Google’s new generative AI experiment permits you to create music “inspired by” over 100 devices worldwide. Instrument Playground begins by asking for a easy immediate containing a musical instrument’s identify, optionally preceded by an adjective like “upbeat,” “strange” or “gloomy.” It should then spit out a 20-second audio clip as a place to begin to compose (typically extraordinarily offbeat or summary) music which will or could not embrace the sound of the precise instrument you entered.
Simon Doury, an Artist in Residence at Google Arts & Tradition Lab, designed the experiment. It faucets into Google’s MusicLM, a text-to-AI software it made out there to the general public in Could.
Instrument Playground invitations you to “choose one of over 100 instruments from around the world you’d like to play,” suggesting some lesser-known to People just like the veena from India, dizi from China or mbria from Zimbabwe. In the meantime, prefixing your instrument immediate with an adjective permits you to recommend kinds like “moody,” “happy” or “romantic.”
The experiment works much less actually than you would possibly anticipate. For instance, “angry tuba” doesn’t generate the aggressive brass solo you’d anticipate. As an alternative, it sounds extra like a synthesized pipe organ with tuba aspirations. Equally, “strange didgeridoo” got here out like an ominous part of a Hans Zimmer rating. The outcomes appear to be summary compositions with layers of sound that (type of) seize the sensation — greater than the precise sound — of the immediate.
It additionally rejects some adjectives for inexplicable causes. After I enter “quirky” or “psychedelic,” an error pop-up tells me it doesn’t permit prompts referencing particular artists.
As soon as the experiment generates a clip you want for a place to begin, you may select from “Ambient,” “Beat” and “Pitch” to regulate totally different points of the composition, turning it into one thing extra uniquely yours. If you wish to add extra devices (or no matter sounds it makes in response to instrument-based prompts), a complicated mode opens a sequencer to layer and loop as much as 4 tracks to your oddball musical masterpiece. Lastly, you may obtain a .wav file of your monitor when you’re pleased with it.
Google included the next holiday-themed instance to encourage you to get began. If that appears like one thing you wish to play with, you may go to Instrument Playground and log in along with your Google account to start composing.