NUO-STEMS Changelog
3.1.0-alpha.33 - 11 September 2024
Download this version if you want to participate in alpha test. All communication on alpha-beta-testing is happening on FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nuostems
- Updates:
New AAC Encoder on Windows – QAAC (instead of FFMPEG aac). On Windows, NUO-STEMS is now using QAAC as AAC encoder. In simple terms: 256 AAC compression of stems shall be significantly improved resulting in higher quality. QAAC provides results that are almost identical to Mac AAC encoding.
- Download links:
3.1.0-alpha.32 - 11 September 2024
- Updates:
-
NEW Feature: “AI distribute on ‘drums’ and ‘other’ stem” – when using “sum of stems = original”, new option is now selected by default.
- It substantially cleans up “other” stem from leftovers of drums & percussion, while keeping “sum of stems = original”
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- Fixes:
- fixed issue of not being able to convert using htdemucs & htdemucs_ft algorithms (resulting is “-1%”)
3.1.0-alpha.31 - 4 September 2024
- Updates:
- Fixed a bug where conversion got stuck on “-1 %” if lyrics of the track contained special symbols.
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3.1.0-alpha.31 – VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE.
TLDR: You need to re-convert your STEMS if you used mel_band_roformer before.
So, I discovered a bug that quality was not improved prior to this release, and it stayed the same as 3.0.0 for drums, bass & other.
What it means (I’m comparing PRE-3.1.0-alpha.30 and 3.1.0-alpha.31):
SDR (quality metric – check this video for explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxphQmFIlk0&pp=ygUJbnVvIHN0ZW1z ):
- Drums: improved: 11.26 > 11.77
- Bass: improved: 12.04 > 12.38 (you can actually hear that there are now very little drums leaks)
- Other: improved: 5.74 > 6.90 (also, drums leaks are now minimal. Another bonus: of you enable “sum of stems = original”, it now goes into “other” stem quite well)
- Vocals: 10.85. (nothing changed here since release of mel_band_roformer)
What it all means, is that quality improved substantially in different areas, and if you used “mel_band_roformer” algorithm to convert to STEMS since it’s release, you now need to re-convert all your tracks to actually gain quality increases in all stems, and not just vocal
3.1.0-alpha.29 - 26 August 2024
- Updates:
-
fixed issue of “empty vocals” on MacOS 14+
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3.1.0-alpha.28 - 25 August 2024
- Updates:
-
New “Sum of stems = original mix” feature. Makes sum of stems (drums, bass, other, vocals) exactly equal original mix. Keep in mind that this will make the stem that you selected very “dirty”.
- New “Added silence duration feature”. 100ms of additional silence was introduced in early versions of 3.1.0-alpha. Now there is an option to enable/disable adding 100ms of silence to the beginning of the track.
- Saving .wav stems now has additional option – “Template of the filename”. You can now select whether you want to append/prepend original filename to each individual stem, or leave it without it. (example: filename_vocals.wav)
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3.1.0-alpha.27 - 24 August 2024
- Updates:
-
fixed issue where users of old Mac OS systems (10.15) had progress stuck at 3%
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3.1.0-alpha.26 - 23 August 2024
- Updates:
-
completely reworked under-the-hood to potentially provide more stable performance for “mel_band_roformer” & other algorithms. You might also experience higher benchmark on systems with good NVidia GPU or Apple Silicon
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added new preset for STEMS Colors – “Traktor Pro 4” color preset
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removed “STEMS Metadata” section from Settings
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removed “mdx_extra” algorithm, as mentioned in previous post (it’s outdated & almost nobody uses it)
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3.1.0-alpha.25 - 11 August 2024
- Convert & Settings:
- BIG UPDATE: new algorithm “mel_band_roformer”. Also known as “insane”.
3.1.0-alpha.20 - 30 July 2024
- Convert:
- Fixed issue when lyrics of input file contained special characters that caused program to freeze
3.1.0-alpha.19 - 29 July 2024
- Convert:
- Fixed issue when mono files where added to the queue
3.1.0-alpha.18 - 29 July 2024
- Convert:
- added .mp4 as supported extension for adding to the queue
- Traktor Utilities & Settings:
- “Load Traktor Collection” disable option. If disabled – Traktor collection won’t be loaded & Traktor Utilities will be disabled
3.1.0-alpha.17 - 30 June 2024
This version includes improvements from 3.1.0-beta.1.
