Akai Pro promises “a new era in sampling” as it brings stem separation to its MPC platform

We suspect that, sooner rather than later, stem separation is one of those things that’ll be included in pretty much every DAW, but Akai Pro has stolen a march on some of its rivals by confirming that it’ll soon be added to both its MPC Software and standalone hardware.

The preview video above indicates that the MPC Stems feature enables you to crack open a mixed sample or song and separate the vocals, bass, drums and one ‘other’ track. These stems are then assigned to a pad and you can adjust their respective levels.

It will also be possible to assign sample slices to different pads and isolate specific parts of the original track, so you can then ‘play’ the separated stems to create something entirely new.

This kind of technology is nothing new - you’ll also find it in the likes of Algoriddim’s djay Pro, Serato’s Sample plugin and Studio DAW, FL Studio, Acon Digital’s Remix and various other desktop-and browser-based tools. It’s also included in the excellent Koala Sampler on iOS and Android.

This looks like it could be a very useful update for MPC owners: it’ll be coming to the software first, followed by the standalone hardware. Whether it’ll be a free update remains to be seen, but here’s hoping.

Find out more and sign up to be notified when MPC Stems launches (some time in March, we’re told) on the Akai Pro website.