AI music generators have taken off over the past two years, splintering into several different categories, with tools for musicians and non-musicians alike.
In this article we provide a single directory to get you familiar with all of the most popular tools available in 2024. Our website caters to musicians, so we'll focus mostly on AI tools that tie back into a DAW.
We've included links to each company and a brief description of how their app works. Jump forward to a topic of your choice or continue scrolling to read through from the beginning.
Our team works to maintain the freshness and accuracy of this article all year round. We make regular updates. If something has changed, please contact us via the support page on this website and let us know. Thanks!
Table of Contents
Section 1: Text to Music software
Section 2: AI MIDI generators
Section 3: AI voice generators
Section 4: AI DAWs for musicians
Audacity OpenVINO AI effects
Section 5: AI audio-to-midi converters
Section 6: AI music generators for beginners
Text-to-Music software
Text-to-image apps like Dalle 2 and Midjourney have created a demand for similar experiences in song and video generation. As of 2024, there are a handful of AI music generators that take us closer to that goal.
AudioCipher: Text-to-MIDI VST
Website: AudioCipher
Cost: $59.99 one-time purchase (free lifetime version upgrades)
App Format: VST3, AU component, and Standalone app
Music output format: Midi
Target audience: Musicians who use a DAW
AudioCipher was the first to deliver text-to-music generation as a DAW plugin, several years before mainstream AI song generators emerged online. It is not an AI-powered plugin - we're sharing it at the top of list because AudioCipher partners with AI music companies to help their users organize their creations.
The app comes with two hemispheres - a text-to-MIDI generator and a MIDI + audio file manager called the MIDI Vault.
Users create MIDI melodies and chord progressions from any text, bounce the audio files with virtual instruments they chose in the DAW, and then use that audio with AI audio extension tools like Suno and Udio.
AI generated song variants can be added to a single AudioCIpher MIDI Vault card, stem-separated with audio-to-MIDI tools, and converted back into MIDI for further editing.
Suno AI's lyric-to-song web app
Website: Suno.com
Cost: Free plan, then $10 for 500 songs.
AI Music output format: MP4
Target audience: Anyone who wants to make songs with AI
Suno is widely regarded as the best serious AI music generation app today. The web app offers users the ability to generate 500 songs for as little as ten dollars. Users type in lyrics and choose a style of music to create a pair of two-minute songs.
The full range of sub-genres is staggering and the company has created an additional web app that performs genre fusion, so you can see what unrelated styles sound like when bundled together in a single prompt.
If you're going to try out any AI text-to-song generators, let this be the one. Their two biggest competitors are Udio and Riffusion, if you're looking for alternatives.
Udio: AI music extender
Website: Udio.com
Cost: Free plan, then $10 for 500 songs.
AI Music output format: MP3
Target audience: Beginner through advanced users
Udio is Suno's main competitor, offering both text-to-music and audio-to-audio AI music extension from Udio tends to stay closer to initial audio file, making it more helpful for musicians seeking a coproduction tool for writing music accompaniment.
You can read our full summary comparing Udio to Suno here.
SoundGen AI: Transform samples with text prompts
Website: Soundgen.io
Cost: Free plan or $10-20/month or $99-199/year
AI Music App Format: Web and standalone app
Music output format: Wav files
Target audience: Musicians and video editors
SoundGen is an instrumental AI music generator built by Audio Design Desk, the popular sound design DAW for video editors. This new web app generates music and sound effects based on text prompts, but includes a number of other unique features. For example, users can experiment with fun image-to-music prompting, effectively turning any picture into a song cue.
On a more practical note, SoundGen supports audio-to-audio style transfer. In plain English, that means you can upload any audio file and use text to transform it into something new. If you have a solo melody, it will create a full arrangement based on your text (or image) prompt.
Alternatively, if you have a full arrangement you can use the remix mode to extend it in new directions. As a musician, we love the ability to come up with the next riff idea by creating a batch of variations and seeing what sticks.
It's free to sign up for SoundGen and you'll get a batch of credits when you're first starting out so you can test the service and see what you think.
Riffusion 2.0: AI Song Generator
Website: Riffusion
Cost: Free
AI Music App Format: Mobile app, Desktop app coming soon
Music output format: Not available to download
Target audience: Musicians and non-musicians
Riffusion was originally released in December 2022 as the first free AI text to music web application. Then, in October 2023, Riffusion announced that they had raised $4M in funding and rolled out a more advanced version of their website.
The model can generate instrumental music in any common style, with an optional vocal layer. Like Suno or Udio, users type in lyrics and Riffusion's writes music with matching vocals and instrumentals.
