Generative AI startup Uncharted Labs has recently introduced a new technology, Udio, that is able to create high-quality songs from text prompts. Taking its inspiration from Suno V3, a revolutionary AI-generated music, Udio far surpasses its predecessor in creating more complex and more nuanced pieces that may rival commercial music produced by humans.
Similar to the workings of Chat GPT for texts, Udio works by creating a song from a prompt that describes what the song should be about and the style of the music. After clicking the “Create” button, Udio generates lyrics that fit the description given. It also allows users to input their own lyrics in multiple languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, German, French, and Italian. Once the generation process is complete, a 30-second clip is produced which users can extend up to 90 seconds and edit on the platform.
Early AI-generated music was deemed repetitive, generic, and basic. Udio, however, surpasses these limitations, exhibiting complex musical and vocal outputs that are comparative to pieces produced by human artists.
Uncharted Labs, the company behind Udio, was established by ex-engineers from Google DeepMind and has recently raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by top investors including Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z and Instagram co-founder Mike Kreiger. International artist will.i.am, an avid supporter of AI-generated music, was among the notable investors.
While the specific training data used by Udio remains undisclosed, it is presumed that it was trained using copyrighted music. Although Udio claims not to generate songs using artists’ voices, there are songs which have similar tunes and melodies to those by renowned artists, such as Tom Petty.
Currently available for free during its beta testing phase, Udio allows users to generate up to 1,200 songs per month for commercial use. However, users are reminded that copyright claims on AI-generated songs are prohibited in the United States. The software, though impressive, does pose legal issues, which according to Udio’s terms and conditions, disgruntled parties are encouraged to solve informally before heading to court. Nonetheless, the future of AI-generated music is expected to witness a surge in copyright-related lawsuits as more AI tools delve into creative content generation.
In the ever-evolving AI landscape, Udio is being hailed as a ground-breaking innovation. Whether it ends up facing legal action or affirming the position of AI in creative content production, Udio is yet another leap in the realm of AI-generated music. Transforming user prompts into compelling tunes, this innovative music generator opens up a new universe of possibilities in the field of music production. Even so, the idea of having songs created by AI is quite an adjustment for music enthusiasts worldwide, stirring up conflicted feelings around the authenticity and originality of music.
