Staccato is an AI-powered web application built for musicians and producers. The company specializes in MIDI generation and has the best AI MIDI extension feature we've tested to date.
In this article we'll provide a general overview of the app's features, before drilling down into the MIDI extender and showing you how it integrates with a DAW.
Table of contents
General feature overview
Staccato has three primary features. You can generate original MIDI stems for music production, edit them in a piano roll, and extend them with artificial intelligence.
AI text-to-MIDI supports a wide range of prompting options for instrumentals and drums. Choose from mood and feel, grooves, genres, styles, instruments, key signature, chord progressions, and tempo. Choose from presets and combine them, or try entering your own.
Piano roll editor is exactly what it sounds like. You can change individual notes, adjust the volume levels, panning, and instrument choice on any track. The text-to-MIDI and AI extensions can also be found here.
AI MIDI extension references any file, whether it was created with Staccato's text-to-MIDI feature, edited in their piano roll, or uploaded from your computer. We'll provide more details and clarity on this feature in the following sections.
Text-to-MIDI generation with Staccato
The text-to-MIDI prompt interface is fairly straightforward. As you can see in the screenshot above, there's a prompt field and a collection of preset-buttons. Browse those options and click to paste that text into your prompt field.
Staccato is music theory literate and can understand commands related to BPM, key signature, and chord progressions. I've tested these and confirmed that they work. It has a basic chord extension vocabulary as well, so you can reference 7th chords without any issue.
Genre prompts are less performant. For example, a request for "bossa nova" does not result in anything resembling the rhythms or harmonic style of that style.
If you're struggling to achieve a particular style, I recommend uploading a MIDI file instead. It can reference that and get closer to what you have in mind.
How to upload MIDI files and extend them with AI
To upload a MIDI file from your computer, drag and drop the file from your hard drive into the app. Audio files will be converted to midi and its recommended to use single track audio files for best conversions.
Alternatively, you can click the File option located in the upper left corner of the interface. Select "Open" to browse your hard drive and locate your file of choice.
Staccato will take you directly to the editor view, where you can make changes to the MIDI notes. Find the "EXTEND" button in the piano roll's toolbar as shown here:
Staccato will present you with a few Track parameters; Creativity, Complexity, and Length. These are admittedly technical and not all that intuitive. You'll need to experiment with different settings to find the sweet spot.
Their team recommends starting somewhere between 0.8 and 0.9. The lower the value, the closer that extension will be to the original stem or loop. Higher values introduce more novelty, but if you go too high those ideas might differ too much from the original ideas.
Staccato will generate new MIDI material in real time. The white notes in the screenshot above represent the extended material. Notice how it maneuvers into a lower register, while retaining the original key signature and chord shapes.
If you don't like what Staccato came up with, simply delete those notes and adjust the parameters. Extend again and keep experimenting until you hit a sweet spot. Any of these notes and rhythms can be adjusted directly in the piano roll.
Migrating your MIDI files into the DAW
Once you've generated something satisfactory, you have a couple of options for migrating that MIDI content into the DAW.
The simplest technique is to connect Staccato directly to your DAW (see the walkthrough for internal MIDI routing below). Alternatively, you can export the MIDI files to your local drive, then drag and drop them into your DAW to keep working.
Internal MIDI routing walkthrough
After following the steps below for either Windows or macOS, in Staccato, set the Audio Out to loopMIDI (Windows) or IAC Driver (macOS) rather than the Default Staccato Sounds. You'll be able to hear the generations with your virtual instrument of choice and record directly in their DAW. This makes the AI Instrument feel much more like an instrument connecting to your production workflow
Internal MIDI routing walkthrough
In Staccato, set the Audio Out to external out rather than the Default Staccato Sounds. You'll be able to hear the generations with your virtual instrument of choice and record directly in their DAW. This makes the AI Instrument feel much more like an instrument connecting to your production workflow.
Windows: Install a third-party virtual MIDI driver, such as loopMIDI:
Download and install loopMIDI.
Open loopMIDI and click the "Add Port" button to create a new virtual MIDI port.
macOS: Utilize the built-in IAC (Inter-Application Communication) Driver:
Open Audio MIDI Setup (found in Applications > Utilities).
In the menu bar, select Window > Show MIDI Studio.
Double-click the IAC Driver icon.
In the IAC Driver window, check the box labeled "Device is online".
Here's what that will look like in Ableton:
AI MIDI extension compared to AI audio extension
It's been a few years since another company attempted AI MIDI extension. We've previously covered Google's Magenta Studio and OpenAI's Musenet models. They detected key and tempo of a composition, but failed to mimic and variate on the actual idea. So it didn't really feel like the models were "extending" per se.
Staccato does a much better job in this regard. You can upload a MIDI file from your computer and extend it as many times as you want. Their model grasps the core musical concept and comes up with meaningful variations.
So how does Staccato compare to the AI audio-to-audio extension tools we've previously covered here on the AudioCipher blog, you ask?
Apps like Suno and Udio can reference a full audio file and extend them in a matter of seconds. The audio fidelity and composition quality is very good.
But musicians need more than these generalist tools currently offer. We need to be able to edit notes, experiment with different virtual instruments, adjust the mix on individual instrument stems, and so forth.
MIDI extension solves these problems but it's not going to give you the finished produced song like generative audio. MIDI tools like this still require you to do your own sound design, mixing and mastering. These tools are intended as a co-creator, rather than an all-in-one song generator.
Fortunately, Staccato's browser application integrates directly with a DAW, so you can easily pass in the AI MIDI content and apply your own VSTs for sound design. If you’re looking for an AI MIDI co-writer, I think you'll find that the MIDI extension feature is a lot of fun to experiment with and delivers real value.
Visit Staccato's website to get started for free. Their pricing tiers are located here.