AI generated music… is this where we’re heading?

[Darkstone]

Hey Geoff and Glen.

I just received this email from Suno announcing a new feature to edit existing songs without generating a new one.

It sounds like just the thing you've been waiting for Geoff.

I'll have a bit of a play with it on the weekend.

Unfortunately though, it's only available to paid subscribers.

 

 

[Geoff]

Yeah mate, saw that this morning too. Please let us know how you go with it. I’m away for a long weekend so won’t get to play around with this, but this email has made me consider subscribing. Sadly it’s not quite that simple for me as I make everything difficult, lol. I actually have several Suno accounts with several email addresses so I need to find a way to merge them, if possible, to take full advantage of this. Doubt it will be possible, but if so it’d be such a massive thing for me. If I could go back and tweak all my favourite tracks to a point where I wouldn’t be (too?) embarrassed to share them that’d be massive. 
 

So yeah, would definitely appreciate your feedback if possible.  

[Darkstone]

48 minutes ago, Geoff said:

Yeah mate, saw that this morning too. Please let us know how you go with it. I’m away for a long weekend so won’t get to play around with this, but this email has made me consider subscribing. Sadly it’s not quite that simple for me as I make everything difficult, lol. I actually have several Suno accounts with several email addresses so I need to find a way to merge them, if possible, to take full advantage of this. Doubt it will be possible, but if so it’d be such a massive thing for me. If I could go back and tweak all my favourite tracks to a point where I wouldn’t be (too?) embarrassed to share them that’d be massive. 
 

So yeah, would definitely appreciate your feedback if possible.  

No worries mate.

I'll let you know.

 

[Glen]

On 10/9/2024 at 10:46 AM, Geoff said:

Haha, I have actually used that one a bit, cob. You think it makes a big difference? Always so hard to tell which prompts land and which don't when you use 10 or so prompts. But I'll be sure to keep that one up front, though. And play with it tonight. 

I used the "big production" one again last night and songs were definitely crisper than the night before when a lot of my results were very "treble-y" for lack of a better term. So big production and big drums up high in the mix tonight. 

Anyway, peaks and troughs. I'm going through a passage where I'm penning a whole bunch of new tracks. I do a lot of driving, but also a quite a bit of walking for my job, and I've got in the habit of jotting stuff down in my Notes app whenever something comes to me as I walk around, and trying to pump out a few new tunes.

A few by-the-numbers melodic rock tracks mostly, but I got one yesterday and I really loved the outcome. A bit of a more "random" tune, but I'll be cursed if I don't actually quite like how this one came out;

https://suno.com/song/885e4b14-3e08-45cf-8e33-d2e1cfd04e42

did you write those lyrics? Bit random. 

[Geoff]

19 hours ago, Glen said:

did you write those lyrics? Bit random. 

Haha, yes mate, I’ve written lyrics for everything I’ve done with Suno. And yep, very random indeed, that one. Hence the ‘words for the sake of words’ line, lol. 

[Darkstone]

Darkstone - Rise Above (2024).  

Okay, here's 3 versions of song number 7.

More cheesy lyrics and I'm also adding a female keyboard player with co Lead Vocal duties to my fictional band. Don't know her name yet. Any suggestions? 

The female vocals seem more emotive for some reason. 

The second and third are sort of (the third in particular) left field, but they work.

I actually think Version 3 may be my "Stairway To Heaven".  

it's also an example of how insanely realistic the vocals are with this stuff. 

As for your feedback Geoff, I've not been able to use the new features. I just use my 10" Android tablet for this, not a computer. 

I can access them, but I think using a touchscreen might be fucking me up... I don't know.

I can always contact Suno support. I have before and they were incredibly helpful. 

If you subscribe and have better luck, let me know. There's a few little quirks I'd like to correct as well.

 

https://suno.com/song/63c438be-e2d4-4349-aec1-d5dae772fd58

 

https://suno.com/song/daf787fc-9c16-40b9-809f-2d1d6ba12453

 

https://suno.com/song/376a7ae4-a42d-4d18-9c63-b5c380ae27d6

Edited Sunday at 05:09 AM by Darkstone

[Geoff]

4 hours ago, Darkstone said:

Darkstone - Rise Above (2024).  

Okay, here's 3 versions of song number 7.

More cheesy lyrics and I'm also adding a female keyboard player with co Lead Vocal duties to my fictional band. Don't know her name yet. Any suggestions? 

The female vocals seem more emotive for some reason. 

