# HOW TO MAKE A DRUMLESS TRACK TO PRACTISE WITH. the band, waiting for you > How to make drumless tracks from any song: split it, mute the drums, add a click if you want one, set the tempo, and play the band without its drummer. Source: https://chordlens.app/guides/how-to-make-a-drumless-track By instrument · 09 of 14 - Drums - Beginner - 8 min read - Updated Oct 2026 - Chord Lens Team The short answer To make a drumless track, split the song into stems and mute the drums: the rest of the original band plays on without its drummer. Lower Other if cymbals still leak through, add the metronome if you want a click, and set the tempo you need. Play over it in Chord Lens, or download the mix on Premium. 01 / 09 · WHY ## Play with the band, not over the drummer. Playing along to a record is how most drummers learn to play songs. The problem is that the record already has a drummer. Play along at full volume and you are doubling someone else’s part: you can’t hear your own mistakes, your fills fight theirs, and when you drift off the beat the original drums carry the song for you, so you never notice. A drumless track takes the original drummer out and leaves everything else: the bass, the guitars, the keys, the vocal. Now you are the only drummer in the room. If you rush, the band is suddenly behind you. If you miss the fill into the chorus, the chorus arrives without a lift. That honest feedback is what makes a drumless track the best practice partner a drummer can have. For years drumless tracks meant searching for someone else’s upload, of a handful of famous songs. Now you can make one from almost any recording yourself: split the song into its parts and switch the drums off. This guide is about making that track and practising with it. If you still need to learn the part, our guide to [learning drum parts by ear](https://chordlens.app/guides/learn-drum-parts-by-ear) starts with the drums soloed rather than muted. 02 / 09 · METHOD ## Make a drumless track in five steps. You need the song as an audio file (MP3, WAV or M4A), and a computer with Chrome or Edge for the split. In the screenshot the demo song Coming Home is split into six stems with the M on the Drums row lit, so the band plays without them. The tempo is down from 143 to 129 BPM, marked 0.9×, and the Download menu is open with Mix ticked: the file is made as the mixer plays it, and the note under the formats says it will be in Key B at 129 BPM, as set now. 1. **Open the song** Upload an MP3, WAV or M4A file into the Chord Lens Studio on a computer. 2. **Split it into stems** Press Split stems. On Free, place the 2-minute window over the part you want to practise. 3. **Mute the drums** Press M on the Drums row. The bass, guitars, keys and vocal play on without them. 4. **Set it up to practise** Turn the metronome on if you want a click, and step the BPM down if the song is too fast for now. 5. **Play, or download the mix** Play over it in the Studio, or on Premium open Download, tick Mix and save it as MP3 to take anywhere. ![The Chord Lens Studio Stems mixer for the demo song Coming Home with the Drums stem muted, the tempo slowed from 143 to 129 BPM marked 0.9×, and the Download menu open with Mix ticked, described as the mixer plays it, MP3 picked, and a note that the file will be in Key B at 129 BPM.](https://chordlens.app/assets/guides/how-to-make-a-drumless-track/studio-drums-muted-download.webp) Drums muted The mix, as it plays Download MP3 03 / 09 · CLEAN IT UP ## When you can still hear a cymbal. Drums are usually the cleanest of the six stems to remove, because a kick, a snare and a hi-hat sound like nothing else in a band. Muting the Drums row takes out almost all of the kit in most studio recordings. What sometimes stays behind is the shimmer of the cymbals, or a shaker, a tambourine or electronic percussion, which can land in Other instead of Drums. If you still hear some of it, pull the Other fader down a little rather than muting it, since Other also holds keyboards, pads and backing parts the band needs. Lower it until the leftover percussion stops bothering you and the band still sounds full. Live recordings bleed more than studio ones: every microphone on stage picks up the drums, so a little of the kit ends up in every stem. If a split sounds rough, try a studio version of the same song. Some drummers like to keep a ghost of the original. Instead of muting, pull the Drums fader right down: you get a faint guide to lean on while you learn the arrangement, and you can take it away completely when you’re ready. Use the mixer, not the master volume, to balance. Bring the Bass fader up a touch over the others: it is the part a drummer locks to, and with the original drums gone you want it clear in your headphones. 04 / 09 · CLICK AND TEMPO ## A click that follows the song. With the drummer gone, the band has nothing marking the beat but the bass and the strumming. That’s good practice for your time, but at first a click helps. The Studio’s metronome has its own row in the mixer: unmute it and it clicks on the beats tracked from the recording, with beat one accented, so it follows the band if they push or pull. Set it to 0.5×, 1× or 2× of the beat, and give it its own fader so it sits just under the band. If the song is too fast for you yet, slow it. The BPM stepper goes from half the song’s tempo to double, one BPM at a time, and the band keeps its pitch, so it sounds like the same band playing slower. The click slows with it. Start where you can play the whole song cleanly, then raise it a few BPM each session until you reach the record. Our [metronome for songs](https://chordlens.app/guides/metronome-for-songs) guide has the routine for fading the click away. For one hard section, turn the loop on and drag A and B around it: the bar before a fill and the bar after, so you practise getting in and out of it as well as the fill itself. 