Udio – AI Music Generator
udio.com
udio.com
The main problem I have with generative AI tools in an artistic sense is when they lack the ability to convey specificity of intent, word prompts alone aren't good enough.
The day we get a similar level of control with AI music will be a dream come true for me. We really need stems or at least MIDI files for these tools to be more than just soulless jingle generators imo.
What I'd love is Suno/Udio as a VST plugin. Being able to supply MIDI or audio samples to pull melodies from, to generate from arbitrary audio on a timeline.
I think this might be a good research paper proof of concept for a model, and a lack of explanation of how it works is disappointing but expected. I think as a product, the target audience for this thing isn't people who want to make art, but people who like the idea of generative AI per se. Maybe it'll go more toward being a tool artists can use in the future, but I don't think that's what gets you funded in this environment, and it seems much harder to make things that work that way. The coolest uses of and tooling for generative image models have been created by the open-source communities around them, and I think the same will be true of audio
Yes! While technically impressive, these "text prompt to finished song" AI tools currently only solve low-value problems for already over-saturated markets. I just don't see a good path to a real business from "finished song" as the use case.
* With Spotify, Soundcloud, etc music consumers already have access to more new, human-created songs than they can possibly listen to - all at historically low cost.
* Buyers of custom created music such as video makers and game studios already have more stock music library choices and custom creation options (from Fivr etc) than ever - also at historically low costs.
These are already low-value, commoditized markets and, once the novelty wears off, can't generate VC-level returns. And, no, I don't think AI is going to take a meaningful part of the high-end music market from the likes of Taylor Swift. It's not that I doubt AI will eventually make music that good - it's that high-earning pop stars like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, etc are much more than their songs. They are global brand businesses that generate more revenue from touring, merch and product tie-ins than the music itself.
However, there is a potentially profitable market for AI music tools that no one's targeting yet. It's a smaller market but it's accessible, scalable and immediately viable for even a beta-level, "research-to-product" solution. Don't generate finished songs. Instead, make an interactive tool which collaborates with human music makers in a much more granular way by generating the elements and components of music (called stems) as well as the underlying MIDI data. There's a whole industry selling human-created element libraries consisting of stems, loops, backing tracks, samples and style-based construction kits. These are used in a lot of the human-created music we hear. But they aren't interactive, adaptive or collaborative.
AI can provide a superior solution right now and it doesn't even need to be 'top human' quality to be useful. Pop stars like Taylor Swift etc can afford to hire the best, proven, human-producers, studio musicians and mixing engineers to collaborate with but there's a significant market of people, from students and hobbyists to indie producers and semi-pro musicians who can't afford human collaborators.
To me this looks like a pretty rare thing in AI: A classic "Two Pizza"-type startup opportunity where a modest seed round can get to product-market fit and real cash flow. You also won't have to out-market Taylor Swift, outspend FAANG or target fickle consumers.
I'm just a long-time music making hobbyist and I consistently spend several hundred dollars a year buying such libraries, stems, loops and samples. It's far more than I pay for all my subscriptions to 'finished music' combined. And I have no aspirations to make money with my music. Hell, no one outside family and a few friends ever even hear it. Making music is just an extremely enjoyable creative activity I like to spend time (and money) on. But, as a potential customer, I have no use for a tool that generates finished songs. However, an AI that takes text prompts along with some midi chords and musical phrases I provide and then generates a variety of suggestions in the form of separate stem tracks with MIDI which I can further mix and modify would be an 'instant buy' for me. It doesn't need to be as good as a human collaborator because it's better in other ways: always available, non-judgemental, infinitely patient and yet has no opinions or emotional needs of its own.
Machines for those tasks are already commonplace. Is loading/unloading them really that much effort?
- Is it as good as N targeted music tracks that fit together to match my game? No.
- Is it better than something I can create myself? By far.
- Is it better than a random few open-source or cheap tracks that you can buy on any random storefront? Sometimes.
