Norah Studio for Mac
Every song, unfolded.
Drop and play.
Getting started
Drop a song.
Hear it in a second.
Norah Studio takes any song file apart into vocals, drums and instrumental, on the Mac itself. It starts playing the separated song from the beginning while it is still working on the end.
Open a song
- Click Open audio or press ⌘O. You can also drop a file on the window.
- Choose any file macOS can play, up to ten minutes long.
- Press Space. The stems fill in from the start while you listen.
Measured in October 2026 on a Mac with Apple silicon, on a song of 2 min 18 s. Times depend on the Mac and the song.
Every part, alone.
Three lanes
Vocals. Drums. Instrumental.
Each one on its own.
Every song becomes three lanes with their own gain, mute and solo. Click a lane's name to choose it: the effect stack at the bottom follows the lane you chose.
Mute
Click M on a lane to silence it. Click again to bring it back.
Solo
Click S to hear one lane alone. Hold 1, 2 or 3 together to stack lanes.
Gain
Drag a lane's gain left or right. Double-click it to return to 0 dB.
Round and round.
Bars and sections
Pick four bars.
Leave them looping.
Norah Studio draws a bar grid over the song and names its sections, Verse, Chorus and the rest, along the overview. Loop points snap to bars, and the loop length doubles or halves.
Make a loop
- Double-click a section in the overview strip to loop exactly that section.
- Or click In and Out at the playhead.
- Use − and + beside the bars to halve or double it.
- Drag along the timeline to move through the song: while it plays, it scratches like a record.
Your own speed.
Tempo and key
Slow it down.
Keep the key.
Tempo and key move independently, while the song plays. The three stems share one stretcher, so they stay locked together.
Tempo
Drag the tempo control in the toolbar. The BPM beside it follows.
Key
Drag the key control to move the song in semitones, up to twelve either way.
Reset
Click the circular arrow to return to the song's own tempo.
Chords on screen.
The song, read for you
Tempo, key, bars.
Chords above the vocal.
Before you decide what to practise, Norah Studio has found the beat, the key, the bars, the sections and the chords. The chords run along the top of the vocal lane, one per beat group: triads, in sharps.
Stack the effects.
Effects
An effect stack.
On every lane.
Click Add effect under a lane's stack. Cards sit side by side, three at a time; the radar shows how much of each effect you hear. Drag Reorder to change the order, and switch any card off without losing its settings.
Space and tone
- EQ
- Reverb
- Delay
- Saturation
- Filter
- Tape
- Gate
Voice
- Harmonize
- Melody Synth
- Pitch Corrector
- Vocoder
- Vocal Chop
Rhythm
- Beat Repeat
- Halftime
- Slice Shuffle
- Reverse
- Tape Stop
- Trance Gate
- Sidechain Pump
Tuned to the chords
- Resonator
- Tuned 808
- Bassline
Texture
- Spectral Freeze
- Granular Cloud
- Beat Swap
Visualizers
- Pitch Trail
- Ridgeline
- Horizon
- Eclipse
Some effects only appear on the lane they are made for: rhythm effects on drums and instrumental, voice effects on vocals.
The melody, replayed.
Melody Synth and Harmonize
The vocal melody,
played by an instrument.
Melody Synth reads the melody of the vocal and plays it with one of 19 sounds: synth leads, a grand piano, an electric guitar, a trumpet with a straight mute, music boxes, an accordion and a harmonica. Harmonize surrounds the voice with a choir that follows the chords.
Melody Synth
Choose a sound. Voice keeps the melody in the octave it was sung; −1 and +1 move it. Mix sets how much of the singer stays.
Harmonize
Duet, Trio, Pad, Choir, Angels or Double. Ensemble, Character and Mix shape the choir.
MIDI Learn
Click MIDI Learn, touch a control on the desk, then move a knob on your controller.
Take it home.
Export
Take a track with you.
Whole, or just the loop.
Click Export stems (⌘E) to save the three stems, with their effects printed in, and the melody as a MIDI file. Or drag any lane straight out of the window into the Finder.
Named for you
Each file is named after the song, the track and what you did to it.
Proportionate
Lossy in, lossy out: a 3 MB MP3 does not come back as 200 MB of WAV. A lossless song exports lossless.
MIDI
The melody as Melody Synth plays it, with the song's tempo map, ready for any DAW.
All by keyboard.
Only on the Mac
Hands on the keyboard.
Eyes on the song.
The desk answers the keyboard everywhere. The menu bar has the rest, and ⌘? opens Support.
| Space | Play or pause |
| 1 | Vocals |
| 2 | Drums |
| 3 | Instrumental |
| 12 | Hold together to stack lanes |
| ⌘O | Open audio |
| ⌘E | Export stems |
| ⌘L | Library |
| Esc | Close a panel or leave MIDI Learn |
Light and dark are switched inside the app, with the moon in the toolbar.
Where to next.
Things to try
Pick up
where this ends.
Privacy
0 bytes
Nothing leaves your device.
No account, no server, no analytics. The models that take the song apart travel inside the app and run on your own chip. The App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected. Read the Privacy Policy.
Mac, iPad and iPhone
One studio.
Every screen you own.
The same engine, native on each device. Your songs never travel between them: each device separates on its own, offline.
Pricing
Five songs free.
Then unlimited.
Every feature is in the free version. Pro adds unlimited songs and nothing else. Reopening a song you already took apart is always free.
Free
5 songs
Everything, five times.
Pro Monthly
€7.99/month
Unlimited songs. Cancel any time.
Pro Lifetime
€69.99 once
Unlimited songs. Never renews.
Prices shown in your country's currency on the App Store. Pro bought on one device also covers your other devices signed in with the same Apple Account.
Questions
Short answers.
What Mac do I need?
A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 15 or later.
Where are my projects?
Click Library (⌘L). Recent songs reopen with their stems, loop and effects, without separating again.
Which songs can I open?
Any audio file you already have that the system decodes: MP3, M4A and AAC, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, CAF and more, up to ten minutes. Norah Studio cannot open songs from streaming services: their files are locked to their own apps.
How good is the separation?
Good enough to learn a part, build a backing track or pull a drum loop. No separation is perfect: on a dense mix a little of the voice can stay in the instrumental.
Are the tempo, key and chords exact?
They are estimates, and the app labels them so. They are good enough to loop by bars and play along.
Does it need the internet?
No. The models are inside the app, so the first song works in airplane mode.
Something else? Support answers every message.