05 / 09 · DOWNLOAD ## Take the track to your kit. On Free, the drumless track plays inside Chord Lens, which is fine if your computer is next to your kit. If it isn’t, download it. On Premium, open Download in the Studio’s header, tick Mix and you get one file made exactly as the mixer plays it: every stem you can hear at its fader and pan, without the drums you muted. It is saved at the Key and BPM you have set, with the pitch kept, so a slowed practice version comes out slowed. If the metronome is unmuted, its click is in the mix too, which gives you a click track built on the song’s own beat. Spoken section cues in a download are part of Pro. Premium saves MP3 at 320 kbps; Pro adds lossless WAV. The file covers the whole song, whatever the loop is set to; if the split covered only part of the song, the file is that part. Make two or three versions of a song you’re working on: one slowed with the click, one at full speed with the click, one at full speed without. Put them on your phone and work through them in order. Downloads are for your own personal study and practice, not to share, sell or publish. 06 / 09 · PRACTISE ## Listen to the band, not to yourself. The point of a drumless track is to play with the band. So listen hardest to the bass player and the rhythm guitar. When your kick lands with the bass notes and your backbeat sits with the strum, you are in the pocket. When it doesn’t, the gap is easy to hear, and that is the lesson. Know the map of the song before you start. The Studio shows the song’s sections along the top of the mixer, so you can see the chorus coming, and the chords and lyrics run in time if you follow along by the vocal. Fills usually go in the last bar before a new section; the band will feel strange if you play one anywhere else. If you want the sections called out the way drummers hear them in their in-ears on stage, the [Guide Track Maker](https://chordlens.app/guide-track-maker) adds spoken cues, each section’s name a bar early and a count-in. For a mix with a different part removed, the same steps work for any instrument; our guide to [making a backing track](https://chordlens.app/guides/how-to-make-a-backing-track) covers guitar, bass, keys and vocals. 07 / 09 · GOOD TO KNOW ## What it needs, and what it costs. Splitting runs in your browser on a computer, in Chrome or Edge, and the first split downloads the splitting engine once, about 140 MB. Free splits a 2-minute part of the song that you choose; Premium splits up to 8 minutes and Pro up to 12. On a phone you still get the chords, but not the split. The whole kit is one stem, so the track loses all the drums together; you can’t keep the original hi-hat and remove just the snare. 08 / 09 · Do it in one click ## Drum Stem Splitter Mute the drums in any song for a drumless track, with a click on the song’s own beat. [Open Drum Stem Splitter](https://chordlens.app/drum-stem-splitter) [Open the Studio](https://chordlens.app/studio) 09 / 09 · Quick answers ## Quick answers. the short answers ### Still stuck? Open the Studio and send us a note with Feedback in its sidebar. A person reads every one. [Send feedback](https://chordlens.app/studio?feedback) ### How do I make a drumless track? Split the song into stems in the Chord Lens Studio and press M on the Drums row. The rest of the original band plays on without the drums. ### Can I download a drumless track? On Premium, as MP3: open Download, tick Mix, and the file is the mix as you hear it. Pro adds WAV. On Free the track plays in Chord Lens. ### Can I use Chord Lens on my own files, or only YouTube? Both. The Chrome extension works right on the YouTube video you’re watching, listening to the song as it plays. To split stems, upload your own audio in the Studio (MP3, WAV or M4A, up to 50 MB). Premium exports stems as MP3 and Pro adds WAV, for your own study and practice. ### Can I add a click to a drumless track? Yes. Unmute the metronome row and it clicks on the song’s own beat. Leave it on when you download the mix and the click is in the file. ### Can I slow a drumless track down? Yes, down to half the song’s tempo without changing the pitch. A downloaded mix is saved at the BPM you set. ### Why can I still hear cymbals? Cymbals and percussion can land in Other. Pull the Other fader down a little rather than muting it, since it also holds keys and backing parts. ### Can I take out only the snare or the kick? No. The whole kit is one stem, so muting Drums takes them all out together. ### Is it free? Free to try: Free splits a 2-minute part of a song, the part you choose, and plays it in Chord Lens. Premium splits up to 8 minutes and Pro up to 12. ## Keep going [Previous in By instrument **08** Piano chords by ear](https://chordlens.app/guides/piano-chords-by-ear) [Next in By instrument **10** Learn drum parts by ear](https://chordlens.app/guides/learn-drum-parts-by-ear) ### Related guides - [By instrument · Drums Learn drum parts by ear 8 min](https://chordlens.app/guides/learn-drum-parts-by-ear) - [Practise and play · Any instrument Metronome for songs 8 min](https://chordlens.app/guides/metronome-for-songs) - [Practise and play · Any instrument Make a backing track 7 min](https://chordlens.app/guides/how-to-make-a-backing-track)