Which DJ Platform Has The Best Sounding Stems In 2025?

Real-time stems control – the ability to separate vocals from instrumentals instantly when DJing – is currently the cutting-edge battleground for DJ system manufacturers. It’s a fast-moving area, and many software makers are already onto their second or third iteration of stems in their software.

What’s more, since we conducted our test last year, two new companies have added stems to their systems: Traktor now has real-time stems, and Engine DJ has added stems analysis to its preparation software, meaning that it is possible for the first time to DJ with stems on all Engine DJ powered- standalone equipment – a first for this category of gear.

So just like the last few years, we have conducted a thorough test of the main contenders – Rekordbox, Serato, Traktor, VirtualDJ, djay Pro 5 (for Mac) and Engine DJ – so you can hear for yourself which stems sound the best.

About our real-time stems test

In the video accompanying this article, you will hear the real-time stems functions of all of these systems. We’ve used high-quality DJ equipment with the best audio interfaces, a powerful laptop, and been careful to present the recordings to you at exactly the same volume, to make comparison easier.

We’ve used exactly the same music clip for all of them, which contains full drums that vary quite a lot, a melodic bassline, real instruments, scratching, and both sung and rapped vocals. In other words, it’s a real test for the stems algorithm.

We’ve presented the audio in the video in a continuous musical loop, with clear on-screen callouts telling you what you’re listening to. Where available, you will hear the instrumental, the drums with the bassline, the drums on their own, and the acapella – on all the platforms.

Our Verdict For 2025

(Note: If you’d rather listen before reading what we think, then stop reading now and click play on that video!)

The least convincing stems this year are those in Engine DJ. They sound processed, warbly and in the case of the acapella, excessively “bleedy”. They’re OK, but noticeably poorer than all the others.

Next up is Rekordbox. Rekordbox is better than both Engine DJ and the previous iteration of Rekordbox stems (these have been improved in the current v7 of the software), but they’re still no more than average when it comes to the acapella rendering, with too much missing from the acapella for it to really convince.

Fourth and third are Serato and Traktor. Serato is pretty good, maybe a bit better than Traktor when it comes to instrumental and drum variants (but not by much) – but Traktor pips Serato for acapella rendering, being more open and believable, with less missing.

A close second is VirtualDJ. It scored well all-round, and had one of (if not the best) acapella performances of the lot, albeit with a little “bleed” from other stems – a compromise that I personally feel is better than audio being missing from the acapella. Not an awful lot to say against these – it was a great performance.

But our winner this year is Djay 5.2 (the Mac version). If its acapella performance was slightly messier than VirtualDJ’s as far as bleed and artefacts go, it wasn’t by far, with vocals still sounding believable and strong. But we felt that all the other stem variants were just that little bit more assured, open, and believable. It was, overall, a mighty impressive performance.

Other considerations

Of course, when deciding whether you want to DJ with stems, and if so, which platform you want to use, it’s not all about the sound quality. Traktor takes an age to analyse; Engine won’t let you use stems at all on any streaming platforms (as you have to prep them ahead of time); Rekordbox only has three stems, not four, whereas VirtualDJ actually has five (you can separate the hi-hats etc from the other drums) – the list of pros and cons goes on.

Also, some just don’t work well on lower-powered laptops (Rekordbox and VirtualDJ), whereas Serato and Traktor have the option of processing your songs ahead of time, which uses a lot of hard disk space, but does mean that you can have great fun playing high-quality stems even on less well-powered laptops.

Read this next: Acapella & Stems – Prepare First, Or Use Real-Time Features?

Algoriddim’s Djay Pro, for Mac and iOS at least, has got great-sounding stems that – thanks to the technology built into modern Macs and iPhones/iPads – gives you both great-quality stems and what we found to be ultra-fast, smooth operation.

We were very impressed overall with the usability of the latest generation stems in Djay Pro – and the company recently told us they’ve also managed to get the same results with their Android and Windows software, although we’ve not tested this yet, but that’s great news.

What do you think?

Anyway, over to you: have a listen and do let us know your thoughts. One thing I can tell you for certain: when we come back in 2026, you’re going to hear another jump in quality, such is the speed at which this area is moving right now. Exciting times.

Get our course: How To Mix With Acapellas (& Stems)