The Co-Creator of Ye's Stem Player Explains Why It's a "Revolutionary Device"
www.gq.com
Ahead of 'Donda 2,' Alex Klein reveals how the Stem Player-exclusive album came to be and why the $200 price tag is more than worth it.

"Well, remember you're not spending $200 for just an album. You're spending $200 for a revolutionary device that allows you to listen to music in a completely new way through stem separation, and that allows you to mix and make music on the go. You're also spending that $200 to become a part of a community that wants to change technology and music for the better. On top of that you’re getting Donda 2, which has enormous value. So I think that's a really important thing to stress. If I could put out one thing from this story today, that I want to make clear, is that you're getting something revolutionary. You're getting a first generation technology product that has the best reviews for a first generation technology product than anything we've seen in a decade, maybe since the original iPhone."

  • eduardog3000 [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The "gimmick" is getting access to the stems and being able to mix them however you want. You could do that with just a PC if the published the stems.

    • Phish [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think it takes a track and creates new stems out of it. So I'm sure it's pretty imperfect, especially for more complex tracks. The thing is, most music fans aren't going to download steam for their favorite songs and import them to a DAW to mess with them. Hell I'm a huge music fan with a high-end DAW and even I'm not doing that. The gimmick of the stem player is that it simplifies it and makes it easier to mess with tracks in a limited way. So yeah, not worth the money, not revolutionary, but I kind of get it.

      • eduardog3000 [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        takes a track and creates new stems out of it

        1. Why would it do that if the songs are coming from the person selling the device, why not just send the stems to the device?

        2. How does it even do that? Best I can think of is some AI shit. But it's not like you can just cleanly separate the stems of a (compiled?) audio file where they aren't already separate, right?

        • Phish [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Apparently there's a companion software that you run on computer and download songs to the device with. I didn't realize that!

          I actually think you nailed it on the head with some AI shit haha. I've heard some of the split tracks. It works surprisingly well if the distinction between vocals, bass, drums, etc is clear, but it fails pretty hard when there are more instruments. Certainly not a clean separation, but enough for your average Kanye Stan to start looping and messing with haha.