AI music company Suno has debuted a number of new features, allowing users to have more control over the creation and customization of their songs. The company has been known as a powerful generative tool that can make realistic songs at the click of the button with just a few simple prompts, but now, it is embracing more of a collaborative approach between the user and its AI technology.
Now, users can upload up to eight minutes of audio, whether its a hummed melody or a mostly-completed track, and then use Suno to remix it or expand it. Through their new Song Editor features, users can replace lyrics and reimagine sections of songs, as desired. Offering what it calls the “creative slider” users can rework a song into a new genre by using simple toggles that can up a song’s “weirdness” “style strength” or “audio strength.”
The company has also integrated a stem extraction tool to split a Suno-generated song into 12 clean stems, which can then be exported to a user’s preferred DAW.
Suno CEO/founder Mikey Shulman says of the new features: “We envision Suno as a core part of musical creativity, for everyone from novices to Grammy winners. Our new tools offer powerful ways to explore new sonic ideas, remix, and iterate. Our upgraded editing suite gives artists more control than ever over their music.
We’re also working to better integrate Suno into the music production process. For example, Suno’s new stem extraction feature allows artists to more easily bring what they do with Suno into their favorite DAW, and vice versa. We’re excited to keep building tools like these to augment the creativity of musicians and expand access to serious music making.”
The announcement comes just a couple days after news broke that Suno, and its competitor Udio, are in talks with the major music companies — Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — about licensing their copyrights for AI training. This may include the majors receiving some equity in the two AI music firms, as they have done in previous licensing agreements with new tech companies, like Spotify.
Last summer, Sony, Universal and Warner came together to sue Suno and Udio for copyright infringement of their sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale” to train their AI music models. If these licensing deals were to go through, it would likely lead to a settlement of the lawsuits.