So at the very least it has a foot in the door as far as I'm concerned.
Udio has some truly hilarious songs on the platform, I'm in tears listening to them with my buddy: https://www.udio.com/songs/sThXmpDS5Jt8e9cJgE6VQf
I'm glad you like the song :)
Weird A.I. is the one who's ironically racist didn't you listen to the first half of the song geez (I consciously avoided slurs and ended with something utterly irredeemable to underline the joke).
Was it a trope? Who cares, I don't think of comedy in that way. If the implication you're trying to make is that I'm racist for writing that stuff, it's obvious given the surrounding context that it's not in any way a sincere expression of those views. Also in the verse itself, the language used was pretty light and given how that verse ends, clearly not an endorsement.
But if you just find it unfunny, that's alright.
At least, that's how the USA courts have ruled so far.
So given an AI generated song with fully human-written lyrics perhaps others could mute the lyrics, or more easily sample from it, but the resulting output as a whole would probably have some degree of copyright protection. Suno has also demonstrated being able to supply your own melodies too, put those two together and how much of the resulting work could be credibly argued to remain uncopyrightable?
Should be useful even though it's not fully what I'd hoped for (provide note/chord MIDI input, more granular control with repeatability, MIDI data out) but it's definitely a big step in the right direction.
I would like an AI which can just take an existing song and make it better quality (several knobs), or put new lyrics.
- it seems like lately most human musicians write music when they are angry or depressed, not when they are in a good mood. These tools are able to come up with a neutral or positive sounding music much better than, say, youtube music search.
- it probably marks end to cookie-cutter music production (can you really tell the difference between modern edm tracks?). letting musicians play live music to smaller audiences. because of these tools, suddenly live perfomance is special again.
- unlike people, these tools are not afraid to be silly. creating ridiculous cat music is a lot of fun
- this is a great way to get ideas for your own music. no need to sprinkle ink on note sheets, like they used to.
https://www.udio.com/songs/iM61w7bodYwQYiyrDkKL31
https://suno.com/song/b7cf4b70-d5a2-49ee-9355-16db743d988c
I think the suno one is amazing!
This Dune Broadway Musical is a rather incredible example: https://www.udio.com/songs/eY7xtug1dV6hbfCDhyHJua
And this (nsfw and also quite funny) track feels like some unearthed 70s novelty record: https://www.udio.com/songs/oZ5EvJdtL152LUEhMB5YgJ
I know people are complaining that it's dehumanizing music, and there's some truth to that, but considering I was never in the group of people of "making music" anyway, it's immensely fun to have any song I can imagine immediately materialize (even if it is a bit soulless). I would like to have thousands of prompts queued up on my GPU server and generate everything I can think of.
Or maybe it’ll become so good it replaces artists altogether but what’s the point of it all ? In a way, future generations might only know this new world where music is generated by machines and won’t be shocked ?
My take is that, music is so deeply rooted within us that even if AI can generate it, it’ll never replace the human experience and it might even push music made by humans to be a luxury and be more expensive. In a way it’s a good thing for artists if money goes in their pockets, on the other hand it might severed a part of the population who will not have access to culture anymore. Or there might be more piracy but it might kill the artist way of living and their music in the process.
I though about more concerts and all, but as of today, I find it difficult and expensive to assist concerts from where I live. I requires many hours of travel, even taking hotels which makes the experience out of reach if required a few times a month.
My brother in law is a musician but he’s never been able to make a living out of it. They performed in places but in order to live and support his family he need a job which made it harder to live of his craft.
I’m curious to see which positive change this will bring
That said, I think there’s a great use for AI generated music in background noise. I’ve been playing with Facebook’s MusicGen and it’s really fun. I’m working on making a personal 24/7 radio station based on whatever prompt I want. It’s a far shot from actual human-created music from a melodic standpoint, but if I just want an infinite stream of noise while I work or read, I think it’ll be good enough.
It's an interesting tech demo, but as an actual product that lives in the world, it's dystopian af.