Download this version if you want to participate in alpha test. All communication on alpha-beta-testing is happening on FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nuostems
- Traktor Utilities:
- New table view. Sorting & Filtering
- Now it shows all tracks in Traktor Collection. Both the ones that have STEMS & the ones that don’t
- See algorithm of the STEMS track that is already created for the original
- Filter whole table to see STEMS tracks of particular algorithm
- Add tracks from Traktor Utilities table directly to the Queue (Convert page)
- Option to add these tracks as “Traktor” type tracks in queue. “Traktor” tracks in the Queue (have Traktor logo next to them) trigger adding them to the collection.nml once the conversion is done, along with transferring metadata/beatgrid/hotcues. This part is very experimental, but worked pretty good in my testing. This means that you now don’t need to add STEMS to Traktor manually – it’s done by NUO-STEMS itself.
- “Change STEMS colours” is now a separate button. Also, colours selection is now using colours from General Settings page.
- “Transfer” button is now “Sync” button.
- Sufficient speed improvements when transferring metadata/hotcues/beatgrid
- Settings related to “Traktor Utilities” are now part of “Settings” page.
- Buttons to select collection, refresh collection, reset collection are now simplified and put at the top bar of the app.
- “Instructions” button is now put at the top bar of the app.
- Each track now has “add to queue” button
- Each track now has “delete” button to remove STEMS file from collection & also put the file to system trash bin
- Multi-select tracks to “add to queue” or “delete”
- Ability to manually set “offset” for transferring hotcues & beatgrid between original & STEMS versions of the track. Now more streamlined & has “dashed border” if manual offset is set.
- Modal window to “remove” STEMS files.
- Modal window to “reconvert” STEMS tracks when existing STEMS track algorithm is different from the “Settings” algorithm.
- Modal window to “replace-regular-with-traktor”. When tracks were added to the Queue as just regular tracks, but you want to replace them with “Traktor” tracks type (which, as described above, adds these STEMS tracks to collection once the conversion is done in the Queue)
- “Lonely STEMS” actions at the app start. What to do in case there is no matching Original track in Traktor Collection. For example, you deleted Original track from the collection & want STEMS version to be deleted automatically.
- Various UI cleanups
- Convert page
- Now tracks that were added to the Queue from “Traktor Utilities” page as “Traktor” tracks have Traktor Pro logo next to them.
3.1.0-beta.1 - 20 April 2024
Download this version if you want to participate in beta test. All communication on beta-testing is happening on FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nuostems
- Traktor Utilities:
- Improvements:
- Much improved precision when transferring hotcues & beatgrids. Missed ratio on my 2300 tracks collection is 1.70 %.
- Much increased speed of transfer
- Fixes:
- STEMS colors are now changed for all STEMS in the collection. Previously it was only for “matched pairs”
- Features:
- Ability to set “manual offset” in milliseconds between original & STEMS version. Useful when Traktor Utilities calculates offset wrong. Available in Traktor Utilities -> Transfer section -> See all matched tracks
- Now NUO-STEMS checks if Traktor Pro is opened & warns the user to close Traktor before doing the transfer
- Improvements:
- Convert page:
- All newly-converted STEMS now have additional 100ms of silence at the beginning of the track. This is needed for properly transfer of Hotcues & Beatgrids in Traktor Utilities
- Settings:
- Update Channel. You can now select which version of NUO-STEMS you want to use & keep up to date. Available options: default, stable, beta, alpha. Useful when you want to try some of the cutting edge features.
- Download links:
3.0.0 - 12 March 2024
- Includes everything from 3.0.0-beta releases
- Download links:
3.0.0-beta.21 - 9 March 2024
- Features.
- Advanced Setting: “Skip adding .stem.m4a to the queue”. Helpful when you have STEMS versions of the tracks located in the same folder
- Fixes.
- Fixed issue when files with not normal extension casing where not added to the queue (e.g. .MP3 was not added, while .mp3 was added)
3.0.0-beta. 15 May 2023 - 8 Match 2024
- New algorithm: demucs v4 (both “htdemucs & htdemucs_ft”). Shall provide better quality, especially for vocals.
- “demucs v3” is still available as an option (it is the default algorithm of NUO-STEMS v2)
- GPU acceleration support for both Mac & Windows.
- Windows requirements: NVIDIA GPU (7 GB of VRAM is recommended as less might bring unexpected behavior)
- Mac requirements:
- Apple silicon or AMD GPUs
- macOS 12.3 or later
- Completely new UI & technology stack
- Save Instrumental & Acapella (e.g. for Serato, Rekordbox & Other)
- On the first launch you can select algorithm & output folder. These can be changed later in Settings.
