I asked Suno AI, the ChatGPT-powered bot, to make me a song and here’s how it went

Yet another mundane, mid-week commute got me thinking – why is it getting so incredibly challenging to discover new music? Our 9XM, VH1 days were simple; all it took was switching channels to land on fresh tracks. But with everything slowly moving to online streaming, our only source has now become Reels.

On most days, though, that’s enough. There are so many Instagram accounts dedicated to finding new songs for you. But on a day like mine, you probably want to listen to something fun. But instead of looking for new music, I thought of creating something that suits my mood, and thanks to AI, it is no longer sci-fi.

Recently, Adobe introduced its generative AI tool that allows users to ‘produce’ music with text prompts. But there’s another interesting tool making the rounds called ‘Suno’, which is essentially a ChatGPT-powered bot that creates music out of text prompts. And when I (finally) reached work, I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

How does Suno.ai work?

The Suno.ai website greets you with a series of prompts that you can dive into for ‘making a song’. The Explore page will remind you of Spotify, with trending and new tabs. You will also be able to play or view songs created by other users, which are featured with likes and number of plays.

On the same page, the page displays a text box with prompt ideas, and you can type what you wish. I went with an unsure “Mid-week Blues”, keeping my experience in mind, and it took the chatbot seconds to generate a song for me. Before I could gush about how impressed I was, I noticed a description box where you could put additional details to fine-tune your songs.

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Once you select the generated tracks, you will find a lyrics column at the side and also a seek bar at the bottom. It also gives you the option to repeat and shuffle play, like a regular streaming platform would.

Suno.ai: First impressions

Suno AI delivered two versions of ‘Mid-week Blues’ for me, a rock, male version and a slower, female ballad version. Both were impressively on point, and it was hard to believe that they were churned out based on a single sentence. Some of it may sound fuzzy or autotuned, but only if you already know that it was a text-based prompt.

The lyrics, according to me, seemed basic. But for a free version (with 40 credits), this is certainly the best you can get. You will hit a paywall once your credits are over. However, you’re probably going to be able to create a good bank of tracks, with two to three minutes of playback time, by the time you do.

Suno AI is great if what you’re looking for is unique and copyright-free tracks for yourself or a project you’re working on. Keep in mind, though, that the option to download is currently a premium feature. Of course, the chatbot is also developing and we’re yet to see what it can do, but for now, this definitely seemed nothing less than a leap into the future.