I love AI art. My editors scold me for using it too much. So it's no surprise that I turned to Udio.com, a surprisingly good AI music generator for everything from death metal to female folk rock.
The problem is, we don't know how long it'll stay this great. So click here: Udio.com. Get started. It's free! At least for now.
Udio works like an AI art generator. You can specify your prompts and let Udio do all the heavy lifting, from music to lyrics, or you can be as detailed as you like. Did we mention it has lyrics? Got vocals? Yes, Udio will sing the lyrics for you, with voices that sound incredibly realistic, even emotive. Each “song” is generated as a 30-second clip, but you can also extend it by adding time or adding intros and outros. Udio says the maximum length of a song is short, around 90 seconds, though.
Update 16 April 2024: Udio is a competitor to Suno, a competing service from OpenAI. Suno has a free plan (50 credits or about 10 songs per day), but Udio is currently offering 600 songs per month for free. A “song” is essentially a 30-second track, so extending or remixing it will kill the song.
Songs can be “remixed,” meaning you can try a whole new approach, or you can keep the lyrics the same and let Udio's AI adjust them. But it has a strange quirk: at some point, a song may be too long to be “remixed,” but not too long to be extended. This means that you'll end up with multiple extended songs as you experiment with what works. I'm not sure if this is a bug, a feature, or just a quirk of the platform.
Unlike some AI art generators, Udio seems to be at least vaguely aware of copyright: You can't get Taylor Swift to sing Frank Sinatra's “My Way” (or any song, really), but there's nothing stopping you from writing a drum and bass song using the lyrics from “My Way” if you want.
Udio gives you complete control over your AI-powered music creation, or you can let Udio do all the heavy lifting for you.
Udio gives you complete control over your AI-powered music creation, or you can let Udio do all the heavy lifting for you.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Udio gives you complete control over your AI-powered music creation, or you can let Udio do all the heavy lifting for you.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
To me, this is meme music. You write some lyrics (6-10 lines for 30 seconds) and put them to a song. I was pretty shocked that an algorithm could take some pretty bad lyrics and make them sound pretty catchy. Is this because most pop music sounds fake? Probably. If this story gets out there, more people will probably start lamenting the end of “true art” and all that.
Every time I make a song, the service generates two versions for me, presumably to help me decide which direction to go in future edits. (Check out some of the songs I've made with Udio in this article.)
Dream of a virus
No, this doesn't take away Radiohead's revenue stream, nor does it dampen any up-and-coming talent trying to break into the music industry. If you can play, really play, you have nothing to fear. But Udio is backed by some Google DeepMind veterans, and Rolling Stone magazine claims the service was likely trained on copyrighted music. This is a thorny issue that will no doubt be challenged in court.
Words die
At the moment, Udio is in beta and the site is generously offering everything for free, up to 1,200 songs per month. The site doesn't say what the pricing model will be or when it will launch.
But for now, he's teasing his kids with Udio. AI has launched a music tour.
Dad has it all
This story was updated April 16 with additional details.