Piano Extractor and Remover

How to extract the piano from a song

1. Upload the song. MP3, WAV, M4A or FLAC, up to 10 minutes. The first time, you sign in with Google.
2. Press Extract the piano. The price appears on the button before it runs: 1 credit for every minute of music. A new account starts with 5 credits, enough for one song up to 5 minutes. Most songs take 1 to 3 minutes.
3. Listen and download. You get two reels: Piano and Without the piano. Click one to hear only that file; the small waveform beside it shows where the sound is. Each file downloads separately as an MP3 at 320 kbps.

If the job fails, your credits are returned.

What you get

• Piano. The piano on its own, with most of the vocals, drums and other instruments removed.
• Without the piano. The song with the piano taken out, ready for you to play it yourself or to sing over.

So this works as a piano extractor and a piano remover with one upload.

Learn a piano part

A piano in a full mix is hard to follow: the left hand sits under the bass, the right hand under the vocal. In the Piano file you can hear both hands clearly. Slow the file down in your player, loop one bar, and work out the voicing a chord at a time.

Once you know the part, you can write it down by ear, or get a head start with software. Download the Piano file and put it into Audio to MIDI (choose Piano / keys), or use MP3 to MIDI if that is the format you have. You get a .mid file that opens in any DAW or notation program, with notes you can see and edit. The conversion happens in your browser, so that file is not uploaded. It will not be perfect on fast runs or a pedalled passage, so use it as a draft.

This is also the reason to separate first. A full song fed straight into a MIDI converter gives a muddle of every instrument at once. The Piano file gives the converter one instrument to read.

Sing or play over a song without the piano

Singers. A ballad that is only piano and voice is a common request. Without the piano removes the accompaniment, though, and the vocal stays in the file. If you want the piano as an accompaniment and no vocal, use the Piano file, or take the vocals out first with the Vocal Remover and then separate the piano from what is left.

Pianists. Play your own part over the band. Use Without the piano as a backing track for a cover, a lesson or a performance where you are the pianist.

Producers. Remove the piano and put a different instrument under the original vocal.

Which songs separate well

The tool recognizes piano by its sound. That makes some songs easy and some difficult.

• A solo-style piano part under a vocal, such as a ballad or a jazz trio, separates well.
• Piano doubled with electric keys or synth pads is the hard case. They sit in the same range with a similar tone, so some of the pad can end up in the Piano file and some piano can stay in Without the piano.
• Electric piano, Rhodes and organ can be mixed with the acoustic piano, so check what is in the Piano file.
• Piano with a lot of sustain pedal blurs one chord into the next, and the edges of each note may be a little soft.
• Live recordings share the room between all instruments, so more of the band will bleed in.

Open both files with headphones before you rely on them. If you hear a pad or organ in the Piano file, it is mixed in with the piano in the original recording.

More instruments

Guitarists can use the Guitar Remover. To split one song into six parts at once, start from the stem splitter. For a backing track with no vocals at all, see the Instrumental Maker.