Given all the (warranted) hype about AI music generators, I wanted to take some time to cover the two main players. Suno.ai AND Udio.com.  What are their strengths and what are their weaknesses? Let's find out. 

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• Short Answer
• Watch Out for Idiots on the Internet
• Judging Criteria
• Songwriting
• Production Fidelity & Quality
• Lyric Quality Vocal Quality
• Conclusion

Short Answer

I recommend using both Suno.ai and Udio.com tools AT THE SAME TIME - giving them similar prompts. Then, go with whichever ideas are the best. I've come up with really good tunes with Suno, and some really good tunes with Udio.

🎵 In my opinion, it's still going to be a little while before we have the "1-click" hit generator. These tools are good, but generally, the outputs need to be refined (with new vocals, mixing help, rearranging sections).

For any song I've finished with them, I usually plan on replacing the vast majority of vocals. I've gotten good at this in my lyric swap business, which is the main thing I'm doing professionally right now.

Overall, if my goal was to make a commercially usable song with one tool or the other right now, my pick would absolutely be Udio. The audio quality is higher, the vocals tend to be better, and it feels more like a human songwriter for most of the things I've tried.

Related Article: The Top 8 AI Music Tools For 2024

Watch Out for Idiots on the Internet 🤯

I will say, you also have to be very careful because there is a lot of misinformation on forums about AI music right now.

This is because you have a lot of people who have never done a musical thing in their life coming in and asserting that something is "good."

Not to say that I have the ultimate yardstick for that, but I like to think a 15-year musician is going to have some level of insight that goes beyond what some guy who just Googled AI music yesterday thinks.

I've seen a few people claim "Suno is superior in every way" and those people are high AF.

Judging Criteria

Since Udio is in free Beta, I'm ignoring price as a criteria for now.

What genres have I tested in? So far, I have tested in trance, dark synth, country music, synth pop, orchestral/cinematic, and comfy synth. What qualifiers am I using in judging these two tools?

Songwriting and Composition

That is, its ability to organize chords and melodies in a way that is pleasing to the ear or that a human might plausibly create.

Audio Quality

Does it sound like something you would hear on the radio or in a commercial production? This can be subjective, as a lot of music artificially decreases quality "for the vibe," so it really depends on the genre.

Lyric Writing Ability

How good is it at writing captivating lyrics that a human can relate to or could potentially fall in love with?

Vocal Quality

Do the vocals sound human? Are they convincing enough to use in a finished product?

Songwriting (Winner: Tie)

I'd give them a tie right now because it really, really, depends on the genre you are working in.

Suno might be a little bit better at songwriting most genres because they have better tagging.

While Udio may create a higher audio quality output, Suno seems more likely to generate what you are actually asking for.

Another big advantage Suno has right now is internal consistency. Because it generates up to two minutes at a time, it is more likely to generate consistent choruses.

That being said, I've found the Suno often tries too hard to be melodic and feels more like AI songwriting than Udio - which I believe has done a much better job of guessing what a human would actually do. 

I would give them a tie right now because it really depends on the genre. Which is why I recommend using both tools at the same time.

Production Fidelity & Quality (Winner: Udio)

When it comes to audio quality, Suno does well depending on the genre. For example, in a lot of the country songs I've tried, it does quite well. It really seems like it thrives in live-sounding genres. Think country, rock, bluegrass, etc.

I suspect that Suno does okay with the more acoustic genres because there is an inherent "flaw" in live audio that hides AI quality issues.

Whenever I've tried doing dark synth or electronic music, you often end up hearing some aggressive white noise.

And there's not really any post-processing you can do to remove it, unfortunately, even with something like Izotope's Repair Suite. Browse audio plugins here.

Overall, I am unbelievably impressed with the audio quality from Udio.

In many of the tracks I've created, I would 100% believe they were created by a human producer - especially when it comes to the instrumentals.

Lyric Quality (Winner: Suno)

TBH I probably wouldn't use the lyrics from either tool out of the box.

For some reason, large language models really struggle with writing good lyrics.

Good lyrics are strings of metaphorical thoughts that haven't been said before. At least, that's what I generally consider good lyrics to be.

And large language models are built to sound like things that have been said before.

So a LLM like ChatGPT will struggle with writing good lyrics. And both of these tools are using ChatGPT (or something like it) to power their lyric generation.

For now, Suno tends to create lyrics that are closer to the mark. 

It is also cool that Suno allows you to write in your concept, generate the lyrics, and then modify them.

With Udio, you can provide specific lyrics or hit "Auto Generate", which often ends in lyrics just saying qualities you're asking for

For example, if you ask for a banjo in the song, there's a good chance "banjo" might end up in your lyrics.

Though, this issue can happen with both tools.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend using either of their lyrics for your final result, but Suno comes out the winner for lyrics for now.

Vocal Quality (Winner: Udio)

I think that Udio wins here simply for the fact that the overall quality of their audio is usually better.

With Suno vocals, you can often hear a lot more mistakes and artifacting where you would instantly know that it was AI.

With Udio, while it does mess up sometimes, there's a much better chance you will get a block of vocal audio that sounds really damn close to an actual group of singers.

And this holds true regardless of which genre you pick, whether you're doing bluegrass or otherwise - the vocals can be very, very convincing.

To be honest, I have not really been convinced by the vast majority of Suno vocals that I have heard, and that kind of applies to any genre.

Udio wins in terms of vocal usability.

Overall (Suno For Casuals, Udio For Pros)

I am genuinely impressed by the creativity of both tools.

If you are looking for dirty concepting or you're just making the music for your own entertainment, Suno is probably a good choice.

But if you are trying to end up with more professional-sounding music, Udio would be my main pick.

With both tools, you really are subject to chance with the seed value (machine learning talk) that ends up being used. Sometimes you are going to get results that just aren't that good.

The same thing happens if you're writing a song by yourself or if you pay a songwriter to write a song - you often have to go through many ideas and iterations to get a song that feels good

I do think that both tools have, somehow, captured artistic ingenuity in a genie lamp. Both tools are arguably better at songwriting and production than I am.

Purely from a volume standpoint.

You can snap your fingers a few times in a row and conceivably have a really good song framework.

Writing really good songs is actually very difficult. Producing really good, well-mixed, ideas is actually very difficult.

And the AI voodoo gods have put that ability in everybody's hands.

It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that we are living in a time where a computer can generate a piece of art that makes a human feel an emotional response.

One of the comfy synth pieces I made gave me chills. It is scary and magical at the same time.

Want help transforming your AI song outputs into a finished song? Visit this page to get in touch.

If you do want to create something truly new and novel, there is no better way to do that than learning production and doing it from scratch. But be warned that takes A SHITTON of time.