Acapellas are a powerful tool that allow DJs to create live mashups and remixes on the fly. Often hard to find, DJs for years have been relying on forums and illegal download sites to try and find homemade acapellas.
Now in 2024, most DJ applications including Serato Pro, Traktor and rekordbox come with some form of stem separation that allows you to extract the vocals from the instrumentals. These allow you to create on-the-fly acapellas and instrumentals live inside a set.
However, these will vary in quality and usability, so aren’t always going to be your best bet. The inbuilt accapella creation in djay Pro, Serato and Virtual DJ all have high-quality separation, while rekordbox and Traktor both have the feature but it doesn’t always sound as great.
In this guide, we’ll show you where to find ready made acapellas as well as a couple of easy methods to create acapellas from your existing music collection.
Where to download acapellas for DJs
There are a few different sites where you can get DJ acapellas. However, these can vary significantly in quality as many are home to low-quality extracted vocals instead of official releases (despite what they may sometimes say). Many of the top sites for acapellas are also of at-best questionable legality as they’re largely offering free downloads of acapellas that are either pirated or made by users.
The best place to download acapellas to use in your DJ sets is always through official channels. The same sites that you’ll find all your regular tunes will no doubt have acapella versions of many of the tracks you’re after.
For example, Beatport and Traxsource are fantastic places to download legal acapellas, just like you would with complete tracks. You can also find them on streaming sites like Tidal, Beatsource or Soundcloud as well as DJ pools such as BPM Supreme or DJcity.
How to create acapellas
If you can’t find the acapella of the exact track you’re after, don’t worry. You can also create an acapella out of any track you own. There are a few different programs that let you do this so we’ve broken down our favourite free and paid options.
Neural Mix Pro – £50 One Time Purchase – Mac Only
Developed by the same team behind Djay, Algoriddim has created a standalone application for its Neural Mix technology. Using the same technology as the impressive iPad application, Neural Mix Pro allows users to break tracks into individual stem tracks. With the option to chose between three stems (vocals, harmonics and vocals) or two (vocals and instrumental).
Using an inbuilt library system much like Algoriddim Djay’s, the user can load files in from either iTunes (Apple Music) or by loading entire folders into the library from finder. The folder view allows for batch export which is a great time saver and a unique feature to Neural Mix Pro. The track splits into stems upon loading of the inbuilt player. Using the computer’s processor, the application is available offline, which is ideal for preparing tracks on the move. Each of the channels can be adjusted in volume, soloed or muted entirely.
The player allows DJ’s to preview and tweak the levels before export. Finally, the player allows for re-pitching and looping of a track, ideal for producers. Exporting can be done in batch using the libraries folder view or individually from the preview player. Basic export mode allows for quick creation of acapellas or instrumentals.
Files save in compressed AAC format or the larger uncompressed WAV. Advanced export mode allows for the user to save different variations of the track, including combinations of the available stems. For example, a user can save a version of a track with the drums and vocals together. Finally, in both modes, the software can add a prefix or suffix to the saved file name, a great time saver, especially when combined with smart crates. 
Xtrax Stems – £60 a year – Mac & Windows
Xtrax stems by Audionamix is available for both Windows and Mac. The user interface is similar to more traditional audio editing applications, such as Audacity. The application can split tracks into four separate tracks (Vocals, Drums, Bass and Other).
Unfortunately, to separate the stems, the track is uploaded to Audionamix’s servers. The separation takes place in the cloud with the stems then downloaded to the users computer. Although this lowers the demand on the users PC, it does require an online internet connection at all times. 
Once processed in the cloud, the stems download into the application. The user can then tweak the sound to perfect the acappella. Each channel can once again be solo’d muted or mixed individually. However, unique to Xtrax stems is the ability to control the bleed of each track.
The bleed value tweaks how narrow or wide the frequencies of each channel can be. A tighter bleed limits frequencies from other stems being heard. All though this makes clean acapellas, it can result in un natural-sounding artefacts being present. On the other hand, a wide bleed will sound more natural, however, different frequencies such as instruments or drums may be present. Being able to tweak the bleed value is a useful tool, though for creating the best acapella possible. 
Exporting options are advanced and allow for easy saving of each of the stems. Users can export in uncompressed WAV or FLAC or compressed AIFF, MP3, or OGG. The bit rate and depth of the saved file are also adjustable for those looking for advanced audio export options.
Where to get acapellas for free
Ultimate Vocal Remover – Free – Mac & Windows
Ultimate Vocal Remover is a standalone application with incredibly impressive results. The best part? It’s completely free and open-source. Just download the application and enter the track you want to separate the vocals from. You’ll have to give it a couple of minutes to work its magic, but it’s worth the wait. Ultimate Vocal Remover gives some of the best, cleanest results of anything on the list – free or paid!
EZstems – Free – Website
EZstems is a web-based application that is available from any modern web browser. Running the Spleeter code, which was developed by music streaming service Deezer, EZstems is an easy interface that requires no knowledge of code. Using the website, the user uploads their track or copies a link to a YouTube video and selects how many stems splits the track.
The website takes the uploaded track, runs the Spleeter code on the track and then returns the separated stems to the user inside a ZIP file. Users can choose between various MP3 and WAV quality options, and the process takes around 2 minutes to complete.
Being a free public server, the user may be placed in a virtual online queue before their upload is processed. Users can skip the queue, however, by selecting one of the various premium memberships, costing from just $1 a month.
How To Make Acapellas – Video Guide
In this video, we go in-depth with each of the services mentioned in this guide. Make sure you check out the back to back examples at the end of the video. We play each acapella back to back and even include a studio acapella for the ultimate test of audio quality, make sure to check that out around 31:50!
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