AI audio tools are intelligent software programmes that are used by sound engineers and music producers to improve various aspects of the creative process, such as generating melodies and harmonies and enhancing sound quality. These tools have become popular among music producers and sound designers looking to streamline their workflow due to their capacity to analyse sizable datasets and spot intricate patterns.
The purpose of AI audio tools
Vocal Tuning and Pitch Correction
Precision in vocal tuning and pitch correction has always been crucial in music production. Audio tools like the AI-assisted Auto-Tune Vocal Compressor have elevated this process by offering highly accurate and natural-sounding adjustments. These tools use machine learning to detect and correct pitch inaccuracies, enabling music producers to achieve polished vocals effortlessly. Whether it’s a slight adjustment or a complete vocal transformation, AI audio tools can retain the emotional authenticity of the original recording while enhancing its overall quality.
Music Composition and Generation
AI-driven music composition tools like OpenAI’s MuseNet have revolutionized how melodies and harmonies are crafted. These tools analyze a vast library of musical compositions, learning the intricate nuances of various genres and styles. As a result, they can generate original musical pieces tailored to the user’s preferences. Music producers can quickly experiment with diverse musical ideas, saving time and inspiring creativity. These AI tools are like collaborative virtual bandmates, providing endless compositional possibilities that complement the producer’s vision.
Sound Design and Sampling
Sound designers often spend significant time searching for the right samples and creating unique sounds. AI audio tools like SpectraLayers use spectral analysis to deconstruct audio files into individual components, allowing sound designers to manipulate and modify specific elements. This level of granularity opens up opportunities for creating entirely new sounds or refining existing ones. Additionally, AI-powered noise reduction tools enhance audio clarity by isolating and minimizing unwanted background noise, a valuable asset in producing professional-grade audio content.
Real-time Audio Processing and Mixing
AI audio tools are not confined to offline processing; they are making their way into real-time applications as well. Plugins like iZotope’s Neoverb use AI to analyze audio sources and automatically adjust reverb settings in real-time, creating a harmonious sonic space. This real-time adaptability significantly speeds up the mixing process and provides instant feedback to music producers, enabling them to make necessary adjustments to their audio arrangements.
Top 10 AI Audio Tools
1. LANDR
LANDR offers an impressive collection of 20 million mastered tracks, facilitating streamlined workflows through its intuitive interface. As a trusted AI mastering tool, LANDR serves emerging artists, industry giants such as Warner Records, Def Jam, Atlantic, and top studio engineers that have mastered tracks for artists like Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg, Seal, Post Malone and more.
Both audio engineers and artists benefit from the tool’s user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for simplified audio mastering. LANDR stands out with its meticulously designed mastering chain, dedicated to optimizing creative output. Additionally, LANDR has exclusive, platform-specific mastering plugins that are not available elsewhere.
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2. Descript Studio Sound
Studio Sound is a noise reduction and audio processing tool offered by Descript, a cloud-based media creation platform leveraging AI to help users create content faster. Descript has raised a total of $100M, primarily from OpenAI Startup Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and Spark Capital.
Studio Sound isolates speakers’ voices, then regenerates and enhances the audio quality while removing echo and background noise. The tool’s regenerative algorithm improves voice quality and negates noisy environments. It also enhances the user’s voice and removes background noise, room echo, and other sounds that distract from audio, videos, or screen recordings, making it a great tool for podcasters, YouTubers, and other content creators who want to save time and effort on their audio editing.
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3. Splitter
Splitter is a machine learning software that enables audio engineers to isolate instruments from music. The software offers four models to help audio professionals increase productivity. One notable example is the 5-stem model, which expertly extracts vocals, drums, piano, bass, and additional elements like guitar and synths. Similarly, the 2-stem model isolates the vocals and instrumental tracks.
The company focuses on building solutions that cater to music producers, DJs, artists, forensics engineers, audio engineers, karaoke enthusiasts, law enforcement personnel, scientists, and beyond. Splitter was founded by a highly accomplished music producer and audio engineer, who boasts extensive expertise across science, technology, and the music industry. Their musical contributions have graced the soundtracks of numerous Hollywood films, including notable titles like Fast & Furious 7, Men in Black: International, and the more recent Paws of Fury.
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4. Sonible smart: EQ 3
Sonible’s smart: EQ3 is an AI-powered equalizer that uses an AI filter to automatically correct tonal imbalances. It cleans up unpleasant resonances and unwanted notches, to achieve a well-balanced sound.
Its Intelligent cross-channel processing helps users achieve a seamless arrangement of up to six channels, ensuring that each track fulfils its intended role. Through the analysis of spectral data from the grouped channels, the algorithms allocate space for every track within the mix. All users have to do is determine the sonic hierarchy based on their creative vision.
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5. Orb Producer Suite 3
Developed by Hexachords, Orb Producer Suite 3 is one of the products developed by Hexachords, a Barcelona-based company that develops algorithms and AI tools for musicians, composers, music producers.
The suite comprises of four plugins. Orb Chords allows the generation of countless unique chord progressions, customizable with various attributes including color and dissonance. The Melody Maker plugin provides an endless array of melody ideas, accompanied by versatile controllers for achieving the perfect musical note. The Bass module intelligently analyzes harmony and suggests optimal bass lines, while the Arpeggio module offers instant and user-friendly access to a variety of arpeggio patterns, further enriched with extensive customization options.
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6. Playbeat
Leveraging its exclusive AI SMART™ algorithm, Playbeat possesses the capability to instantly generate and propose a myriad of beat combinations. Employing sophisticated sonic analysis algorithms, this tool crafts entirely novel and non-repetitive grooves through advanced audio analysis techniques.
