Key Highlights
Explore AI tools tailored for professional-grade music production and discover their potential to enhance creativity and increase productivity.
Learn how to choose the right AI music tool based on goals, integration, skill level, music quality, and licensing.
Staccato is a standout option for professional producers with easy DAW integration and ethical AI training.
Beginner-friendly AI tools with guided features like Lemonaide help aspiring creators get started in music production.
Introduction: AI Music Tools Worth Your Studio Time (A Musician's Perspective)
"A good artist has less time than ideas." - Martin Kippenberger
Great producers stand out through creativity, but time is what they never have enough of. As producers, we constantly search for ways to streamline our production process while keeping our sound authentic and original.
Today's AI music composition tools have come a long way. They are no longer just experimental tech - they have grown into real co-composers. They help us work faster and think bigger, sparking new ideas while cutting down production time. But with so many tools showing up and the technology changing fast, it's hard to know which ones are genuinely helpful for producers. That's why we've put together this guide to the top AI music composition tools for both professional and beginning producers.
This review is mainly for music producers. If you're looking for simple background music for your videos or other content, jump ahead to our "AI Tools for Non-Musician Creators" section - those tools don't require any music training.
How to Choose the Right AI Music Composer
When choosing AI music composition tools, five key factors will help you find the right fit for your work:
Purpose:
What do you need the tool for? Do you want to generate stems, extend a composition, write lyrics, or automate remixing? Each tool has its strengths, so knowing your goal helps you pick the right one.
Integration:
Make sure the tool work smoothly with your digital audio workstation and fits naturally into your current workflow. The best tool in the world won't help if it creates extra work to use it.
Skill Level:
Beginners could look for tools with ready-to-use settings that make getting started easy. Advanced producers will want tools offering more control and flexibility to match their experience level.
Quality and Variety:
A good tool should deliver high-quality output while handling different styles, chord patterns, and speed changes well. Check how it creates melodies, what instruments it offers, and how much you can customize its output. The more flexible the tool, the more useful it will be for crafting professional-grade music.
Licensing and Usage Rights:
Make sure you understand the rules about using what you create. Check whether the tool provides licensing options that align with your needs.
Now let’s explore the top tools for producers in 2025.
AI Music Composition Tools For Experienced Producers
With so many music composition AI tools out there, only a select few meet the demands of professional-grade production. Why? Because building tools that work seamlessly, sound great, and offer real creative freedom isn't easy - it requires serious expertise.
Here are the products that have tried to meet this high standard — giving producers the freedom to create diverse styles, precise control over every detail, and powerful tools for advanced arrangements. While some have missed the mark or disappeared altogether, others have stood the test of time and truly stand out.
1. OpenAI MuseNet: Experimental Composer AI Tool (Discontinued)
OpenAI introduced MuseNet in 2019, a tool using GPT-2 technology. It lets users to create multi-instrumental compositions in various styles, which you could download in MIDI and other formats. In 2020, OpenAI launched Jukebox, which produces raw audio waveforms, including basic singing and instrumental sounds.
As OpenAI shifted its focus to language models like their GPT series in late 2022, MuseNet was discontinued and is no longer operational. Although Jukebox is still around, it isn't ideal for producers. It lacks MIDI generation and is hard to use without coding skills. To use Jukebox, you need a Google Colab account and troubleshooting abilities, making it less user-friendly.
2. Google Magenta: Music Composition AI VST for Ableton
Google Magenta is a project by Google for AI music composition. Its most accessible tool, Magenta Studio, was launched in 2019 and is now a plugin for Ableton Live. The studio provides five tools for AI-assisted music production: Continue, Groove, Generate, Drumify, and Interpolate.
However, Magenta Studio has limited input control. The Generate tool creates random outputs without user input on musical details or styles. While the quality of the output is consistent within its limits, there are restrictions on genre variety. It's great for Ableton users looking to experiment.
Interestingly, there isn't official documentation addressing the licensing and royalties of Magenta Studio’s output. Thus, it's better be careful when using it, especially for commercial projects. For more information, check out our detailed review in our previous blog.
3. WavTool: AI Browser DAW (Currently Offline)
WavTool was an AI DAW that operated within a web browser. It offered a comprehensive suite of features including AI-assisted chord progressions, timbre transfer, advanced synthesis, stem separation, and audio-to-MIDI conversion. It also has a built-in AI bot that offers creative assistance.
However, WavTool wasn't without its limitations. Its MIDI generation was considered one of its weaker aspects, often requiring many tries to get good results. Also being exclusively web browser-based limited its integration with traditional desktop music production workflows.
