How to make a drumless track to practise drums
Updated · 2 min read
The best way to learn a song on drums is to play it with the band, minus the drummer. Extractune removes the drums from a song in your browser, so you can play along to everything else.
Make the drumless track
- 1Open extractune.com/drumless-track and tap Make a drumless track.
- 2Pick the song: a video or an audio file.
- 3Trim to the song if the file is longer, then tap Make a drumless track again. It extracts the audio and splits it in one go.
- 4Drumless is picked for you when the split lands. Play it to check, then download it.
Hear what you're replacing
Tap Drums only on the same split to hear the original drum part alone. Learning it that way, then playing it over the drumless track, is quicker than picking the drums out of the full mix.
Practise the hard parts
Open the studio to slow the track down (to 50%, without changing pitch), loop a fill, and tap Build up speed to raise the tempo 5% each time round. You can also keep the drums in quietly as a guide, rather than all the way off.
Choosing songs to practise
Start with songs where the drums are clear and not too busy: rock, pop and funk with a steady groove split cleanly and are easy to lock in with. Studio recordings separate better than live ones, and a song you already know well lets you hear straight away when you've drifted.
Trim the file to the song before splitting, so no time is spent on an intro video or applause, and so the split fits in one go.
Record yourself
Download the drumless track as WAV and load it into whatever you record with, a phone, a laptop or an interface. Play along, then listen back: your drums in the gap the original left make it obvious where you rushed, dragged or missed a fill. It's also how most drum covers are made.
What you need
The song as a file, a video or an audio file up to 500MB, and a recent version of Chrome, Edge or Safari. The first split downloads the separation engine once (about 172MB). Splits run up to 5 minutes at a time where the browser can use the graphics chip, and 2 where it can't.
Why it sounds the way it does
The split separates voice, drums, bass and everything else. Cymbal wash and room sound can leave faint traces in the other parts, especially on live recordings; with your own drums on top you'll rarely hear them.