The latest big tech company exploring AI music is ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. It has begun testing a “music creation, composition and audio editing” app called Ripple.
For now, the iOS app is available as an invite-only closed beta test in the US, but you will be able to request an invite code from Ripple’s website.
ByteDance says the free app is designed for both musicians and social media creators. In the former case, as a composition aid, and in the latter case, as a tool to create her background music for videos.
The app includes a feature called “Melody to Song” that allows users to sing or hum a melody to their phone. Ripple then “extends the melody with instrumental accompaniment from various genres”.
The app also includes a “virtual recording studio” for editing audio. For now, Ripple can only create instrumental music.
ByteDance told Music Ally that the AI models used by Ripple were trained on music licensed or owned by ByteDance, as well as music produced in-house.
A spokesperson for the company confirmed that it does not receive training on commercial music from labels or on songs released by independent artists through TikTok’s SoundOn distribution arm.
It is clear that Ripple is an evolving work in progress. For example, I wondered if I could use the app to create a track and upload it to TikTok for monetization. It seems not yet.
“During the testing phase, we consider user feedback and may develop new product features in the future,” a ByteDance spokesperson told us in response to a question.
Who owns the copyright for music created with Ripple? “Content uploaded by users to Ripple is owned by the music creator as long as there is a copyright interest in that content,” said a spokesperson. person said.
(One potential pitfall of having people hum or sing to create the source audio is that they might hum or sing copyrighted songs. If people start singing “Single Ladies” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Shape of You” Ripple wants to know what it will produce (they will) ByteDance will have to deal with subsequent moderation issues if the results are to be shared publicly, let alone released commercially.)
Ripple’s launch is not at all surprising. In May, MBW spotted two ByteDance job ads seeking a role working on an app that “drastically lowers the barriers to music production and inspires creativity and expression in music.”
The company had previously tested a desktop music-making application called Mawf in 2022 that, like Ripple, could turn “incoming signals” such as songs into music.
Going even further back in 2019, ByteDance acquired one of the first AI music startups, UK-based JukeDeck. The company’s CEO, Ed Newton-Rex, will become the product director of TikTok’s AI lab.
He left the company in 2021, has since worked at Snap’s music-making app Voisey, and is now vice president of audio at Stability AI, one of the most prominent generative AI companies.
TikTok made an experimental leap into music production last year with a StemDrop partnership with UMG and Simon Cowell. This split the track into stems for TikToker to remix and use in their own videos.
In other words, ByteDance has been interested in making music, including AI music, for several years, and Ripple is just the latest expression of that interest.
The ability to “sing or hum a melody and Ripple turns it into a song” isn’t exactly a new development either. Startups like Vochlea, HumOn, and HumTap have explored the idea, but the latter company has since pivoted to the Web3 live streaming app.
Other companies are exploring alternative text and music interfaces where AI models generate music using text prompts. We wrote about the Splash Pro earlier today, as well as recent similar models launched by Google and Mubert.
