The Future is Here: Meet Udio

Just as I was getting over the shock of how good Suno.ai is at writing songs using AI, BOOM - along comes Udio. While on the one hand I can see that songwriters and copyright holders aren’t going to like this one at all, the tech side of my brain is absolutely blown away by how powerful Udio is - and it’s only in Beta. I learned about AI in a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine titled AI-Music Arms Race: Meet Udio, the Other ChatGPT for Music, and immediately visited Udio.com - as did EVERYONE else it seems. They are currently overloaded with requests to try out their stunning music generator, and I had to get on the waiting list to try it out. As soon as I woke up this morning I visited the site again, and to my surprise, I was IN! What follows is my reaction to this new tool, as well as some of the songs that Udio wrote for me based on my text prompts.

The site is divided into two broad categories or options: 1) you can listen to the creations from other user prompts, or 2) you can create your own. Anyone is able to listen to a variety of impressive creations without getting on the waiting list, so that’s what I did yesterday. As with any site, the examples that are posted are pretty impressive. Here is one of the more popular songs created by a user named Hemingway. It’s called Carolina-O, but when you download it, it renamed it to Highways Lasts. Have a listen…

In my humble opinion, this creation BLOWS AWAY anything that I have created using Suno. The vocals are crystal clear. The harmonies are really good, and the structure of the song is really well done. Unlike what I’ve created in Suno, this song could easily be on the radio and I wouldn’t know that it was created by AI. THIS is what songwriters have been worried about. Here’s another disco track that also serves as a tutorial on how to use Udio titled Midnight Rhapsody.

Scary, right? The arguments from songwriters are strong and very clear to understand when you hear these songs. AI doesn’t just make this stuff up on its own. It is TRAINED (GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer) using millions of copyrighted works. The law is fuzzy here. As you cannot pinpoint the exact music and songwriters that it has been trained on (although we can assume it’s EVERY songwriter that has music published online), it’s difficult to say who stole what from which artist because it is stealing from EVERYONE. I am quite certain the copyright lawyers will have their plates full for the foreseeable future until some kind of clarity emerges from new copyright laws that no doubt need to be written to address this.

In the meantime, once I was allowed in this morning, I asked Udio to write a few country songs about mud season in Vermont (where I am writing this post from and right in the middle of). Here is what it came up with after about 45 seconds…

I’m not really a country music fan, but WOW is this believable. The voice sounds 100% convincing, the structure of the song is similar to most country songs (at least in my opinion), the harmonies are pretty darn good, and the lyrics aren’t that cheesy. You do have the option of using the Manual Mode in the prompter - which turns off Udio’s “auto correct” for your prompts - meaning it makes subtle changes to your prompt to make the end creation better. I didn’t use this option as I really wanted to see what Udio came up with.

Once you have your creations, you can do several things. The first option is Remix. When you select the Remix option, this interface pops up:

There is a Variance slider that you can drag left or right (similar or different) that makes changes to your creation. You can edit and add your own lyrics. You can change the genre of the song. You can make an instrumental version of the song, or you can simply just create a new version based on the song that Udio created for you. Very impressive feature set.

Next you can Extend the current version of the song. The feature set here is pretty incredible. You can add verses or sections. You can add an intro and outro, and you can write more lyrics or have them auto-generated for you. If you take the time to use the Extend option, you will come out with a complete song - beginning to end - and this is unlike any other AI tool I have used before.

Once you’ve finished creating your song (or really having Udio do it for you), you can download it and/or publish it. All songs download as an MP3 file and publishing it just posts it publicly to other Udio users tagging your profile.

Here is a really good video overview of Udio that I found. It gives you an in depth tour of the entire site and user experince.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have the same two reactions to Udio. 1 - The technology behind the site is absolutely mind blowing - the BEST I’ve seen yet. 2 - This is scary. Up until now, I have kind of laughed off any notion of AI being able to write listenable and enjoyable music. Udio changes that notion completely. The copyright issues are HUGE here - Udio must have been trained on every song ever written. Here is what the creators themselves have posted about the Frankenstein they have unleashed:

Udio builds AI tools to enable the next generation of music creators. We believe AI has the potential to expand musical horizons and enable anyone to create extraordinary music.

udio.com allows users to create music from simple text prompts by specifying topics, genres, and other descriptors which are then transformed into professional quality tracks.

As an organization, we are deeply committed to empowering artists and work alongside some of the most brilliant and creative artists in the music industry. Founded by a group of leading AI researchers and technologists, the Udio team built its technologies with guidance from many of the most forward-thinking and creative musicians alive today.

Udio is supported by a16z, will.i.am, Common, Tay Keith, Steve Stoute’s UnitedMasters, Mike Krieger (co-founder and CTO of instagram), Kevin Wall, the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund, and Oriol Vinyals (colead of Gemini), among many others.

With Udio, anyone with a tune, some lyrics, or a funny idea can now express themselves in music.

In terms of the educational applications of something like Udio, I really see it being used in two major ways: first as inspiration for student compositions. Like GarageBand loops, the songs that Udio creates on the first pass can serve as ideas for student creations. Obviously, students could just use what Udio comes up with as their final composition - but that’s up to the teacher to guide students. By using a separate DAW, students can use Udio as a sonic palette and idea generator to get them started making their own compositions in the DAW. Take the lyrics and write new music. Take some motives from the music and write your own lyrics. Do your own version of the Remix and Extend feature and compare/contrast how the student does vs. Udio. Use the Remix option to create an instrumental version of the song so that your students can write their own lyrics. Lots of ideas.

Second, discuss the ethical, equity, and copyright issues that all AI tools inherently have. I guarantee that students of any age will have LOTS to say on this issue. My own students at Montclair State have some extremely insightful thoughts about this - ranging from excitement, awe, disbelief, and fear. The bottom line is that the AI music generating Genie is out of the bottle. There’s no going back at this point, and Udio makes that crystal clear.

I strongly recommend getting on the waiting list and trying this site out for yourself. See what you think. Think about the many issues that I’ve brought up in this post. I’d love to hear your feedback.