In late July 2024, the company sunsetted the browser app and rolled out a new mobile app focused on photo-to-song. It's a tool for generalists rather than musicians, but it's still a lot of fun to play with. They've retained the text-to-music feature as well for people who prefer to describe the song or write their own lyrics.
Mubert Text-to-audio web app
Website: Mubert
Cost: Licensing structure ranges from $19-499 per track for a 45 second track
AI Music App Format: Web app
Music output format: MP3 and Wav
Target audience: Musicians and non-musicians
Mubert is currently the one of the best text-to-music solutions for generate full songs without unwanted artifacts. Their system takes in written descriptions along with qualities like mood. They pass it through an ML model trained on their labeled audio dataset.
Existing human-made loops in the database are modified using composition algorithms and a layer of sound design, delivering a song that you can safely use in your podcasts and YouTube videos.
Google MusicFX (Formerly MusicLM)
Website: MusicFX
Cost: Free
AI Music App Format: AI test kitchen (Google standalone app)
Music output format: Download feature available to select users only
Target audience: Musicians and non-musicians
MusicFX, formerly known as MusicLM, delivers the most accurate text-to-song generation service. Data scientists from Google's team measured the parity of MusicLM's audio output relative to the initial text and found it outperformed both Riffusion and Mubert. The audio quality is much better than Riffusion, but inferior to Mubert due to the presence of noise and artifacts.
For those who are interested, we've written an intro to Google's AI music datasets and how they trained the models that power MusicLM. As the owners of YouTube, Google has the right to train on any video in their collection. Their datasets include a human-labeled spreadsheet called MusicCaps, a medium-sized collection called AudioSet, and a massive 40+ million file, unsupervised dataset called MuLan.
AI MIDI generators
We've penned a full article on AI MIDI Generators that you can explore but here's a look at two of our favorites, HookPad and Lemonaide.
HookPad's Aria feature
Website: HookPad Aria
Cost: $7.99/mo, $79.99/yr, or $199 lifetime
App format: Browser / Desktop
In June 2024, the music theory software company HookTheory announced the release of a new AI MIDI generation feature called Aria. With the click of a button, users can conjure original ideas within HookPad to help break through creative barriers.
The AI MIDI model was trained on the LAKH MIDI dataset and fine tuned on their own collection of 50,000+ user generated song transcriptions. This powerful new model was developed in partnership with a professor at Carnegie Mellon who works part-time as a research scientist at Google Deepmind.
Lemonaide
Website: Lemonaide
Cost: $4.99 - $9.99 per month
App format: VST plugin
Lemonaide is a fairly trained AI MIDI generator that runs directly inside of a DAW. Users can set up some basic rules about the key signature, create MIDI chord and melody compositions quickly, and then collect them in a seed bank.
The company has an active partnership with BeatStars and is a particularly good fit for the beat maker community. It includes a piano roll directly within the plugin, so you can edit the MIDI generations and fine tune them before dragging into your workstation.
AI voice generators
Vocal deepfakes of mainstream artists went viral in 2023, with one AI Drake song Heart on My Sleeve drumming up over twenty million streams in a single month. That era of voice generation was defined by text-to-speech apps like Uberduck and pitch shifting tools like Melodyne.
The generative AI toolbox has evolved quite a bit since then. AI voice DAWs like ACE Studio are providing top-to-bottom voice generation and expressive control. Where Suno and Udio provide lyric-to-song, software like ACE delivers lyric-to-vocal-melody generation. This is particularly helpful for song prototyping.
Check out our article on the best AI voice generators for a deep dive on this topic.
Vocal and Instrumental stem splitters
Stem splitting is commonly used to remove vocals from an existing track. Spotify does this as part of their AI karaoke feature, for example, so that users can sing along to the instrumental versions of their favorite songs.
For musicians, the most popular AI stem splitter is Lalal.ai due to its high quality output and API, which many other companies have white labeled and repackaged under their own brand. There are several other options available that you can read about here.
AI mixing and AI mastering software
Mixing and mastering tracks can be challenging, even if you're a seasoned musician. It used to require a trained ear and expensive hardware, which later gave way to more affordable DAW plugins. MusicRadar provides a complete list of smart plugins for mixing and mastering here. For a quick and simple solution, Landr offers a popular AI mastering tool that runs right in your web browser.
AI DAWs for musicians
The expressions AI DAW and generative audio workstation are used to describe music production tools augmented by artificial intelligence.
Logic Pro 2 (AI session musicians)
Website: Apple App Store
Cost: $200 one time cost
App format: Desktop / iPad Pro
In May 2024, Apple announced the launch of Logic Pro 2. This new version of the app includes three AI session musicians; a drummer, keyboard player, and bassist. Each of these instruments are designed to accompany your existing music, with respect to the chord progressions and rhythms you've created.