WavTool caught some interest among producers, but it recently shut down. It’s not clear if it will come back under a new name or if it’s gone for good.
4. AIVA: Early AI Composer
AIVA (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) is definitely an early attempt in AI music composition, especially for creating orchestral and cinematic scores. It was launched in February 2016 and was the world’s first virtual composer to be registered with SACEM.
A notable aspect of AIVA is its approach to input. Unlike some AI music creator tools, AIVA does not use text prompts. It relies on musical parameters and existing pieces for influence. Users guide the composition process through genre selection, parameter adjustments, and uploaded MIDI or audio influences. While this method offers precise control over musical aspects, it may restrain the creativity and freedom compared to text-prompt systems.
AIVA is powerful, but its complex interface can be intimidating for some users. In many ways it's like learning an entirely new DAW.
Licensing terms differ based on the subscription plan: Free and Standard plans keep the copyright of compositions under AIVA. Pro Plan subscribers can gain full copyright ownership of their AI-generated tracks if they are individuals or small businesses with less than $300k annual revenue or fewer than 3 employees.
5. Staccato: A New and Emerging AI Music Composition Tool
Staccato has emerged as a genuine groundbreaking tool in AI music composition. It finally strikes a balance between simplicity, flexibility, and high quality. Unlike other AI tools that often produce disconnected or generic results, Staccato stands out with its context understanding - whether generating new ideas from text prompts or extending existing MIDI patterns.
Staccato’s Extend tool is considered the best in the industry. It lets users continue or finish songs in the same style, key, and mood effortlessly. In the past, AI MIDI extension tools like Google’s Magenta Studio and OpenAI’s MuseNet struggled with this task. They could identify the key and tempo of a piece but failed to mimic or build on the core idea, making their outputs feel disconnected. Staccato overcomes these limitations. The model understands the musical concept and generates meaningful variations, making it a reliable choice for producers seeking a true extension experience.
Staccato also offers a text-to-MIDI generator, the first true AI-powered solution of its kind. Just describe what you're looking for, and Staccato understands. Want a melancholic progression in A minor at 110 BPM? Or a driving rhythm with specific chord changes? Type it in, and the results are impressively musical. The system particularly shines with technical parameters, handling everything from basic tempo adjustments to complex chord structures with ease.
The platform fits right into existing production setups without forcing producers to change workflow. You can connect Staccato right to your DAW from the browser. Staccato currently offers an Ableton Max for Live plugin in beta, and a VST compatible with all major DAWs is in development.
Lastly, Staccato's models are trained on fairly sourced musical data, ensuring clear ownership rights for music created through the platform. This approach sets it apart from other AI music composition tools which have faced lawsuits over allegations of using unlicensed data to train their models.
AI Music Composition Tools For Beginner Producers
The tools above can be helpful for beginners as they grow into more experienced producers. However, if beginners are looking for something with more guidance and structure, they could consider the tools in this section. These tools offer guided options and simplified parameters to ease the music creation process. While this makes them accessible for beginners, professional producers may find their features falling short of the options and quality required for high-grade production.
6. Lemonaide: AI HipHop Generator
Lemonaide is an AI composition tool specialized in hip hop. Launched in 2023, it aims to simplify the beat-making process by leveraging artificial intelligence to generate melodies and chord progressions tailored to beginner hip hop producers.
One of Lemonaide’s features is its step-by-step interface, which makes it particularly appealing to beginners. The platform uses an option-based system, allowing users to generate melodies and chord progressions by selecting from drop-downs. This approach lowers the entry barrier for new producers who might find complex music theory or composition daunting.
Lemonaide is great for beginners making trap and rap, but more experienced producers might find it limiting. The music it creates is often simple and generic, feeling more like it comes from a database than being truly original. Plus, since you have to pick options from dropdown menus, you’re stuck with what’s available. This means users might need to spend extra time improving and personalizing the music to make it sound professional or unique.
7. Unison MIDI Wizard: Chord & Melody Generator
Unison MIDI Wizard is another chord and melody generation tool that is more suitable for beginners. It was initially launched in 2020, with its 2.0 version rolling out in late 2023. It offers the standard features you'd expect from a MIDI generator: creating chord progressions and melodies in your chosen key signature and genre, at whatever tempo you need.
Unison's reputation precedes them—and not always in a good way. If you’ve spent any time browsing for music tools online, you’ve probably come across their MIDI chord packs, which have been circulating for years. These packs have sparked more skepticism than praise within the production community.
The plugin works offline, which is impressive, but it raises some questions. Has Unison managed to create a super lightweight AI model, and if so, what does that mean for the quality of the output? Or is it simply pulling from a database of pre-made songs?
