Generating Beats, Melodies, and Songs

From Prompt to Track

🔄 Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, you learned the music theory fundamentals that make AI prompts effective — keys, scales, chord progressions, BPM, and song structure. Now you’ll put that knowledge to work, generating actual music with the three major AI platforms.

This is where it gets real. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have generated your first beats, melodies, and complete songs using AI. The key is understanding that generation isn’t a one-shot process — it’s iterative, like sketching before painting.

Generating with Suno

Suno is the fastest path from idea to complete song. It generates vocals, instruments, and mixing from a text prompt.

The Suno prompt hierarchy (most to least important):

1. Genre and subgenre: “indie rock,” “trap,” “lo-fi hip-hop,” “cinematic orchestral”
2. Mood and energy: “melancholic,” “energetic,” “dreamy,” “aggressive”
3. Instruments: “acoustic guitar, soft drums, warm bass”
4. Vocal style: “male baritone,” “female falsetto,” “whispered vocals,” “no vocals”
5. Production style: “lo-fi with vinyl crackle,” “polished pop production,” “raw garage sound”

Example Suno prompts by genre:

Pro technique — batch generation: Generate 3-5 versions of the same prompt. Listen to all of them. Pick the best one as your foundation. AI generation has built-in randomness — the same prompt produces different interpretations. Use this to your advantage.

✅ Quick Check: Why generate multiple versions of the same prompt? Because AI generation is probabilistic — each run produces a unique interpretation. Generating 3-5 versions gives you options. You might love the melody in version 2 but prefer the drum pattern in version 4. You can combine the best elements in your DAW.

Generating with Udio

Udio produces higher audio fidelity than Suno and offers stem downloads — the ability to download individual tracks (vocals, drums, bass, melody) separately.

When to use Udio instead of Suno:

• When you need stems to work with in a DAW
• When audio quality is the top priority
• When you want more control over the remix process
• When natural-sounding vocals matter most

Udio prompt tips:

• Be more specific about vocal style and articulation
• Reference specific production eras: “2010s blog-era indie,” “90s boom-bap”
• Specify vocal processing: “reverb-heavy vocals,” “dry upfront vocals”

Generating with AIVA

AIVA is purpose-built for instrumental and cinematic music. Its unique advantage: paid users get full copyright ownership.

AIVA workflow:

1. Select a style preset (film score, pop, jazz, electronic, etc.)
2. Define parameters: key, tempo, duration, instruments
3. Generate and listen
4. Edit the generated score in AIVA’s editor — move notes, change instruments, adjust dynamics
5. Export as audio or MIDI

When to use AIVA:

• Film, video, or game scoring
• Background music for content
• When you need copyright ownership (not just a license)
• When you want to edit the actual musical score, not just audio

Building Beats from Scratch

For beat-focused production (hip-hop, electronic, pop), here’s the layer-by-layer approach:

Step 1: Generate the foundation Use Suno or Udio to generate a basic beat or chord progression in your target key and BPM.

Step 2: Export and separate Download the audio. If you need individual elements, run it through Lalal.ai or Moises.ai to separate drums, bass, and melodic elements.

Step 3: Layer in your DAW Import the separated stems into BandLab, GarageBand, or your DAW of choice. Now you can:

• Keep the drums but replace the bass
• Keep the chord progression but generate a new melody on top
• Adjust the arrangement — extend the verse, shorten the intro
• Add your own elements alongside the AI-generated ones

Step 4: Generate additional elements Go back to Suno or Udio and generate more elements in the same key and BPM. A melody line. A pad texture. A bass variation. Layer these into your arrangement.

Help me create a beat production plan:

Genre: [what style of beat?]
Mood: [dark, uplifting, chill, aggressive, dreamy?]
Reference tracks: [2-3 songs that sound like what I want]
BPM preference: [or let AI suggest based on genre]

Create:
1. A Suno/Udio prompt for the foundation beat
2. A second prompt for a melodic element in the same key
3. A third prompt for a bass line in the same key
4. An arrangement plan: which elements play in verse vs. chorus
5. A mixing checklist for when I combine them in my DAW

The Iterative Generation Workflow

No professional producer accepts the first generation. Here’s the real workflow:

1. Generate broadly — Start with a simple prompt, see what the AI does
2. Identify what works — The melody is great but the drums are weak? Keep the melody
3. Refine the prompt — Adjust and regenerate. More specific about what you want
4. Cherry-pick elements — From multiple generations, collect the best pieces
5. Assemble in DAW — Combine your cherry-picked elements into a cohesive track
6. Fill gaps manually — Add your own elements where AI output was weak
7. Repeat for each section — Verse, chorus, bridge may each need separate generations

✅ Quick Check: Why is the iterative approach better than trying to generate a perfect track in one shot? Because no single generation will be perfect everywhere. A track might have a brilliant chorus but a boring verse, or an amazing melody but generic drums. The iterative approach lets you collect the best elements from multiple generations and combine them, producing a result better than any single AI output.

Key Takeaways

• Write AI music prompts in order of priority: genre → mood → instruments → vocals → production style
• Generate 3-5 variations of each prompt and cherry-pick the best elements
• Suno for speed and complete songs, Udio for quality and stems, AIVA for cinematic with copyright
• Build beats layer-by-layer: generate foundation → separate stems → add layers → arrange in DAW
• Professional AI production is iterative — generate, identify what works, refine, combine
• Always specify key and BPM when generating multiple elements for the same track

Up Next: You’ll learn to mix and master your tracks using AI-powered tools — turning raw generations into polished, release-ready audio.