The second and third are sort of (the third in particular) left field, but they work.

I actually think Version 3 may be my "Stairway To Heaven".  

it's also an example of how insanely realistic the vocals are with this stuff. 

As for your feedback Geoff, I've not been able to use the new features. I just use my 10" Android tablet for this, not a computer. 

I can access them, but I think using a touchscreen might be fucking me up... I don't know.

I can always contact Suno support. I have before and they were incredibly helpful. 

If you subscribe and have better luck, let me know. There's a few little quirks I'd like to correct as well.

 

https://suno.com/song/63c438be-e2d4-4349-aec1-d5dae772fd58

 

https://suno.com/song/daf787fc-9c16-40b9-809f-2d1d6ba12453

 

https://suno.com/song/376a7ae4-a42d-4d18-9c63-b5c380ae27d6

Version #1 for me. I still don't know about a lot of the male vocals, but yeah, no doubt at all that - for whatever reason - the female vocals do sound realistic for sure. How did you get them without requesting female vocals?

No worries about the new features. Yeah, might be a tablet/computer compatibility issue. I'm not sure what to do now. They got back to me and said they could merge all my accounts, which is what I wanted, but now that means I'll only have those 5 songs to play with each day, unless I upgrade my plan. Which I probably will. 

I have thousands of photos from the weekend to go through so I might get a little side-tracked for a minute or two, but I'll think this through a bit more. The other thing I'm not sure about that I kind of don't want to ask and just hope for the best, is they say you don't have commercial rights to a song created when you're not subscribed. Not ideal, but okay. But, what if you go back with the new features and tweak an old song? Is that now considered a new song done while you're a subscriber, this making it commercially useable? I'd assume (and hope) so.  

[Glen]

on the commercial side, I definitely had a suno song on my release radar on Spotify last Friday. Instantly recognised the AI dude lol. When I looked at the song credits there was no reference to Suno. I thought you still needed to reference them 🤔 The guy had 4 songs on his Spotify page, all 4 mins long. One had 137,000 streams which even at Spotify crap payments is a decent bit of dosh? few hundreds $? 

Edited Sunday at 09:39 AM by Glen

[Darkstone]

4 hours ago, Glen said:

on the commercial side, I definitely had a suno song on my release radar on Spotify last Friday. Instantly recognised the AI dude lol. When I looked at the song credits there was no reference to Suno. I thought you still needed to reference them 🤔 The guy had 4 songs on his Spotify page, all 4 mins long. One had 137,000 streams which even at Spotify crap payments is a decent bit of dosh? few hundreds $? 

If your a paid subscriber, you completely own the rights to your songs and your not obligated to reference SUNO at all.

They say that they'd appreciate it if you do reference them, but your not obligated to.

[Darkstone]

5 hours ago, Geoff said:

Version #1 for me. I still don't know about a lot of the male vocals, but yeah, no doubt at all that - for whatever reason - the female vocals do sound realistic for sure. How did you get them without requesting female vocals?

No worries about the new features. Yeah, might be a tablet/computer compatibility issue. I'm not sure what to do now. They got back to me and said they could merge all my accounts, which is what I wanted, but now that means I'll only have those 5 songs to play with each day, unless I upgrade my plan. Which I probably will. 

I have thousands of photos from the weekend to go through so I might get a little side-tracked for a minute or two, but I'll think this through a bit more. The other thing I'm not sure about that I kind of don't want to ask and just hope for the best, is they say you don't have commercial rights to a song created when you're not subscribed. Not ideal, but okay. But, what if you go back with the new features and tweak an old song? Is that now considered a new song done while you're a subscriber, this making it commercially useable? I'd assume (and hope) so.  

Sometimes, depending on the styles you choose, a female voice just pops up randomly. 

One of my tracks is a duet, but I didn't type that in, it just popped up.

As for your commercial rights, that's an interesting question. You should inquire, but I think you may have to regenerate your tracks once subscribed for full ownership. 

You'll get heaps of credits to play with and I think you'll enjoy the process. You'll really be able to refine your tracks.

I'm very fussy with mine. If the vocals or music sound shit in any way or even if there's a minor glitch with pronunciation or a line isn't sung right, I'll trash it immediately until I get something better. Something far better always pops up. The hardest part is settling on a finished song. You always want to try just one more generation to see what you get. I reckon I'd trash about 100 unsuitable tracks for everyone I keep. 

