the drums out and lay a different groove under the original vocals, or keep the drums and replace everything else.

Work out a pattern. Slow the file down in your player and listen to Drums only to hear which hi-hat is open and which is closed.

Need the kick, snare and cymbals apart?

This page gives you the kit as a whole. If you want the kick, the snare, the hi-hat and the cymbals as separate files, use the Drum Kit Splitter. If you want the whole song in parts at once (vocals, drums, bass and more), start from the stem splitter.

Which songs separate best

Drums are loud and punchy, so most studio recordings come out well. Results depend on the song, though, and some things are worth knowing before you start.

• Clear, close-miked drums separate cleanly. Rock, pop and funk records from the studio tend to do well.
• A snare with a long reverb tail can leave a faint wash behind in the Without the drums file, because the reverb is partly shared with other instruments.
• Electronic percussion such as claps, shakers and synthetic hats is sometimes counted as drums and sometimes not. Listen to both files to see where each one landed.
• Live recordings have drums leaking into every microphone, so expect some of the kit to remain.
• Very dense mixes with distorted guitars and a loud cymbal wash are the hardest. The model is good, but the result may still hold a trace of the drums or lose a little of the cymbals.

Listen to the Without the drums file with headphones before you build a project on it. If a hi-hat trace is bothering you, it will usually sit under a full band and be hard to notice, but a quiet acoustic track will show it.