Using Udio to Generate a Song about Compositing
Earlier this week I started to see some pretty wild examples of AI generated music coming from a new app called Udio, and decided to investigate. We’ve had other AI music generators in the past, but they have always struggled with not sounding extremely derivative, and producing convincing lyrics/vocals. Udio seems to have taken a large step forward in solving these issues
Below is a blues/rock song I asked Udio to generate about compositing
Lyrics
If you don’t need those frames aligned, my friend
Please don't hover 'round my screen
I got layers to adjust, baby
Match that green till it's unseen
Alright!
{Bridge}
In the render farm at night, my friend
We crunch numbers, paint with light
With each pixel we adjust, baby
Bring the fantasy to life, just right!
Alright!
{Chorus}
{Verse 3}
Track the motion, lock it down, my friend
Visual magic's in our hands
Merge the CG with reality
On this digital canvas, we make our stand
Alright!
Gonna comp it up, layer by layer, my friend
In this digital bay, our art never ends
We've got keys so clean, edges so fine
Making every frame by frame truly shine
Alright!
Color grade that scene, set the mood just rightResults
Generating that track above was extremely easy, scarily so… I just started with the prompt “a song about compositing and visual effects artists, blues / rock” and hit extend 3 times, and it was done. Udio generated all of the lyrics, song title, and instrumentals in the blink of an eye
Pros
Very fast generations, and cheep atm (but still in beta)
Easy to use interface, I didn’t have to use a tutorial or tooltips to understand it
You can write your own lyrics, although I didn’t test this feature
Remix parts of the song you don’t like, until you do
Cons
The longer the song, the more artifacts appear, especially in the vocals. I was running into issues with echoing, and an overall tinny sound pretty frequently
Possible total collapse of the music industry?
Conclusion
As a music lover, I don’t know how to process this at the moment. Looking through the other examples on the Udio website shows that most of the popular tracks it has generated are glorified memes, and maybe it will stay sequestered to that corner of the internet… but I am pretty sure it can also replace the majority of the top 40 music, or will be able to in a short while. Realistically how long could it be before Spotify can just generate a playlist of music based on your tastes and interests? Would that music even have any value, or would it just be a novelty like the song it generated above? How long until ads are integrated directly into my music, or copy my favorite artists style to get my attention? I can’t imagine myself feeling happy, and asking an AI to generate a happy song for me, or feeling sad, and generating a sad song. When I am looking for music, I want to know the human on the other side is feeling the same thing while writing it, and that connection means something to me that I don’t think an AI could ever replace
You can try out the Udio beta yourself here, or browse generations by others, and come to your own conclusion