[Geoff]

On 10/13/2024 at 8:36 PM, Glen said:

on the commercial side, I definitely had a suno song on my release radar on Spotify last Friday. Instantly recognised the AI dude lol. When I looked at the song credits there was no reference to Suno. I thought you still needed to reference them 🤔 The guy had 4 songs on his Spotify page, all 4 mins long. One had 137,000 streams which even at Spotify crap payments is a decent bit of dosh? few hundreds $? 

Yeah, that's significant. What style of music was it? 

21 hours ago, Darkstone said:

Sometimes, depending on the styles you choose, a female voice just pops up randomly. 

One of my tracks is a duet, but I didn't type that in, it just popped up.

As for your commercial rights, that's an interesting question. You should inquire, but I think you may have to regenerate your tracks once subscribed for full ownership. 

You'll get heaps of credits to play with and I think you'll enjoy the process. You'll really be able to refine your tracks.

I'm very fussy with mine. If the vocals or music sound shit in any way or even if there's a minor glitch with pronunciation or a line isn't sung right, I'll trash it immediately until I get something better. Something far better always pops up. The hardest part is settling on a finished song. You always want to try just one more generation to see what you get. I reckon I'd trash about 100 unsuitable tracks for everyone I keep. 

Haha, that's amusing because to me from the outside I'm just assuming you're getting these cool cuts right off the bat. That's huge - the 100 for every one. I thought I was getting hectic when I have recently done about a dozen or so on one song, and pick one of those. 

Yeah, I have a very hard time letting go of really good musical tracks and great hooks, even if there's a flaw or two. That's why I'm hopeful this new thing can iron out minor flaws. Because thus far I've settled quite a lot, but would love to get to a point where I can get tracks exactly how I want them. 

When you go through 100 or so versions of one song, do you alter the prompts a lot? How many versions would you keep the same prompts for, roughly, hoping they get the result you want? 

[Darkstone]

19 hours ago, Geoff said:

When you go through 100 or so versions of one song, do you alter the prompts a lot? How many versions would you keep the same prompts for, roughly, hoping they get the result you want? 

I'd pretty much keep using the same prompts, but I'll sometimes alter the lyrics slightly to make them fit. Musically they're all great, it's just the vocals and melody I filter through. You know what it's like, when you write a song you have an idea in your head of how you want it to be sung, particularly certain lines. That 100 or so includes extensions BTW.

It's almost like listening to actors reading a scene from a script in an audition. The lines can be read differently (think Seinfeld's "these pretzels are making me thirsty"). As with the real stuff we listen to, the music could be incredible, but if the vocals are off it spoils the whole thing. 

 

Suno have a feature where you can isolate the vocals or the music into seperate tracks or "stems" as they call them. Down the track you may be able to combine your favourite vocal tracks with your favourite music tracks of a particular song.

 

They also have a new feature still in the beta stage called "Cover songs", where you can create a "cover" of a particular song of yours using different styles and vocals, but retaining the same melody. They say that because it's still in development that the results may not be ideal, so you can use it for free at the moment. I haven't had much success yet, but it sounds promising. Retaining the melody when generating new tracks is huge.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 08:07 AM by Darkstone

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Damn, you guys went to town in this thread. I can't be arsed to read it all, or listen to each link. Just lemme know when you drop your album, @Darkstone, or, if you already have, where I can find it. 

[Geoff]

On 10/15/2024 at 5:31 AM, Darkstone said:

I'd pretty much keep using the same prompts, but I'll sometimes alter the lyrics slightly to make them fit. Musically they're all great, it's just the vocals and melody I filter through. You know what it's like, when you write a song you have an idea in your head of how you want it to be sung, particularly certain lines. That 100 or so includes extensions BTW.

It's almost like listening to actors reading a scene from a script in an audition. The lines can be read differently (think Seinfeld's "these pretzels are making me thirsty"). As with the real stuff we listen to, the music could be incredible, but if the vocals are off it spoils the whole thing. 

 

Suno have a feature where you can isolate the vocals or the music into seperate tracks or "stems" as they call them. Down the track you may be able to combine your favourite vocal tracks with your favourite music tracks of a particular song.

 

They also have a new feature still in the beta stage called "Cover songs", where you can create a "cover" of a particular song of yours using different styles and vocals, but retaining the same melody. They say that because it's still in development that the results may not be ideal, so you can use it for free at the moment. I haven't had much success yet, but it sounds promising. Retaining the melody when generating new tracks is huge.