In addition to these AI bandmates, Apple has also introduced stem separation that splits audio recordings into vocals, drums, bass, and "other".
WavTool GPT-4 DAW
Website: WavTool
Cost: $20/month
App format: Web app
WavTool is the first AI DAW to offer a GPT-4 music production assistant. As the video above demonstrates, users can ask the copilot to create music tracks, add effects, and even compose MIDI. It excels at prescriptive instructions and struggles with abstract statements like "write a good song" or "write a catchy melody".
We've published a thought piece explaining how AutoGPT music prompts could improve on the limitations of call-and-response methods found in Wavtool or when using ChatGPT music prompts.
WavTool added a new sample generator function. One of our team members reviewed it in the clip below.
AIVA Song Generator
Website: AIVA
Popularity: Medium
Difficulty level: Low-to-medium
Music Genres: Modern Cinematic, Electronic, Ambient, Rock, Fantasy, Jazz, Sea Shanty, 20th Century Cinematic, Tango, Chinese
Generative Attributes: Mood, genre, theme, length, tempo, instruments
Cost: Three plans available
Free plan: Download up to 3 tracks per month in MIDI and MP3 format
Standard: (€15/month or €132/year) include 15 downloads per month
Pro: (€49/month or €396/year) includes 300 downloads and copyright
AIVA was one of the first companies to solve instant-music generation with AI. It runs in your internet browser, using deep learning algorithms trained on over 30,000 human compositions over several years. You don't need to play an instrument or know anything about making music to use it. AIVA does include a MIDI editor that requires more awareness of digital music arrangement.
Bandlab SongStarter
Website: Bandlab SongStarter
Popularity: Medium
Difficulty level: Low-to-medium
Music Genres: Pop, Trap, Hip Hop, Retro Wave, Acoustic Pop, Lo-fi, Electronic, Latin, Ambient, RnB
Generative Attributes: Genre, tempo, key signature, effects
Cost: $14.95/month or $149.50/year
BandLab is a remote music collaboration app that offers an entry-level AI music creator. Users select their preferred type of music and then pick from one of three variations. BandLab makes the track's stems available within their digital studio. So while the generative attributes are limited, musicians can make changes to the tempo and key signature after the fact. Like most DAWs, you can control panning, volume and effects as well.
Audacity OpenVINO AI effects
Website: Audacity OpenVINO
Popularity: Medium
Difficulty level: medium-to-hard
Music Genres: All genres
Generative Attributes: Music separation, generation, and noise suppression
Cost: Free
If you've been in the audio game for a while, you probably recognize the name Audacity. Founded nearly 25 years ago, the open-source digital audio editing software offers a range of features for both beginners and experienced users. It's available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.
During the first week of January 2024, they announced a new set of AI plugins that load directly within the DAW. Aside from basic audio editing features, they have partnered with Riffusion to provide a generative text-to-song experience.
Audacity is technically an audio editor and not a DAW, but it has many of the core features including live audio recording, multi-track editing and mixing, sound effects, and now it also includes generative music capabilities.
AI audio-to-midi converters
These audio-to-midi apps could come in handy for musicians that can't or don't want to decipher chords or melodies from recorded songs. Music producers who want to apply autotune and fine-tune their vocal performance will find Melodyne to be the most useful option here.
Samplab Polyphonic Audio-to-MIDI Converter
Website: Samplab
Cost: $9.99/month or $99.99/year
Polyphonic audio supported: yes
App format: DAW plugin and standalone
Samplab 2 is currently the leading polyphonic audio-to-MIDI converter. Users upload an audio file and select the region that they want to transcribe. The artificial intelligence layer detects separate instruments and converts each one into a separate MIDI track. In the past six month, the company has rolled out several updates and improvements, outlined in the video below.
RipX DAW Pro by Hit'n'Mix
Website: RipX DAW Pro
Difficulty level: medium-to-hard
Music Genres: All genres
AI tools: Stem separation, audio-to-midi conversion, audio manipulation
Cost: Free trial for 21 days, then $99 one-time purchase
RipX is one of the few DAWs on the market that has kept up with the recent demand for AI-powered tools. Users can upload any audio file and separate it into individual instrument tracks with high fidelity. From there, it automatically converts the audio stems into a kind of midi-wave form hybrid ala Melodyne.
Like Samplab or Basic pitch, you're able to move individual notes of a polyphonic track up and down. But even better, you can split them and move only part of the note, applying special transitions like a slide to make the transition sound natural. It's an incredibly powerful tool and one of the best ways to elaborate on AI songs you've created with a third party service.
