AI for Musicians: 12 Tools to Help You Make Music
The role of AI is quickly becoming a part of everyday life for many of us. Apps like ChatGPT have become household names due to the seemingly endless possibilities of data creation, posing both opportunities and threats to human creators and musicians.
The impact of AI on the music industry
Artificial intelligence has already started to change the way we all create and consume music. Streaming companies have been harnessing AI for a few years already, using the tech to set up custom recommendations, new track suggestions, and also create your personalised playlists. Spotify's algorithmic playlists have been relying on AI to base their recommendations on user listening history and activity.
But it’s not just the big streaming companies that have been able to improve the quality of their services through AI. Musicians are starting to switch onto the attractiveness of AI tools too, utilising apps that help them with composing songs and creating accompanying artwork images.
Google researchers have created AI that can even produce full musical pieces from text prompts, suggesting that this is only the beginning of what we might come to see from AI in coming years.
Removing cost barriers for independent musicians, AI offers an inexpensive alternative to traditional music creation, allowing unestablished musicians to compose, produce, and master their songs from the comfort of their own homes. AI is making it easier than ever to write and publish music on streaming platforms.
As artificial intelligence continues to develop, we can expect even more involvement of AI in the music industry, with the introduction of more virtual reality events and experiences.
How can musicians use AI
The disruption of AI has opened up a new avenue of music creation over the last few years. AI apps can help suggest lyrics, develop your album artwork, master your tracks or pretty much do whatever else you need it to.
That said, utilising AI in every aspect of your music does take away the art of being an independent musician, replacing your individual creativity and talent. As long as you’re continuing to apply a healthy amount of personal flair to your musical projects, AI tools can help accompany your raw talents and help provide useful inspiration and a starting point for some aspects of your work.
How to produce music with AI
As with every introduction of groundbreaking technology, AI has provided the latest generation of musicians with a new base to develop their sound. Despite the obvious lack of originality of AI-generated music, these tracks can still provide artists with a solid base composition to work with.
Many AI production tools now allow producers to generate melodies, basslines, and synth sounds all within the context of their creations.
Music Business Worldwide recently reported that more than 1,000 songs with AI-generated vocals have been released by Tencent Music in China - with one of them notching up over 100 million streams.
AI can help identify new melodic or harmonic ideas that you or the original composer might not have thought of, generating loads of new ideas almost instantly - saving you a lot of precious time. The technology can also create ideas that you don’t have the skill or understanding to make yourself, giving you advanced pieces of music to work around.
AI tools for producing music
Generates new music by scanning existing models, exploring AI and machine learning in the creative process of making melodies.
Helps producers generate melodies, basslines, and wavetable synthesiser sounds.
Amper is an AI music composition company that develops tools for content creators of all kinds.
Check out our full list of AI tools to boost your music production.
How to master your music with AI
An increasingly popular use of AI within music is for the mastering of tracks. Numerous companies now specialise in AI music mastering, utilising machines to boost song sound quality and the dynamic range of your tracks.
With traditional mastering costs often eating heftily into independent artist budgets, AI offers a much more affordable option. Indie artists are now able to put out studio-quality releases from their bedrooms without having to fork out for engineer fees, helping put full and total control of their music back in your own hands.
AI tools for mastering music
This popular audio mastering tool harnesses AI used by Grammy-winning producers to master tracks in just a few minutes. You can even try it for free and listen to a full-length preview of your mastered music.
eMastered is another mastering tool powered by AI, but offers services on a subscription basis.
Set up by global DJ and producer Matoma, offering an affordable and easy-to-use mastering service.
How to write songs using AI
We’ve all been there. Staring at your notebook or laptop struggling to come up with lines upon lines of catchy - or any for that matter - lyrics. Songwriter’s block can really stop your creativity right in its tracks. Luckily, AI can help unlock your mind and provide inspiration for those final bars.
Again, we don’t advise using AI to write a lot of your lyrics, but it can be really useful to take some ideas from the suggested lines thrown out to you. Maybe you’re struggling with rhyming certain parts of your verse. Why not ask an AI songwriting tool to suggest some for you and pick out your favourites?
You could have repeated yourself trying to describe a particular feeling. AI can help provide you with different synonyms that you otherwise wouldn’t have thought of. New AI writing tools specialise in creating lyrics for musicians stuck in creative ruts and can definitely help you re-find your writing flow.
Songwriting apps are great for posing as songwriting assistants, providing you with chord progressions and melody ideas so that you can expand upon your beat building.
AI tools for songwriting
This website uses AI to build completely original lyrics, letting you choose the topic, lyrics genre and lyric mood.
Amadeus Code lets you create entire songs with simple sketches with a simple tap.
This tool can generate lyrics that rhyme and also conform to a specific number of syllables.
How to use AI to create album artwork
You might have seen your Instagram feed fill up your friends sharing AI-generated portraits recently. These cool images really do stand out when scrolling through social media, but have you thought about using an AI tool to generate any eye-catching artwork?
Artwork technology can help you create bespoke designs for your EP or LP release with just a few briefed keywords to help kick things off.
The computer generated designs don’t have to stop here. You can also use AI tools to design your merch items or make posters for your upcoming tour.
AI tools to create your artwork
This new AI system creates realistic images and art from a natural language description.
NightCafe Creator works by converting your written prompts into images using a machine-learning technique.
Partnering with OpenAI's DALL-E, Shutterstock brings AI-Generated content to the masses.
The increasing popularity of AI within the music industry has massively disrupted major companies and the way that independent musicians create their art. AI has opened the creative door to many musicians who otherwise would have been priced out of expensive and unaffordable production costs, whilst also saving artists time by producing instant lyric and melody suggestions, album art, and mastering services.
On the other hand, the morality of using AI to produce your music is definitely up for debate and something that you should take into consideration when using the technology within your creative projects.
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