Demucs
Separate vocals, drums, bass and other stems from any song.
- Stars
- 3.4K
- Forks
- 314
- Open issues
- 6
- Last commit
- 2026-08-31
Live from the GitHub API · updated 2026-10-15
What is Demucs?
Demucs (Hybrid Transformer Demucs) is a state-of-the-art music source separation model. One command splits a track into vocals, drums, bass and other — or just vocals vs. accompaniment for karaoke.
Key features
- Four-stem and two-stem separation
- Six-stem model with guitar and piano
- CPU and GPU support
System requirements
- Platforms
- Windows · macOS · Linux
- GPU
- Optional; NVIDIA speeds things up
- VRAM
- ~7 GB for default settings on GPU
- Python
- 3.8+
How to install Demucs
Summarized from the project’s README. Projects change quickly — check the GitHub page for the latest instructions.
pip
- 1Install.
python3 -m pip install -U demucs - 2Separate a song (outputs to ./separated).
demucs song.mp3 demucs --two-stems=vocals song.mp3
Strengths
- Excellent separation quality
- Simple CLI
Limitations
- Original Meta repo is archived; maintenance is limited
Demucs alternatives compared
| Software | Stars | License | Platforms | VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demucs Separate vocals, drums, bass and other stems from any song. | 3.4K | MIT | ~7 GB for default settings on GPU | |
| Ultimate Vocal Remover Desktop GUI for vocal removal and stem separation. | 26.6K | MIT | — | |
| Whisper OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition and translation model. | 110.5K | MIT | ~1 GB (tiny) to ~10 GB (large) | |
| whisper.cpp Whisper in plain C/C++ — fast on CPUs, Apple Silicon and mobile. | 54.4K | MIT | — | |
| faster-whisper Whisper reimplemented on CTranslate2 — up to 4× faster with less memory. | 25.9K | MIT | — | |
| WhisperX Fast transcription with word-level timestamps and speaker diarization. | 24.6K | BSD-2-Clause | — |
FAQ
Is Demucs free?
Yes — Demucs is open-source software released under the MIT license. Check the license (and any model weight licenses) before commercial use.
Does Demucs run on Windows, Mac and Linux?
Demucs supports: Windows, macOS, Linux.
What hardware do I need for Demucs?
Optional; NVIDIA speeds things up. VRAM: ~7 GB for default settings on GPU
How do I install Demucs?
1. Install. 2. Separate a song (outputs to ./separated).
What are the best Demucs alternatives?
Popular alternatives include Ultimate Vocal Remover, Whisper, whisper.cpp, faster-whisper. See the comparison table on this page.