AI Music Production Tools

AI music production tools are software that let you describe the feel of a song in words or text, and the AI creates the melody, accompaniment, lyrics, and other elements for you—no need to play an instrument or place notes one by one yourself. It's a bit like having a session musician sitting next to a producer: tell them 'a quiet, sad ballad, mostly piano,' and you get a demo track right away.

In practice, Stability AI, the company behind the image-generation AI Stable Diffusion, teamed up with Universal Music Group to jointly develop AI music production tools for producers and musicians. Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group struck similar deals. What's notable is that these record labels didn't just sign licensing agreements permitting use of their copyrighted material—they also joined in developing the tools and even invested in the companies.

From the labels' perspective, this can be seen as a way to both gain control over how their artists' music is used in AI training and to secure a stake in the business opportunities of new creative tools.

Articles describe it like this: 'Stability AI formed a strategic partnership with Universal Music Group to jointly develop AI music production tools.' It's easy to misread this as meaning Stability can freely use Universal Music's artist catalog for AI training, but the actual structure is a partnership in which the two companies simultaneously sign contracts, make investments, and co-develop the tools together.

1. Access an AI music production tool.
2. Write a sentence describing the genre, mood, song length, and whether you want vocals.
3. Example prompt: A quiet lo-fi hip hop track, rainy night vibe, no vocals, 2 minutes long.
4. Listen to the generated track—download it if you like it, or describe just the parts you don't like to regenerate them.