- Convert page:
- Ability to Start / Stop conversion
- “Queue” is restored after application restart
- Select individual files by:
- drag-and-drop
- clicking a button
- Select full folder of files
- depending on your settings will maintain the output structure as in input folder
- See progress of adding tracks to the Queue
- Program automatically finds .stem.m4a files in the output directory & proposes to:
- Skip adding originals to the Queue
- Overwrite (add originals to the Queue)
- Option to add new tracks either to the “Top of the Queue” or “Bottom of the Queue”
- See artwork, artist, title, duration & file locations (input & output) in the “Queue”
- Right-click on any track in the Queue:
- “Move to top of Queue” – move it to the top of the Queue for processing as soon as possible.
- “Reset Track Progress” – resets progress to 0% (useful when you changed settings & want to re-process the track)
- “Remove from Queue” – removes track from the Queue so that it’s not processed.
- “Clear Queue” – removes all the tracks from the Queue. Additionally, shows modal window to confirm this action.
- “Search” – input field that lets you search all the tracks in the Queue, so that you can remove/move to top/reset track progress easier & faster
- “Scroll to top of Queue” button
- “Scroll to currently processing track” button
- Show currently selected algorithm at the top of the page
- Show overall conversion progress in the menu on the left
- Tiles with Benchmark, Time Remaining & Processed Tracks information
- Each time the application is launched – show modal whether to remove completed (100%) tracks from the queue
- Traktor Utilities:
- “Metadata Transfer” (enabled by default on launch) & “STEMS Colors” (disabled by default on launch) are now toggles in “Traktor Utilities” (the were previously separate pages in NUO-STEMS v2)
- New, highly accurate algorithm to transfer Hotcues & Beatgrids that eliminates “drift”. It’s slower than in NUO-STEMS v2, but provides precise results
- STEMS colors preset (including custom selected) is now saved & restored on application restart
- Automatic detection of latest Traktor Pro collection.nml
- collection.nml is loaded on application startup to speed up the process
- Transfer now shows progress in % and currently transferring track
- Now, all metadata properties shall be copied (previously some might be missing, like “Comment 2”)
- Custom select your collection.nml
- Backup folder is now called “Collection Backups NUO-STEMS 3”
- “Refresh” button to reload collection.nml (in case in was changed after initial load)
- “Default collection” button to revert selected collection.nml to automatically detected (in case you previously manually selected another collection.nml)
- “Process only recent #” input field let’s you limit the amount of tracks from the end of the collection that will be transferred. Useful when you incrementally add new track to your library, convert them to .stem.m4a & want to transfer metadata only for the newly added ones
- “See matched tracks” accordion. Lets you see all the pairs that were discovered in your collection.nml (original & .stem.m4a version)
- Settings
- All settings are now “persistent” – saved automatically & restored on application restart
- General:
- Algorithm select
- htdemucs_ft (demucs v4) – fine-tuned version of ‘htdemucs’ algorithm, provides highest quality at 4x slower processing time than ‘htdemucs’
- htdemucs (demucs v4) – fastest algorithm, provides balance between speed and quality
- mdx_extra (demucs v3) – highest quality algorithm from demucs v3. Was used in NUO-STEMS v2. Sometimes might bring better results than ‘htdemucs_ft’
- “Same as Original” output location – save .stem.m4a to the same location as original track. (also applies to .wav individual stems if set in settings)
- Custom Output Folder – folder to save all the output files (.stem.m4a & .wav stems if set in settings).
- show currently selected output directory path
- “Same as Original” when selecting “Input Folder” – files in “Custom Output Folder” maintain the structure of input folder. (This applies only when selecting “Folder” as input). This was the default behavior for “Select Input Folder” in NUO-STEMS v2
- Save .wav – save individual stems (drums, bass, other, vocals) additionally as .wav
- Save Instrumental & Acapella (e.g. for Serato, Rekordbox & Other). Also transfers metadata. Output available in WAV & MP3 @ 320 kbps
- Save .stem.m4a – core feature of NUO-STEMS. Can be disabled in case you are using NUO-STEMS only for generating Instrumentals & Acapellas or invidvidual .wav stems.
- STEMS colors – These colors apply only to newly converted STEMS. If you already processed STEM file & want to change it’s colors – please use “Traktor Utilities”
- Position of newly added tracks in the queue (top or bottom) – applies to both ‘drag & drop’ as well as selecting files by clicking a button
- Algorithm select
- Advanced:
- Number of CPU cores – control how many cores are used for STEMS conversion.
- GPU Acceleration (Requires Windows operating system with NVIDIA GPU) – About 7GB of GPU VRAM will be required. If your processing is stuck or fails on GPU – please select “CPU” option.
