Moises App Review: Is It Worth Paying For?

Moises App Review: Stem Separation Limitations

One of the biggest differences between the free version of Moises and the Premium tier is the limitation on stem separations. The free version lets you upload up to five songs a month for separation: that’s enough to try it out and see how Moises works, but active guitarists will want the unlimited separation that Premium provides. You’ll be free up separate new songs whenever you want, without needing to wait for your quota to refresh.

Learn more about stem separation for guitarists: What is STEM Separation and Why Guitarists Should Care

Moises Stem Separation: Isolate the Tracks You Need to Hear

The free version of Moises does not actually include a “Guitars” stem: it creates stems for Vocals, Drums, Bass, and Other, and guitars will be separated into the Other category (along with whatever else Moises considers “other”). The Premium tier offers many more stem types including Acoustic Guitar, Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar and more to help you separate exactly the sounds you need. So if you really want to be able to separate as many instruments as possible, the Premium tier for Moises will give you the stems to do so.

To be exact, here are the types of stems you can separate with the Moises Premium tier:

• Vocals
• Lead Vocals
• Background Vocals
• Acoustic Guitar
• Electric Guitar
• Lead Guitar
• Rhythm Guitar
• Bass
• Piano
• Keys
• Strings
• Drums
• Wind Instruments
• Other

As you can see the Moises Premium tier gives you much more control over your stems, allowing you to zero-in on what you need to hear. Being able to isolate an acoustic guitar in a busy mix, or remove all other instrumentation besides guitars, means you have much greater control over what you hear when you practice or build your backing tracks.

Learn more about using Moises with a Blackstar Beam: How to Use Moises With Blackstar Beam Solo and Beam Mini

What is the Best Completely Free Stem Separation App?

The best completely free solution for stem separation that I have found is Ultimate Vocal Remover, an open-source stem separation tool driven by its community of users. With no paid tiers or subscription access, Ultimate Vocal Remover is the most comprehensive free-to-use stem separation app. The downside is that it’s open-source software and is community supported, which means it has more of a technical learning curve than paid apps like Moises.

Compared to Ultimate Vocal Remover, Moises is much easier to get up and running, and has company support behind it. For casual users, Moises is more user friendly to get started with, but technically-inclined users familiar with open-source software should definitely check out Ultimate Vocal Remover.

FAQ

How much does the Moises app cost per month?

As I’m writing this, Moises Premium costs $3.33USD a month (billed annually), and Moises Pro costs $16.66USD a month (billed annually). That pricing changed in the process of writing this article, and they also went on sale. It also seems that pricing can be different depending on whether you purchased through the Moises web app, or through in-app purchases with the iPhone or Android app. In other words, check Moises for accurate, up-to-date pricing, and keep in mind that sales are offered occasionally.

Is Moises completely free?

Moises offers a free tier with options to pay for Premium or Pro functionality. While the free tier is very limited in functionality, you can use it indefinitely, and you do not need to provide payment information to use the free tier.

Which is better, Fadr or Moises?

That’s completely subjective, and both offer free versions to try; trying the free versions will tell you what you need to know about their respective interfaces and workflows. I will say that for paid functionality, Fadr’s paid plan seems to give you more than Moises Premium but less than Moises Pro, and is priced accordingly between the two.

What is the best completely free stem separation app?

I think Ultimate Vocal Remover is the best free app because it doesn’t have any limitations or restrictions for being free. It is community created and supported, so updates are made free for all users.

What does the free Moises plan let you do, and where does it stop?

The free Moises plan lets you upload up to 5 songs per month for stem separation. Stem separation is limited to vocals, drums, bass, and other (melodies). You also get pitch/tempo changer, 10 monthly Gen-AI credits for generative purposes, and key and BPM detection. Audio exports are limited to 1 minute.

What do Premium and Pro add, and which one does a guitarist need?

Guitarists need the added stems and other features in the Premium tier, but Moises Pro is going to be more than guitarists need to learn songs and create backing tracks. There are way too many individual features to cover here in a short answer; you should definitely check out the Moises website for info on the exact features you’ll find in each tier.

How good is the guitar stem specifically?

Even in the free version the stem separation sounded very clean, much better than old vocal removers could do. I’ve tried Moises with professionally-mixed rock and funk-rock tracks, as well as iPhone recordings of my previous band in my basement, and all separated extremely well.

How accurate is the chord detection on real songs?

Moises’ chord detection works best with basic chords; inverted, augmented and diminished chords can result in the wrong chord being detected.

Does the speed changer keep pitch, and does it sound usable at 50% and 75%?

Yes the speed changer keeps pitch. I reduced two different tracks down to 50% and it held up surprisingly well, better than I expected in fact.

Does it work offline? Does it need a fast phone?

No, Moises only works online. This means that the speed or processing power of your phone or computer does not matter; the AI processing happen on Moises’ servers.

Can I export stems, and in what formats?

The free version of Moises allows you to export stems up to 1 minute long, in MP3 or M4A formats. Paid tiers give you access to FLAC, OGG, and WAV file export.

Is Moises worth it if I already have Ableton Live or Logic Pro with stem separation built-in?

Not if you’re solely focused on stem separation for learning parts and making backing tracks; in most cases you’ll have everything you need with your DAW’s stem separation. Moises integrates other features like cloud collaboration, AI track generation, and other things your DAW probably doesn’t offer, but you’ll need to dig deeper into what Moises offers to know if those are worth it for you. For basic stem separation duties, use your DAW if it offers it.