No sooner does Native Instruments announce their open source Stems initiative, that another stems-based resource comes to our attention. Dubseed has been going for a very short time and looks to spread new music in stem form, but unlimited stems, and in WAV format. Take that NI.
A few words from the website:
Dubseed is a networking/distribution resource that allows you to discover and explore music at its core.
Our goal is to provide music enthusiasts a deeper insight into the creative and technical elements behind musical compositions. Through networking and the distribution of song stems, we want to influence the progression of remixing, djing, and music education, which in return will result in an overall growth of the music scene.
The nutshell version is that Dubseed lets you buy and download stemmed tracks. Unlike the NI Stems, there seems to be an unlimited number of stems per track. And when I say track, the stems are supplied as individual stem WAVs with a complete version of the track as well. The one I downloaded was 13 individual WAVs for a total of 855Mb, a considerable hike in file size over a single audio file.
Obviously if you can buy stemmed tracks, then they have to get there somehow. So you can upload and sell your stemmed creations through the Dubseed website. They charge $4.99 to host each stem file you sell through them, plus a 30% commission on every sale. You can if you wish make your stems available for free and use Dubseed as a music discovery and promotion site too. And you can play the stems from within the website to see if they’re what you’re after.
Right now the site is beta with just a handful of tracks on there. And while it’s not a contained single file that loads into a deck in one go, and doesn’t require updates to software to work, this is an alternative take on the whole stems thing.