Ableton Live: Enable High Quality stem separation in Ableton

Ableton Live Try it →Watch full video →Will Hatton · Sep 2025

Demo summary

A walkthrough of creating an options.txt file and pasting specific code into the Ableton preferences folder to unlock the 'High Quality' mode for stem separation.

Step-by-step

Copy the specific code found in the 12.3 beta notes
Paste the code into a TextEdit document
Go to Format and select Make Plain Text
Save the file as options.txt
Navigate to the Library folder by holding the Option/Alt key in the Go menu
Open Preferences, then the Ableton Live 12.3 folder
Drag the options.txt file into this folder
Restart Ableton Live
Right-click an audio stem and select Separate stems to new audio track
Select High Quality from the new toggle menu

Options

Toggle between High Quality and High Speed modes

Watch out for

The options.txt file must be saved as plain text to function
High Quality mode takes longer to process than High Speed mode

Highlights

“looking promising, but let me show you how to put this into high quality”

All demos from “Ableton’s New Stem Separator vs The Entire Competition”

1:340:31Separate stems in Ableton Live 12.3The creator demonstrates how to right-click an audio clip and use the 'Separate stems to new audio tracks' feature in Ableton Live 12.3 to isolate drums, bass, and vocals.Ableton Live· AI Vocal Remover & Stem Splitter
2:071:21Enable High Quality stem separation in AbletonCurrentA walkthrough of creating an options.txt file and pasting specific code into the Ableton preferences folder to unlock the 'High Quality' mode for stem separation.Ableton Live· AI Vocal Remover & Stem Splitter
6:472:03Isolate vocals and instruments with LALAL.AIThe user demonstrates selecting vocal and instrumental separation modes in LALAL.AI and audits the resulting audio quality.Lalal.Ai· AI Vocal Remover & Stem Splitter
Watch “Ableton’s New Stem Separator vs The Entire Competition” →

AI Vocal Remover & Stem Splitter

4:531:47Import Suno stems into Ableton LiveThe user shows the process of downloading the extracted stems from Suno and dragging the audio files into Ableton Live to align them for editing.Skillcraft AI
1:340:31Separate stems in Ableton Live 12.3The creator demonstrates how to right-click an audio clip and use the 'Separate stems to new audio tracks' feature in Ableton Live 12.3 to isolate drums, bass, and vocals.Will Hatton
2:071:21Enable High Quality stem separation in AbletonCurrentA walkthrough of creating an options.txt file and pasting specific code into the Ableton preferences folder to unlock the 'High Quality' mode for stem separation.Will Hatton