Meet the Stem Mixer and Other Improvements in the LALAL.AI Apps

LALAL.AI 2.20 is out for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Most of this release is about the new Stem Mixer, which plays all the stems of a split at once and lets you set the level of each one while the track is playing. The rest of the update is smaller: some error messages are now more specific, and several bugs have been fixed.

The Stem Mixer

Up to this release, every stem in the app had its own small player. You could listen to the vocals and then switch over to the instrumental, but you couldn’t hear the two at once, let alone change how loud each one was.

With the mixer, every stem of the split plays in sync, and each has its own fader. If you’re learning a bass line, bring the bass up over the rest of the track to hear every note, then mute it and play along with what’s left. For a remix, you can split the lead and backing vocals, mute the backing parts, and check whether the lead holds up over the instrumental on its own before you decide which stems go into your project.

Opening the Mixer

Click or tap a finished split in your cloud splits or in the Local Processing list, and the mixer will open in a player at the bottom of the screen. The player stays on screen while you scroll through the list, so the track keeps playing as you browse your other splits. The split you’re listening to is marked in the list, and the player shows the separation settings it was made with. If you’ve run one song through different settings and are switching between the versions to compare them, you won’t lose track of which one is playing.

Controls for Each Stem

Each stem has a volume fader, and the desktop app adds a balance control for panning it left or right. Next to them are M and S buttons that work the same way as in a DAW. M mutes the stem, and S solos it, so only that stem stays audible. You can solo more than one stem at a time, for example, the lead and backing vocals, to hear them without the rest of the track.

A double-tap or double-click on a fader returns it to the default level, and balance resets the same way. There’s also a reset button at the top of the player that brings every stem back to its starting position in one go.

Waveform and Playback

The mixer has one waveform for the whole mix. It shows up as soon as you open a split, before the stems themselves have finished downloading. It also reacts to everything you do in the mixer. Mute or solo a stem, and the waveform redraws instantly. Move a fader, and you can watch the shape grow or shrink smoothly along with it.

Dragging along the waveform moves playback to that point, and the exact time is displayed under your finger or cursor while you drag. With a mouse, hovering over the waveform is enough to see the time.

Stems that aren’t on your device yet don’t need to be downloaded separately. Press play, and the app will download them and start the track once they’re ready. While the download is running, the same button lets you cancel it.

Keyboard Shortcuts on Desktop

On a computer, you can run most of the mixer from the keyboard:

If you forget one, click the ? icon in the player to bring up this list.

Drag Stems Into Your DAW ot Folder

You can drag any stem out of the mixer and drop it right into your DAW project, or into a folder in Finder or File Explorer. It saves you from downloading the file first and then hunting for it in your Downloads folder.

Mixed Track

Splits with lead and backing vocals separated also include an extra file in which the backing vocals and the instrumental are already mixed together. It’s basically a karaoke track that keeps the harmonies. In the mixer, it appears below the stems as Mixed track, and you can download, share, or drag it out like any other stem.

Accessibility

All of the mixer’s controls work with screen readers such as VoiceOver and TalkBack. As you move through the stems, the screen reader announces each one’s name, volume, and balance.

Clearer Error Messages

A few problems in the app used to show up as a vague error or not show up at all. These three now come with a message that names the cause.

• Signing in with Google or Apple. This kind of sign-in fails when the date and time on your device are wrong. Instead of a generic error, the app now asks you to turn on automatic date and time in your device settings.
• In-app purchases turned off. If purchases are blocked on your device, for example by Screen Time on an iPhone or iPad, the Buy button simply didn’t respond. Tapping it now brings up a message explaining that purchases are disabled.
• Deleting a stem that’s open in another app. When a downloaded stem was still open somewhere else, such as in your DAW, deleting it from LALAL.AI seemed to work, yet the file stayed on disk. The app now reports that the file couldn’t be deleted and asks you to close the other app first.

Fixes

We’ve also fixed the following bugs:

• If you ran out of minutes, bought more, and hit retry, the app kept showing the “not enough minutes” error. Retrying now restarts the split.
• A split’s progress no longer freezes when its download gets interrupted.
• A file no longer shows “split failed” while another split of the same file is still running.
• On Android, if you try to export files that have since been removed from the device, the app tells you they’re missing instead of doing nothing.
• On iPad, the share sheet opens properly even while you’re resizing the app window.
• On Windows, the app window opens at the right size instead of looking stretched or cut off.
• We fixed an issue that sometimes stopped Local Processing from activating on a computer.
• Notifications don’t get stuck on screen anymore.

Get the Update

Update LALAL.AI to the latest version, and you’ll find the Stem Mixer on any finished split. If you don’t have the app yet, download it for Windows, macOS, and Linux, iOS, or Android.

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