 

 

Yeah, got the subscription today and went straight to this cover song feature. In theory it’s exactly what I want, and would even exclude the need to use the replace section feature, which I can’t for the fuck of me get to work whatsoever. 
 

However, I say in theory as it’s not working for me yet either, entirely. I can create a cover song of the songs I like, which is perfect. Phase one, complete. However, even though you are actually able to alter the lyrics, which I’m doing, slightly, keeping within the melody, so far the new lyrics are being completely ignored, every time, and the original lyrics remain in the new song. If they can fix this asap, this feature is 100% what I’m after. 

[Darkstone]

13 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

Damn, you guys went to town in this thread. I can't be arsed to read it all, or listen to each link. Just lemme know when you drop your album, @Darkstone, or, if you already have, where I can find it. 

Maybe three more songs, then I'm thinking about posting it on YouTube just for shits and giggles. Here's a link to my "album in progress" on Suno.

 

https://suno.com/playlist/1581a017-9d55-4b0f-8ea8-555aa5b11d00

 

I mentioned earlier in the thread that these days it's not really cost prohibitive to get about 20 physical CDs manufactured (CDRs) in jewel cases with full artwork, front and back and printed on the CD (about $600 Aus).

 

If I ever do go down the physical copy route, then I'll definitely send you a signed copy when I send Geoff's. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Darkstone

[Darkstone]

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

Yeah, got the subscription today and went straight to this cover song feature. In theory it’s exactly what I want, and would even exclude the need to use the replace section feature, which I can’t for the fuck of me get to work whatsoever. 
 

However, I say in theory as it’s not working for me yet either, entirely. I can create a cover song of the songs I like, which is perfect. Phase one, complete. However, even though you are actually able to alter the lyrics, which I’m doing, slightly, keeping within the melody, so far the new lyrics are being completely ignored, every time, and the original lyrics remain in the new song. If they can fix this asap, this feature is 100% what I’m after. 

Glad to hear you've subscribed, if anything just for full ownership of your tracks.

You'll have heaps of credits now to really fine tune your songs. You're gonna have a ball!

[Geoff]

5 hours ago, Darkstone said:

Glad to hear you've subscribed, if anything just for full ownership of your tracks.

You'll have heaps of credits now to really fine tune your songs. You're gonna have a ball!

Yeah mate, definitely a bit more peace of mind knowing that should I ever wish to do anything with the tracks, that I now can... no matter how minor that would be. The simple fact that even just putting them on Soundcloud was only ever short-term due to their storage limits, and Bandcamp was always the target, which is now accessible. But I'll redo everything before I put stuff back out there, which will take some time. 

I was being a gronk before - the replace feature was easy enough to figure out. But there's still a lot of flaws with the technology at this point. 

On paper, the Cover Song feature is an absolute godsend, but like I say, at the moment, it just doesn't register any change in the lyrics whatsoever. So I can replicate a song I have already created, which is perfect for licensing purposes, but as it stands today, I can't tweak the lyrics (still well within the melody) on that new version at all - even though the option to do so is available. It just completely ignores all new lyrics. If you could do that, it'd cut out what will be literal hours upon hours of mucking around. 

It looks like my current process will be to cover the song first of all, to have a workable copy. Then, within this new version, I will need to replace each part I want to replace, separately. Another flaw at the moment is that you can only replace up to a 30sec part of the song at a time. Meaning that if you alter a chorus, you'll need to do that three times (or however many choruses you have, of course), and I guess hope to christ the changes each time are the same? But that's not a guarantee at all. I dunno, only just thought of that now. Could be awkward. I had to work tonight, so only got to play with it for a few minutes today. I only got to try the replace feature once, properly, and it spits out two results, and one result still had the old lyrics. So there are still heavy flaws in getting lyrics amended in a song, but hopefully those advancements come along quick as it would be so vital to saving me a tonne of time. At the moment it seems that releasing the feature, as Beta, might have been a bit premature, but we'll see. 

Not sure how much I'll get done tonight, but will try to play around with it a bit and see how it goes. The replace feature looks cool, but could be a very long, drawn out process.

Also, the sound quality of some of my older cuts isn't as clear a crisp as some newer songs, so I though doing the cover version of all of these songs would be a great opportunity to try to up the sound quality. Really need to figure out worthy prompts for that, 'cause so far it's not proving too affective and the sound quality - so far - seems to replicate that of the original song, regardless of the prompts to alter. Will see if that's across the board tonight. 

Will see how it all goers - still a long leaning curve.