Song Practice for Drummers: Drumless Tracks and a Click That Follows the Song
Drumming along to a record with the original drummer still in it is like playing a gig with a second kit bleeding through your monitors. You can't hear your own timing. Song Practice takes the drums out of songs on your iPhone, lets you study the part on its own, and gives you a click that stays locked to the band.
Import a song and let Song Practice separate it. Solo drums to learn the fills, loop the groove at a slower speed, then tap No drums in the Mix sheet and play along with a metronome that follows the song's tempo.
Make a drumless track in one tap
Song Practice uses AI stem separation, on your device, to split a song into vocals, drums, bass and other. Open the Mix sheet and tap the No drums quick mix: the kit disappears and the rest of the band keeps playing. You're now the only drummer on the record.
Each stem has its own fader in dB, so you don't have to go all or nothing. Leaving the drums a few dB under the band is a useful halfway step while you learn a song: the original part is still there as a guide, but your own kit sits on top. Hit Reset to get back to the full mix.
Solo the drums to learn fills
Now flip it. Solo the drum stem and the guitars, bass and vocals stop covering the kit. Fills that sounded like a blur turn out to be a clear pattern: you can hear whether that run moves rack tom to floor tom or snare to floor, where the flams are, and whether the crash at the end lands on the downbeat or is pushed an eighth early.
Soloed drums also make ghost notes on the snare and open hi-hat barks much easier to catch, which is often the difference between playing the beat and playing the feel.
Slow down fills without changing the sound
The speed dial runs from 25% to 200% of the original tempo, in steps of 5% of the song's BPM, with the pitch locked. Drums keep their tuning, so the snare still sounds like the snare instead of a thud. At 76%, a 128 BPM song plays at 97 BPM.
| Speed | Use it for |
|---|---|
| 50–60% | Working out sticking and orchestration of a fast fill, one hit at a time. |
| 70–85% | Getting the fill and the groove around it under your hands. |
| 90–100% | Playing it in context at record tempo. |
| 105–110% | Pushing past tempo so the real speed feels comfortable. |
Very low speeds can soften transients a little, so if a fill starts to smear, solo the drums first; a single stem stretches more cleanly than a full mix. See how to slow down a song without changing the pitch.
Loop grooves and fills
Set A and B markers around a groove and it repeats at your current speed. Markers snap to bars, so a four-bar pattern cycles back to beat one exactly where it should, and you can nudge A or B by a beat to catch a fill that starts on the "and" of three. Save bookmarks for the spots you keep coming back to. A good drill: loop the bar before the fill plus the bar after it, so you practise getting into and out of the fill, not just the fill itself. More in how to loop part of a song.
A click that follows the song
Song Practice detects the song's BPM and locks its metronome to that tempo. Slow the track to 75% and the click slows with it; speed it back up and the click comes with you. That's the key difference from a separate metronome app, where you'd have to work out the new BPM yourself and hope the record doesn't drift away from it. With the drums muted and the click on, you have a proper practice setup: band in your ears, click for reference, and nothing else competing with your kit. You can check the detected tempo against your own count in how to find the BPM and key of a song.
Map the song: beats, bars and sections
On iOS 27, Song Practice analyses the song on your device and lays it out as a timeline: the beat grid and bar numbers, the sections, phrases, and a lane for each instrument showing where drums, bass, vocals and other are playing. For a drummer that's a chart you didn't have to write. You can count how many bars the intro runs, see where the drums drop out for a breakdown, and spot where each section begins so your fills land in the right place.
Export drumless WAVs for rehearsal
Export the No drums mix as lossless WAV or M4A, either the full song or only the section you looped. Put it on the phone or laptop you practise with, or send it to the rest of the band so everyone learns to the same version. Long-press any single stem to export just that part. See how to make a backing track from any song.
MIDI from the drum stem
Any separated stem can be exported as MIDI, drums included. Be realistic about it: a drum stem mixes many sounds at once, so the MIDI is a rough sketch rather than a clean kit map. It's useful for seeing roughly where hits fall in the bar, but check the parts by ear before you rely on it. More in how to convert audio to MIDI on iPhone.
Common questions
How do I remove the drums from a song?
Import the song into Song Practice, let it separate the stems on your device, then open the Mix sheet and tap the No drums quick mix. Vocals, bass and other keep playing so you can drum along.
Can I save a drumless track for rehearsal?
Yes. Export the No drums mix as lossless WAV or M4A, either the whole song or only the section you looped, and play it from any device at rehearsal.
Does the metronome follow the song?
Yes. Song Practice detects the song's BPM and locks the metronome to it. When you slow the song down or speed it up, the click follows the new tempo.
Can I turn the drum part into MIDI?
You can export the drum stem as MIDI, but treat it as a rough sketch. Use it to check where hits fall in the bar rather than as a finished drum map, and confirm the parts by ear.