Song or music: one box decides
Here an AI music generator and an AI song generator are the same machine; the Instrumental box just above the Create button makes it one or the other. About 6% of what people make on Tunely is made with it ticked. That box is also where first attempts most often go wrong, in both directions.
- Box ticked, lyrics pasted. Between 4 September and 4 October, about one in three instrumental tracks made by visitors who had not signed up yet came from pasted lyrics or a brief asking for a singer — a French family song, a birthday verse in Arabic, a jingle brief that wanted a female lead. With the box ticked, none of those words is sung.
- Box empty, “no vocals” typed. A brief that asks for no vocals in words can still come back with a voice. The box is a setting; the sentence is a request.
If a track arrives with no words and you wanted a song, look at the box before you touch the brief. If you want music under a voice-over, tick it first.
One brief, two takes, measured
The brief below looks like two briefs pasted together, the start of a Spanish lofi request and a whole English one for arcade game music, which is exactly how real briefs look. The title the engine gave both takes, Meteor Arcade Drift, comes from the second half. What matters to anyone cutting to picture is how different the two takes are.
The prompt that made it
“un beat lo-fi tranquiHigh-energy space rock arcade music, driving electric guitar, punchy drums, groovy bass, explosive riffs, catchy melody, fast-paced gameplay, cosmic action, meteor chaos, fun and intense!”
Full level about a second after it starts, and still at full level one second before the end: it stops, it does not fade.
The prompt that made it
“un beat lo-fi tranquiHigh-energy space rock arcade music, driving electric guitar, punchy drums, groovy bass, explosive riffs, catchy melody, fast-paced gameplay, cosmic action, meteor chaos, fun and intense!”
Same brief, about 35 seconds shorter, the same hard stop. For a two-and-a-half-minute edit, this is the take to start from.
Measured from the files, instrumentals made here run 3:00 at the median, and eight in ten land between 1:53 and 3:42. How a track ends matters as much as how long it runs: about two in five stop within two seconds of full level, about as many ring out for two to five seconds, and one in five fades over five seconds or more.
Fitting the music to the edit
The length and the ending are the two things an editor fights with. What each plan gives you:
| You need | Do this | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| An exact length | Custom mode, Pro fine-tuning, Length: 1:00 to 5:00. | Pro, Ultra |
| Under a minute, for an ad | Set Length to 1:00 and cut to picture; there is no shorter setting. | Pro, Ultra |
| A length on the free plan | Keep the take closest to your edit and trim it; nearly two times in five the two takes land half a minute or more apart. | Any |
| Longer | Extend continues a track from where it ends, one credit each time. | Pro, Ultra |
| A soft ending | Add a two-to-four-second fade in your editor: eight in ten tracks end without one. | Any |
| The music from under a song's vocal | Get stems: a vocal file and an instrumental file, one credit. | Pro, Ultra |
Describing music without words
With no lyrics, the description carries the whole track. About one instrumental description in three says how fast, most of those with a BPM number; the other two leave the pace to the engine. Four kinds of words do most of the work.
- Two or three instruments. “felt piano, cello and soft pads”, “driving electric guitar, punchy drums”.
- Speed. “slow, around 70 BPM”, “fast-paced”, “a steady 120 BPM pulse”. Two descriptions in three leave it out.
- Shape. “starts sparse and builds to a big final minute”, or, for a bed under a video, “steady throughout, no big changes”.
- Use. “for a product walkthrough”, “for a boss fight”, “under a podcast intro”. It gives the engine a scene to score.
Put together, with Instrumental ticked: “calm background music for a product walkthrough video, felt piano and soft pads, a steady 90 BPM pulse, no big changes, leaves room for a voice-over”.
Using it in a project
Listening and sharing are free and carry no watermark on any plan. Music that goes into something that earns money, a client video, a monetised channel, a game on sale, an ad, needs the commercial licence that comes with Pro and Ultra; it covers every track in your library, each with a certificate and a licence code, including tracks made before you upgraded. Pro and Ultra also include lossless WAV, which holds up better than MP3 through an edit. If a platform flags your upload anyway, the Content ID guide walks through the dispute and what to attach.
Before you press Create
- Instrumental ticked for music, unticked for a song, checked before Create.
- Two or three instruments, a speed, and a shape: builds, or steady.
- What the music is for, in a few words.
- The length you need, and how you will hit it: the Length setting, the nearest take, or Extend.
- A fade planned for the end, since eight in ten tracks end without one.
- A commercial project is on Pro or Ultra, with the certificate saved.
Sources
Written and fact-checked by the Tunely team · Updated