Then there’s the elephant in the room: the price. At $397, MIDI Wizard 2.0 demands a significant investment. Compared to other tools on the market, paying nearly $400 for a chord and melody generator feels steep. Adding to that are countless online complaints about dissatisfaction with the product and Unison’s refusal to offer refunds.
8. Hookpad Aria: Songwriting Assistant Within Hookpad
HookPad's Aria, launched in 2024, is another entry in the growing field of music generation tools. Built on HookTheory's existing browser-based MIDI platform, Aria is their first venture into AI-assisted creation, focusing on modifying or expanding existing musical pieces rather than generating new compositions from scratch.
The tool operates within the confines of HookPad's environment, functioning as an add-on feature rather than a standalone AI composer. Users have to first create their own musical content in HookPad before they can use Aria. The workflow involves selecting specific regions in existing projects and requesting AI suggestions for either chord progressions or melodies.
The training approach of Aria also raises some questions. While the base model uses properly licensed data, the fine-tuning process relies on user-generated transcriptions of copyrighted songs. This is a legally ambiguous area that differs from companies who ensure proper licensing for their training data.
Aria adds AI capabilities to HookPad's existing features, but its reliance on pre-existing musical content suggests limitations in creative freedom. Users looking for more comprehensive AI-powered composition might find this approach restrictive.
AI Tools for Non-Musician Creators
These tools are great for people who aren’t musicians but need background music for projects or personal enjoyment. They’re simple to use but face a few challenges. First, they don’t allow for much editing, which can limit customization. Second, some AI tools use techniques that pull from existing song libraries, so the music might not be original. Third, there are questions about how these tools are trained. For example, some platforms have been accused of using music from Spotify or Apple Music without proper permission, as seen in the Suno and Udio lawsuits.
Suno:
Creates complete songs with lyrics and vocals based on text prompts, offering multi-language support and diverse genre options.
Udio:
Similar to Suno, offers complete songs with a variety of mood-based templates.
Boomy:
A popular platform that allows users to generate royalty-free music tailored to specific styles and moods, ideal for social media videos.
Soundraw:
Provides AI-driven compositions that can be tweaked for length, genre, and energy levels, making it versatile for diverse content needs.
Beatoven:
Focuses on mood-based music generation for videos and podcasts, allowing creators to adjust intensity and style effortlessly.
Mubert:
Generates loops perfect for live streams or background tracks, offering seamless integration with content creation workflows.
Soundful:
Creates royalty-free tracks using templates across multiple genres, ideal for content creators needing professional-grade music quickly.
Conclusion: Making AI Work for Your Production
As AI technology advances, its role in music production is poised to become even more important. We can expect to see AI music generation tools capable of producing even more nuanced, expressive, and stylistically diverse compositions. These tools will never replace human creativity, but they will harmonize it — boosting productivity while letting individuality shine.
Making AI work for your production means carefully selecting tools that align with your workflow and the factors outlined above — goal, integration, skill level, quality, and licensing. Staccato stands out in these areas by providing seamless integration into major DAWs, catering to professional-level creativity with high-quality output.
Ready to elevate your production workflow? Give Staccato a try and experience the future of composition today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AI generated music legal?
Copyright issues surrounding AI content are complex and still evolving. Particularly, legality depends on the licensing and copyright practices of the tool you use. Many AI music generators offer royalty-free tracks, allowing creators to use them legally in their projects. However, the ownership and copyright for the pieces produced by some composer AI tools is still being debated, so it's essential to check the terms of service for each tool, and ensure the platform you choose uses ethically sourced data and provides clear ownership rights for the music created, like Staccato.
Is my data and music secure with AI tools?
Data security varies across platforms. Trusted tools like Staccato ensure that your data and creations are protected, using robust security measures and responsibly trained models that respect copyright.
Can I use the music commercially?
Many AI tools allow commercial use, but it’s essential to check their licensing terms. Staccato, for example, ensures that all music you create is fully yours to use commercially without restrictions.
How does AI music composition work?
AI music tools learn from large datasets of music to spot patterns and structures. They use this knowledge to create new music, expand on existing pieces, or turn inputs like text prompts into music.
Dr. Jeffrey Lupker - Co-founder, Staccato
International Speaker & Published Author on Deep Learning & Music.
Dr. Lupker has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has given lectures internationally in the fields of deep learning, machine learning and music. Beyond Staccato and his own research, Dr. Lupker is an active performer on guitar and keyboards and has played across Canada and USA with award winning artists.
