Melody generators are a software niche catering to musicians who feel creatively stuck. They differ from random note generators because they take melodic principles like stepwise motion and smooth voice leading into account.
A melody should be memorable and in most cases, easy to sing. Random note generators are all over the place, by definition, and so they tend to work better for background instrument layers as a sonic texture. Even when they're configured to stay within one key signature, random notes tend to lack melodic coherence.
In this article we'll review some of the most popular melody generators in 2024, with a focus on the DAW workflows that make them useful to real musicians.
Table of Contents
AudioCipher Melody Generator
Suno and Udio: AI Melody generators
AudioCipher Melody Generator
AudioCipher is a MIDI melody generator plugin that turns text into music. Users set up musical parameters like BPM, key signature and scale, along with fixed or random rhythm settings that control the output.
Type in any word or phrase to hear what it sounds like as a melody. Playback controls make it easy to test and iterate to find something good. The latest version of AudioCipher debuted in September 2024, with new features designed to improve the quality of your melodic lines.
How to generate the best melodies in AudioCipher
AudioCipher's MIDI generator includes melody and chord modes. Begin by switching to melody mode as shown in the screenshot above (highlighted in green). This ensures that you get single-note MIDI output, but it doesn't guarantee a high quality melody on its own.
Before getting started, make sure your BPM and scale are set correctly. Reference your DAW project and MIDI piano roll for clues about the key and tempo.
The Inversions button is the single most important melody generation feature. It helps to enforce smooth voice leading and singable melodies. Any time a melodic line contains a leap of a perfect fifth or greater, the algorithm shifts the offending note up or down by an octave, to create smaller intervallic leaps.
The join notes button merges repeating notes into one single sustained note. Great melodies rarely consist in a single, repeating note duration. So when you join repeating notes, it humanizes the performance by making some notes longer than others.
Sometimes a melody won't have any repeating notes, and in that case, you can use the randomize rhythm feature instead. This will apply a random duration to each note value each time you audition the melody. Use the "triplet" checkbox to include or exclude triplet durations in rhythm randomization.
Experiment with different words and ideas in the text prompt until you have a great starting point. Then it's time to move on to the next step of refining and saving your idea.
Save and refine your melodies in the DAW
Drag-and-drop AudioCipher melodies from the MIDI generator to a MIDI track in your DAW. The MIDI generator includes a Save button that stores your files in a dedicated MIDI and audio file manager called the Vault.
Assign virtual instruments to these MIDI melodies and hear them expressed through a variety of different sounds. Bounce the best versions as audio files and store them alongside the original MIDI files, in a MIDI Vault card.
AudioCipher's card system supports custom meta tagging and metadata, with search filters to quickly retrieve your melodies in the future. Watch the video below to learn more about how this works in practice.
Visit the AudioCipher homepage to learn more about the melody generator. It's compatible with all major DAWs and available as a VST, AU, and standalone application, for MacOS and Windows operating systems.
Riffer by AudioModern
Riffer by AudioModern is a popular solution for writing melodic riffs. As the name indicates, this plugin focuses on writing instrumental accompaniment. A guitar riff is technically a melody even if it's not always singable.
The interface features a piano roll as its centerpiece, with rhythm and scale controls surrounding it. At the top, users can choose their root note and scale. The left panel focuses on the number of beats in the loop while the right panel controls abstract attributes like density and note velocity.
The plugin offers 53 different musical scales to pull from, with modes from Eastern and Western music alike. Musicians with an advanced knowledge of music theory (or an experimental mindset) will have more options than a tool like Melody Sauce.
Melody Sauce by Evabeat
Melody Sauce is another MIDI plugin uses advanced generative algorithms to create instrumental melodies and hooks. The interface is based on a similar premise of key, tempo, and rhythm controls. Click on colorful squares to decide how those musical attributes should be expressed.
Melodya & RapidComposer
For musicians who have more music theory knowledge and aren't scared by roman numeral chord symbols, Melodya and RapidComposer are also good options. You can use them to create melodic motif variations. With a single-click melody generating feature, you'll get random notes displayed in a midi roll that you can edit as needed.
The company's entry-level app Melodya comes with a fairly standard feature set including key signature control, note randomization, and rhythm control. It also provides a MIDI piano roll editor like Riffer. The interface looks a bit dated and the variation toolset are a bit intimidating, resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics.
At a $199 price point, Rapid Composer app sits at the highest end of the random note generator spectrum. Given that the majority of producers today are not music theory savvy, this tool may be best suited for classical music composers.
Suno vs Udio: AI melody generators
Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have led to state of the art music generation at companies like Suno and Udio. These platforms offer a second option for melody generation, though the workflows are a bit complex.
Neither platform offers a "melody" mode, and they cannot be prompted in any special way to increase the likelihood of getting a single instrumental melody.
Text prompts like "solo guitar melody" are ignored by these systems in favor of full instrumental arrangements. Therefore, you'll have to use one of the following techniques instead.
How to generate AI melodies with Suno or Udio
Suno and Udio both offer AI audio-extension features and this is the best way to go hunting for melodies that fit one of your existing tracks.
Begin by uploading a musical excerpt you own or have the right to use.
When you upload a solo instrument in Udio, it tends to extend that audio in the same timbre and with a similar feeling to your initial input. Suno does not produce solo melodies and will always create a full arrangement. Udio is generally a more direct path to generating solo instrumental melodies.
You can download any AI generated music and run it through a stem splitter like RipX or Samplab. Both services include audio-to-MIDI transcription, with the option to turn that melody into a MIDI line. However, be aware that MIDI transcription is unreliable and may not closely resemble the original audio.
By generating music, stem separating, and converting the melodic instrument layer into a MIDI track, music producers can get to work in the DAW and apply their own sound design as they would have with a traditional MIDI melody generator.
Most melody generator plugins have a one time cost, whereas genAI services always run on cloud-based subscription models. There are environmental and ethical considerations with AI that do not apply to MIDI plugins.
MIDI software like AudioCipher is not trained on unlicensed music. It runs locally on your machine rather than on the cloud, so it has no environmental footprint and will work regardless of whether you're connected to the internet.