- ALAC compression of .stem.m4a (experimental). Seem to currently play back only on Traktor Pro on Mac OS (as of May 2023).
- STEMS Metadata (experimental) – in-depth setup of how your .stem.m4a file is processed by Traktor Pro. You can changes settings for compressor & limiter.
- Open Logs – for troubleshooting with technical support
- Hard Reset – Removes all your app preferences, window size & position, and other app configurations. Sometimes may help if experiencing issues
- Activation & License
- Show license type (demo / perpetual / patreon)
- Added section “How to transfer license to another computer” FAQ
- App Info:
- Changelog is now available within the app
- Additional:
- Many “tooltips” were added across the application to show hint on hover
- “Update” version is now embedded into the application – it notifies when update is available & let’s you install it without the need to go to the website
- Overall conversion progress is now visually displayed on the application icon in dock
2.0.0 - 19 October 2022
- 10x better quality of separation thanks to new algorithm – Facebook Demucs v3 (https://github.com/facebookresearch/demucs). It now takes much longer to separate STEMS but gives incredible results
- New Feature: “STEMS color”. You can now change individual stem (e.g. drums) colours for all STEM files in your collection. This is especially useful when using Traktor S4 mk3 with color pads.
- Default color of all 4 stems is now set to violet/purple.
- New design & logo
1.8.0 - 15 July 2021
- deezer spleeter under-the-hood update
- GUI clean-ups and clarifications
1.7.1 - 16 January 2021
- Purchase link now embedded in the app – no need to copy UUID manually
- Fixed additional .aiff files album artwork transfer
- Windows users now don’t need to install additional Microsoft updates for NUO-STEMS to launch
- Fixed Windows finish alert being absent
- New automatic purchase approval system. Now your license is automatically activated within 5-10 min after purchase. Just restart NUO-STEMS to see “Access Granted”
1.6.0 - 8 January 2021
- Fixed Audio quality being cut at 16 kHz
- Fixed some filenames causing freezes
- Fixed .aiff files metadata transfer
1.5.0 - 24 December 2020
- HIGHLY improved loading times . Previously program took 1-5 min to launch, now – it launches in <10 sec
- Added Mac OS 10.12, 10.13 support! NUO-STEMS now supports all Mac OS systems from 10.12+, including Big Sur .
- Updated core from Tensorflow v1 to Tensorflow v2 – which yields more stable and faster processing results
- Traktor Utilities now also transfers Title , Artist , Album and Genre metadata from originals to .stem versions. This is useful when .wav files don’t have metadata embedded
- AI Models are now embedded into the program, so they don’t need to be downloaded separately
1.4.1 - 24 September 2020
- Fixed: some Patreon users couldn’t activate their license
1.4.0 - 19 August 2020
- functionality to process full folders with nested structure. This means that you can now select folder containing your audio files and sub-folders with other audio files, etc. NUO-STEMS will analyze the nested structure of this folder and output the same structure with same relative file locations and sub-folders structure)
1.3.5 - 12 August 2020
- DEMO version now can be activated to become fully-functional upon Patreon subscription
1.3.4 - 4 August 2020
- August Patreon Subscribers update
1.3.3 - 31 July 2020
- Traktor Utilities: fixed ton of bugs related to incorrect or insufficient original metadata
1.3.2 - 17 July 2020
- Traktor Utilities: added Musical Key & Key text, Rating transfer from original files to STEM versions
1.3.1 - 13 July 2020
- Added ALAC and AAC file types support
1.3.0 - 12 July 2020
- NEW FEATURE: Traktor Utility – migrates all your HotCues, BeatGrids and BPM from original tracks to their new STEM versions
- bug fixes related to filenames sometimes freezing the processing
1.2.0 - 6 July 2020
- Switch to select whether u need to save intermediary files (wav files of vocals, bass, drums, melody), or just save the final .stem.m4a file. Can be useful when planning to use separate .wav’s in production of remixes, etc.
1.1.1 - 4 July 2020
- Benchmark metric added (total tracks duration in seconds / processing time)
- DEMO version now also available (check other post)
1.1.0 - 3 July 2020
- Windows 7 support (Previously only Windows 10)
- FLAC support (including metadata and album cover transfer)
1.0.1 - 2 July 2020
- fixed 60% progress status
- fixed metadata packing into final .stem.m4a file
1.0.0 - 30 June 2020
- Mac OS / Windows support
- Process multiple tracks at once
- Converts all the core metadata from original track to .stem.m4a track (including artwork😊)