Furthermore, users have the option to train the application by exposing it to their daily audio inputs, enabling the app to learn their favored patterns. This adaptive learning process results in the app generating personalized patterns that progressively align with the user’s preferred style, bringing the sound output ever closer to the user’s creative needs.
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7. Lalal.ai
Built by a team of specialists in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, mathematical optimization, and digital signal processing, Lalal.ai offers a Stem Splitter and Voice Cleaner. Stem Splitter allows users to extract vocal, accompaniment and various instruments from any audio and video while Voice Cleaner provides AI-powered background music removal and noise cancellation technology.
These two tools are powered by AI models developed in-house. In 2020, the team developed a unique neural network called Rocknet using 20TB of training data to extract instrumentals and voice tracks from songs. A year later, they created Cassiopeia, a superior model to Rocknet that allowed improved splitting results with significantly fewer audio artifacts.
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8. Audo Studio
Driven by powerful AI algorithms, Audo Studio offers a suite of features that streamline tasks and enhance sound quality. From noise reduction and automatic equalization to advanced vocal processing, Audo Studio enables audio professionals, podcasters, musicians, and creators of all kinds to achieve pristine audio results without the complexities of traditional post-production methods.
Audo Studio’s AI algorithms analyze and intelligently reduce unwanted noise, enhancing clarity and ensuring a clean audio output. It automatically optimizes audio frequencies and refines vocals to enhance overall audio quality.
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9. iZotope RX 10
iZotope RX 10 is an advanced audio restoration tool driven by AI and machine learning, designed to address an array of audio challenges, including noise, clipping, and distortion. This versatile tool encompasses a comprehensive range of features. Among them is the newly introduced Text Navigation function stands out, analyzing dialogue and providing synchronized text transcriptions above the spectrogram. This enables users to pinpoint desired words within an audio file and perform precise edits using the text interface.
The tool also incorporates Multiple Speaker Detection, a valuable feature that facilitates the identification and labeling of speech segments linked to individual voices. This proves particularly helpful when distinct speakers require tailored processing. For newcomers, the Repair Assistant Plug-in is beneficial. Lleveraging machine learning to quickly detect and rectify audio issues directly within the digital audio workstation (DAW), this intuitive Assistant intelligently identifies specific problems and proposes customizable repair sequences, adjustable through user-friendly controls.
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10. Krisp
Built upon the foundations of deep neural networks, Krisp’s AI technology works to enhance audio quality and intelligibility by filtering out unwanted sounds, resulting in more productive and focused conversations. The AI-powered Voice Assistant includes bi-directional Noise Cancellation feature adeptly eradicates any ambient noise during calls. Operating both ways, this functionality effectively detects and removes noises and conversations originating from other participants on the call as well.
Its Echo Cancellation feature removes the echoes bouncing off of the walls or other hard surfaces in the room and even even takes care of that pesky echo problem, which results from an overly-sensitive microphone—or acoustic echo.
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10 best audio processing tools cheatsheet
FAQs
How do AI audio processing tools work?
They use advanced machine learning algorithms, particularly deep neural networks, to analyze and manipulate audio data. These algorithms are trained on vast datasets of various audio samples, allowing them to recognize patterns, distinguish between different audio elements (such as vocals and instruments), and make intelligent decisions regarding noise reduction, equalization, and other audio enhancements. By leveraging AI, these tools can automate tasks that would typically require manual intervention, ultimately improving audio quality, removing unwanted noise, and enhancing overall sound clarity.
Can AI audio processing tools replace human creativity in music composition?
While some AI audio processing tools offer impressive capabilities in generating patterns, melodies, and arrangements, they are not meant to replace human creativity. Tools like Playbeat and Hexachords Orb are designed to complement and inspire musicians, providing them with new ideas and facilitating the creative process. Musicians can use these tools to jumpstart compositions, experiment with new musical directions, and overcome creative blocks. Ultimately, human creativity, emotion, and interpretation remain essential in music composition, allowing artists to infuse their unique perspectives and artistic intentions into their work.
How accurate is vocal separation in AI audio processing tools?
The accuracy of vocal separation depends on several factors, including the complexity of the audio track, the quality of the source material, and the sophistication of the AI algorithms. While these tools can achieve impressive results in isolating vocals from mixed tracks, challenges may arise when dealing with heavily layered or intricately mixed audio. In such cases, the separation might not be as precise. Users should expect varying levels of accuracy and may need to fine-tune the results to achieve the desired outcome, especially for unique or complex audio content.
How do AI audio processing tools synthesize human-like speech?
This technology relies on deep learning algorithms that analyze large amounts of human speech data to learn the nuances of vocal patterns, intonation, and speech characteristics. By understanding the relationships between different phonemes and linguistic components, these tools can generate speech that closely resembles human speech. This technology offers creative possibilities for audio editing, voice manipulation, and even the generation of fictional character voices.
What are the ethical implications of using AI audio processing tools?
The use of AI audio processing tools raises ethical considerations, particularly in scenarios where generated content could be misused or misrepresented. For example, the ability to manipulate speech and audio could potentially lead to the creation of deepfakes or misleading content. It’s important for users to be mindful of how they apply these tools and to adhere to ethical guidelines that promote responsible and transparent use.
Conclusion
AI audio tools have become useful assets in the toolkit of modern music producers, audio technicians and content creators, enhancing efficiency and creativity. From precision vocal tuning to AI-assisted music composition, sound design, and real-time mixing, these tools showcase the synergy of human creativity and AI’s technological capabilities. By leveraging AI in their creative process, musicians can unlock new dimensions of artistic expression and take their audio production up a notch.
Source: mPost
