Suno unveils Suno Studio, a generative DAW

Suno launches Suno Studio, a generative DAW with AI tools and multitrack editing.

Suno unveiled what it calls the “world’s first” generative DAW — Suno Studio, which “fundamentally reimagines the process of making music.”

“Traditional DAWs have long served producers, but they have always had one limitation: you can only work with what already exists,” the company’s notice says.

The company’s site says Suno Studio changes the approach to music, making AI-based generative technologies the centrepiece of the creative process and giving artists the ability to overcome barriers and explore new musical horizons.

Suno Studio combines generative music technology with professional multitrack editing tools, enabling users to create instrumental tracks, arrange compositions and export audio files.

The platform supports audio-sample uploads.

The launch came soon after version v5 — an updated generative-music model the company calls its “most advanced to date.” According to Suno, it “composes like a musician, adapts like a co-writer and creates like never before.”

Suno co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman called the developments part of a broader transformation in music production:

“We are witnessing a paradigm shift happening right now in studios, as AI becomes part of the creative process for a growing number of artists.”

Meanwhile, Spotify is rolling out a suite of new tools and policies to identify and label music content created with artificial intelligence.

Measures include adopting the DDEX standard to disclose the use of AI in music creation, deploying filters to detect spam and fake tracks, and banning unauthorised voice cloning and deepfakes. The steps aim to protect artists’ rights and increase transparency for listeners.

Suno Studio includes functions to generate musical elements that adapt to existing audio tracks. Users can control BPM, volume, pitch and other parameters.

The launch comes amid mounting legal pressure on Suno from the music industry. Major labels have filed an updated complaint, alleging the company used copyrighted music to train its AI models.

Suno Studio is available on the Premier plan for $30.

Better than the rest

ForkLog discussed the new capabilities of Suno Studio with Vsevolod, vocalist of the band “Singular Decomposition.”

ForkLog (FL): What were your first impressions of working in Suno Studio compared with familiar DAWs?

Vsevolod: My first impression was surprise at being able to work in the cloud, without software installed on my own computer. It runs fast; the interfaces are similar, apparently paying homage to FL Studio. I liked being able to collapse windows I don’t need at the moment inside the studio. I’ve seen similar flexibility in Blender. It flies, unlike the beta of the same Studio. I tinkered with it for about a month. Compared with the beta, the release is night and day.

FL: What new creative possibilities have Suno’s generative tools opened up?

Vsevolod: Anything that comes to mind can be written as a prompt, and Suno will generate a couple of options and, most likely, it will be what you need. Generations v4.5 were already close to a quality at which it’s almost impossible to distinguish a live performer from AI.

We mainly checked by stresses on e and ё and on the softened non-sonorant consonants “rya,” “pya,” “tya,” and so on. Thanks to Studio, it became possible to fix these small rough edges straight away without completely rearranging the track. In the beta, you could do this with text, and in this one you can already change constituent parts — drums, guitar, synths, and so on.

FL: How easy is it to integrate generated elements (drums, vocals, synths) into your workflow?

Vsevolod: It’s not a workflow for me. For me it’s relaxation. But judging by the fact my sound-engineer friends work with the WAV format, I think it will be convenient. You can download their so-called Stems and embed them into your DAW.

FL: Did you have to substantially refine the material by hand, or can the result be used immediately?

Vsevolod: I’m meticulous about quality, so I haven’t used the result straight away. Even the compositions already publicly available in Suno still aren’t perfect, which means I can’t publish them for the community. Thanks to Studio, I’m close to that.

FL: Where does Suno Studio already beat Ableton, Logic Pro or FL Studio, and where does it still lag?

Vsevolod: It wins in one thing, and it negates all the pluses of the others — a truly boundless data library that no DAW can fit.

Any sound engineer has their own library and, when creating music, turns to others anyway. They download sounds from third-party resources, upload them, listen to each sample, choose the right one, try it on and add it to the project. Studio removes, in the worst case, the first two steps, and in the best — four. You work inside your project, and the AI selects the most suitable sound.

On the minus side, the AI knows how to make something trendy, but it doesn’t know how to make it exactly the way you need. That can cause contradictions.

FL: Is it convenient to control basic parameters — BPM, volume, tempo?

Vsevolod: It’s convenient. The interface is up to the mark. I especially liked being able to fit the tempo of a generated sample to the overall tempo of the track. Perhaps this existed in other studios, but it’s new to me.

FL: Which functions seem most useful for professionals, and which are rather for beginners?

Vsevolod: For pros, the ability to make a demo with a sound will be important. You don’t need to bother choosing a real model, paying her for studio time, recording, and so on. You generate it, listen, realise it’s “great” or “not so much,” and go on to refine it.

For a beginner the studio isn’t necessary, unless they want to get a new experience or make sure they’re paying their sound engineer for real work. For a beginner, v5 will be enough.

FL: In your view, what should Suno Studio add or improve in future versions?

Vsevolod: Personally, I miss more work with backing vocalists. I see that Studio can extract a backing vocal track, and that pleases me. Four hours have passed since the release; I tried to refine one of my tracks but ran into an unpleasantness — the part in Russian was read by my backing vocalist with an incredible French accent, although it wasn’t in my metadata. And it sounds rather scary — a French scream, just think about it.

FL: Do you consider this platform suitable for use in studio work or commercial projects?

Vsevolod: I think the big guys will keep sitting on Logic. I believe Studio is the very opportunity to make real music without cuts by yourself, without a label or a contract.

In August, the author of the YouTube channel “Ai, Guitarist!” Andrey told ForkLog about the art of neural covers and the role of cryptocurrencies in the AI-music market.