A Little Knowledge... #32

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?? BULLETIN NEWS: Stable Diffusion maker launches Stable Audio text-to-music AI

Stability AI, the tech firm behind popular text-to-image AI tool Stable Diffusion, this week unveiled a new product focused on music and sound.

• Stable Audio was announced as a freemium service. Its free basic version can generate and download music up to 20 seconds in length in response to text prompts.
• (For example: 'Trance, Ibiza, Beach, Sun, 4 AM, Progressive, Synthesizer, 909, Dramatic Chords, Choir, Euphoric, Nostalgic, Dynamic, Flowing' or 'Disco, Driving Drum Machine, Synthesizer, Bass, Piano, Guitars, Instrumental, Clubby, Euphoric, Chicago, New York, 115 BPM' – two of the sample tracks showcased as part of Stable Audio's launch.)
• Its 'Pro' subscription increases the maximum length to 90 seconds, with tracks that can be downloaded and used for commercial projects. The AI was trained on music and metadata from production-music company AudioSparx.
• AudioSparx offered its musicians an opt-out if they did not want their work to be used to train Stable Audio. Around 10% of them chose to opt out. Those who opted in will get a share of the revenues from Stable Audio.
• The launch follows the debut earlier this year of AI music models by Google (MusicLM ) and Meta (MusicGen, and its wider AudioCraft framework.)
• The product lead on Stable Audio is a familiar name to anyone who's been following the AI music sector. Ed Newton-Rex was the co-founder and CEO of one of the first AI-music startups, Jukedeck, which was acquired in 2019 by TikTok's parent firm ByteDance.
• "The thing I’m most excited about is musicians using it to create any sample they can think of, be that a drumbeat or a crazy melding of instruments, to use in their own music. We hope this is a useful and interesting sample generator," he told Music Ally ahead of this morning's launch.

Read our full interview with Newton-Rex and AudioSparx CEO Lee Johnson , including the implications for musicians; why it can't do jazz and classical music well yet; and how 'hammering wood at 120bpm' may be a glimpse at the future of music-making. We're coining the genre term 'CarpenterCore' just in case...?

?? Music Ally archive: Artificial Intelligence .

???COUNTRY PROFILE: The UAE offers a business-friendly environment and huge wealth to the global music industry – albeit, for the moment, not much in local talent.

Country?Profiles ?are?one of our most popular and data- and insight-rich resources. Our reports are based on speaking to the people on the ground, and are packed with info you need to know.

The super-rich Gulf state?is proving irresistible to DSPs like Anghami, Spotify, YouTube Music and Deezer, each of which has an office in its?commercial capital Dubai. ?With one of the highest rates of internet access and smartphone penetration in the world and a youthful population, there are many positives for the music industry here. However, with immigrants making?up?88% of the population, tracking the country's musical tastes is difficult, and there is little in the way of a national music scene.?

???Music Ally?Subscribers?can read the?UAE?country?profile?here ??

?? Music Ally Jobs

The latest and best jobs for the global music business, trusted by both top music industry companies and experienced professionals on top of their game.

Are you looking for a job? Click here to see the full list of vacancies!

?? A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

?And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links:

• A new map of the Milky Way...?using cosmic neutrinos .
• The world's longest mullet ?enjoys its moment in the sun.
• We don't mean to worry you, but a golden egg/orb has been found at the bottom of the ocean and "something tried to get in... or to get out"?according to the researchers who discovered it .

This is only a glimpse into this week's The Knowledge newsletter. INSIDER TIP: this week subscribers will get free access to one of our short video courses for one week only!) – subscribe for FREE ?and every Friday it’ll arrive in your inbox with:

?? Exclusive access to selected courses in our LEARNING HUB ????The best new platforms in TOOLS,???Highlights from our latest COUNTRY PROFILE REPORTS ?? ???Some great and/or strange music in SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND, ?? A look back in TIME MACHINE, ?? The Music Ally Focus PODCAST, and????more links to our favourite unusual stuff in A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.