Suno AI writes complete songs with lyrics from simple text prompts
2,4 / 5,0 | 
Music generators are nothing new. In the past two years, Google, Facebook, and Adobe all have presented concept studies with algorithms that create a piece of music from a text prompt. But the music generator Suno ups the ante. It creates complete compositions in just about any popular genre with up to two minutes in length. Did composers and songwriters authorize the use of their works and were they compensated for Suno’s training material?
Suno AI: From prompt to song
The idea is simple: type a prompt like “rock anthem about how much I hate doing taxes” and Suno will create two song suggestions, including lyrics. Initially, the ai service was mainly operated through a Discord server, much like AI graphic heavy-weight Midjourney. Discord is a chat software that was used primarily by gamers. But these days, just about any music brand or artist has a Discord server.
On Suno’s Discord server, you would enter one of the Chatrooms, type in the command “/chirp,” describe the music you were looking for, like “Rock” or “Dark Ambient,” and enter lyrics. You could also have the AI generate them for you based on a topic. The music generator would then generate complete compositions with up to 40 seconds of lyrics and music. Suno’s Discord server has over 40,000 members.
But using a Discord server isn’t user-friendly if you aim for mass adoption. And while the results were impressive, given that AI-produced songs with vocals were usually unintelligible before this AI, the production quality was still rather basic. But with a recent update, everything changed.
Up to five songs for free, but who is getting paid?
Now, you just log in to Suno’s website, enter your prompt, like “create a German Schlager song about how much you love music gear” and the results are pretty impressive. Generating one song costs ten credits and you get fifty credits for free. In addition, you only get a non-commercial license, meaning you can’t upload these songs to Spotify or other DSPs through your digital distributor.
But there is a subscription service, of course. For $10 you get a “general” commercial license and 2,500 credits per month, which will allow you to create 500 songs. With the “Premier Plan”, you get 10,000 monthly credits, which allow you to generate a staggering 2,000 songs per month. Who needs Spotify, if you can have a playlist full of songs about your last holiday?
The biggest question, to me, as both a tech enthusiast but also a musician, is if those whose lyrics and compositions were used to train Suno’s model were asked and financially compensated. Because so far, AI’s track record regarding authorization and compensation for training material isn’t great, to say the least. In a recent feature by RollingStone magazine, Suno’s founders were quoted saying that they will not reveal what music they trained their AI music generator on.
More on Suno and AI music
- The latest from Suno
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5 responses to “Suno AI writes complete songs with lyrics from simple text prompts”
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Hate seeing the promotion of AI in artistic fields. At least you’re questioning its morality, I stopped following another gear site because they were constantly promoting it uncritically. The fact that Suno won’t reveal their musical sources is a pretty big indication of shadiness.
Society’’s value of music has been declining for decades which has almost completely evaporated the ability to make a living in the business.
This is not player pianos and drum machines. This is much more insidious.
Yep we’re cooked
I think AI music has it’s place. If AI can make a good piece of music, why should we not enjoy it?
I think for humans, what will be important is focusing on the actual performance of music. Playing the instruments and performing live. It’s not like we’ll want to sit and watch some dude prompt a song live on stage. We want to see bands perform and AI will never be able to take that away from us…. I hope.
Disagree with everything you wrote.
No, AI music is an atrocity. Just on principle. If you’re fine with removing humanity from the arts, I find that truly sad. Where does it end? They already have AI recreating/remaking classic photographs. When they start creating paintings and ‘printing’ them on machines that include the relief of layers of simulated paint, people like you won’t be able to discern what was made by a person versus a chip. But art is significant only because of its human component. The stories of those who created it, their histories, the difficulties and challenges against those results. Art is significant because it has limits and inspirations. When those elements are removed, what do you have? What are you ‘enjoying?’ Only the superficial. Which is what this era of society is used to. We have commercials for google where the entire object is that users are creating faked images. “Google—for your fake life.” Anything to upload and ‘share,’ to project your fakeness to your fake ‘friends.’
And, as for your assertion that people won’t want to “sit and watch some dude prompt a song live on stage” — I have to wonder where you’ve been. Never seen a DJ set? Tens of thousands of people crowd arenas and open air stages to watch just that—some dude/dudette prompting songs on stage. That is already normalized.