Spotify Basic Pitch
Website: Basic Pitch
Cost: Free
Polyphonic audio supported: yes
App format: Web app
As one of many Spotify AI music apps, Basic Pitch is probably the most pragmatic creative tool for music producers. This polyphonic audio-to-midi converter loads directly within your browser.
Basic Pitch doesn't separate instruments the way Samplab does, and its accuracy hinges heavily on the source audio's complexity and noise levels. You can preview the MIDI in-browser and download the file directly from the site if you want to keep it.
Melodyne 5 by Celemony
Website: Melodyne
Cost: $399
Polyphonic audio supported: yes (only one instrument at a time)
App format: Plugin and standalone options
Melodyne 5 is generally considered the gold standard for vocal audio-to-MIDI conversion and editing. The high cost has put this software out of reach for your average audio engineer, but the transcriptions are highly accurate and the piano roll editor gives users unparalleled control over the articulation of each note. Melodyne does support polyphonic audio but only for one instrument at a time.
AI music generators without text prompts
To get started, we'll share a complete list of the most popular web apps that anyone can use to create music for commercial use. These music tracks don't run the risk of copyright strikes that you encounter by using commercial music without permission from the artist.
SOUNDRAW.io
Website: SOUNDRAW.IO
Popularity: High
Difficulty level: Low
AI generated music attributes: Mood, genre, theme, length, tempo, instruments
Cost: $19.99/month or $203.88/year
Users can explore existing tracks in the SOUNDRAW music database or pick your own attributes and hit create to start discovering unique tracks for your project.
A simplified AI music generator, called Ecrett, identifies itself as Soundraw's "little brother" and claims to have generated over 54 million combinations of music.
Boomy
Website: Boomy
Popularity: High
Difficulty level: Low
AI generated music attributes: Genres, Instruments, Drums, Mixing, SFX, Tempo
Cost: Three plans available
Free Plan: limited saves (undisclosed qty) and 5 album/single releases
Premium: ($2.99/month) Unlimited saves, downloads, 20 releases
Pro: ($9.99/month) Unlimited songs, releases, and priority rights requests
Boomy is an AI generated music community that lets users create original material and collect royalties through streaming platforms. The web app offers an extremely low barrier to entry, with just a few clicks required to create a song.
Over 14.5 million songs have been created with Boomy, representing 14% of the world's total recorded music. The app came under fire in early May 2023 when Spotify accused Boomy's creators of spamming the service with mobile farms that run up the streaming count.
Tens of thousands of songs were taken down and many sites incorrectly reported that these takedowns were due to Boomy's low quality music. Spotify clarified its position about the stream farms and reinstated the Boomy publishing pipeline a week later.
Soundful
Website: Soundful
Popularity: Medium
Difficulty level: Low
Music Genres: Lofi hip hop, Hype beats, Relaxation, Club beats, Trap, Dance, Drill, Afro pop, Disco, Pop funk, Synth pop, EDM, Techno, RnB, Latin, Reggaeton
AI generated music attributes: Genres, Instruments, Drums, Mixing, SFX, Tempo
Cost: Three plans available
Free Plan: 10 downloads, 1 stem pack
Premium: ($9.99/month or $89/year) Unlimited downloads, 5 stem packs
Pro: Cost is undisclosed, custom solution, monetize your songs
Soundful offers a more nuanced than Boomy in its approach to music generation. You can pick from a greater number of genres and music attributes, but it still has a simple enough interface for anyone to use. If you want to generate tracks for commercial use, you'll need to pay an additional fee.
Amper Music AI and Shutterstock
Amper was a powerful, browser-based AI music creator that delivered a similar feature set to AIVA, but with more controls over the final output. Shutterstock acquired Amper in 2020 and assimilated the app's musical output into a static music library. You might find it included in Twitter lists of "best AI tools" but technically speaking, it's just a stock music collection now. It's not going to create new songs but you can find royalty-free music for your corporate videos if you're trying to avoid copyright strikes.
MuseNet AI MIDI Generator
MuseNet was a browser-based AI MIDI generator app from OpenAI. When it launched in 2019, users could select from a few parameters like style, instruments, and length. The MIDI would playback in your browser and there was an option to export the MIDI file for free. An independent developer, Steven Waterman, built a UI layer on top of the MuseNet API called MuseTree.
Unfortunately, OpenAI switched off the MuseNet API near the end of December 2022, the same week that ChatGPT came out. The Musenet page now features a static demo that mimics the MIDI generation functionality. It always generates the same MIDI output. MuseTree no longer works, due to the MuseNet API being decommissioned.
This concludes our overview of AI music apps in 2024.
I hope you've discovered some new tools and that this list gave you a better sense of what's out there. Subscribe to our mailing list from the homepage to stay up to date on the latest in this field.