YouTube Introduces AI-Powered Music Remixing Tool for Shorts Creators

YouTube's new AI music remixer could let you swap genres | Digital Trends

Musicians could soon be able to remix the songs that they upload to YouTube thanks to an experimental AI tool currently rolling out to select content creators. The new tool is built atop YouTube's Dream Track, which was released last year and enables users to compose songs based on text prompts and by using prerecorded vocals. Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Charlie Puth have all signed on for the use of their vocal likenesses. Recommended Videos The new feature acts as sort of a co-producer, allowing the creator to direct the remix and generate a 30-second sample based on the input song and the user's text prompts. With it, you'll be able to quickly reimagine a pop tune as a reggaeton bop, or generate a thrash metal version of the 1812 Overture. "If you're a creator in the experiment group, you can select an eligible song, describe how you want to restyle it, then generate a unique 30-second soundtrack to use in your Short," YouTube' said in its announcement. "These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI." Surely, if you were already going to go through the effort of writing a song, you wouldn't just compose it in the style that you hear in your head. That's why the new feature seems made for content creators, as it allows them to soundtrack their Shorts videos with something other than the minor key version of Pink Pony Club. As with the other Dream Track features, the new remix tool runs on Google's Lyria large language model, which is trained to generate unique musical scores based on the user's text prompts (it's the same idea as image or video generation, just with audio outputs instead). Google has asserted that all generated tracks, regardless of how much human input there was in their creation, will be clearly and obviously labeled as being made with AI, however, there is no word yet as to whether the company will apply its SynthID watermarking scheme to the new outputs.

AI will start remixing your music on YouTube

Like a song you put on a YouTube video but want to give it a new spin? The video platform is testing a new AI tool to do just that, at least for when you post a Shorts video. YouTube is letting a limited number of creators use the AI tool as a kind of co-producer. They can submit their music and a prompt about genre, mood, or other elements, and the AI will spin a new 30-second soundtrack that attempts to meet the request. The remix feature employs YouTube's Dream Track, an AI toolkit released a year ago to some U.S.-based artists. The AI works with the creators to compose songs based on prompts and pre-recorded vocals. Artists like Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Charlie Puth all gave permission to YouTube for Dream Track to use their singing. The new tool carries Dream Track into the popular track remix facet of the music industry by restyling it to a new mood and type of sound. They might turn a pop song into a jazz ballad or an R&B song into a formal, baroque-style sound. All of the Dream Track features use the Lyria music generation AI model developed by Google's DeepMind team. Lyria interprets words and audio and recombines the ideas behind both into unique music. Despite being new tracks, YouTube made a point of saying that the AI origin and the human artist behind the new track will be obvious. "If you're a creator in the experiment group, you can select an eligible song > describe how you want to restyle it > then generate a unique 30-second soundtrack to use in your Short," YouTube's description explained. "These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI." The ability to quickly customize music to fit any specific genre, mood, or theme has obvious appeal for creators. And the industry probably won't be too upset thanks to YouTube's proactive measures to avoid copyright issues. YouTube and Google have made ostentatious efforts to compensate creators and rights holders when it comes to AI assistance. YouTube and Universal Music Group (UMG) signed a deal last year to work out a compensation scheme for AI to defuse that question before YouTube releases an AI music generator. Compare that to the annoyance of creators who have seen their videos scraped to train AI models without their permission. Still, YouTube wants AI to fill its platform in as many ways as possible. The platform has already tested all kinds of AI tools for the public. AI can help inspire new video ideas with YouTube's Brainstorm with Gemini tool and jump ahead of the kind of rights issues raised by artists thanks to an AI tool for removing copyrighted music from your video without taking it down completely.

YouTube creators can now make AI song remixes for Shorts

Select YouTube creators can now produce their own remixes of existing songs. YouTube has announced a new feature for its AI-powered Dream Track tool that allows individuals to "restyle" a song and create a 30-second tune to use in a Short. Creators in the experiment group for this feature can choose from eligible songs and then give an explanation to AI about how they want to remix it. These changes could focus on giving the song a different genre or mood -- whatever twist they're imagining. From there a new song gets produced "that reimagines the music while maintaining the essence of the original song's vocals and lyrics," YouTube's announcement states. "These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI." YouTube rolled out Dream Track in November 2023, powered by Google DeepMind's Lyria model. It allowed a select group of US creators to make songs using the AI-generated voices of participating artists. The feature included a deal with Universal Music Group and partnerships with a slew of musicians, including John Legend, Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. It has expanded its availability to all US creators in the year since.

YouTube is now letting creators remix songs through AI prompting | TechCrunch

YouTube added a capability for select creators in the U.S. to create AI-generated songs via prompts using the vocals of artists like Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, and Troye Sivan last year. Now, the company is adding a feature for select creators to remix a track by describing how they want to change the style of a song. The video streaming platform is making select songs through its label partners available to creators for the new remix experiment. If a creator is a part of the test group, they can select an eligible song, select the "Retstyle a track" option, and describe how they want to restyle the track. This will generate a 30-second snippet that creators can use in their Shorts. On a support page, Google noted that the remixed sound snippet will be attributed to the original song through the Short and the Shorts audio pivot page. Plus, it will also have an appropriate label to indicate that the track was modified through AI. YouTube released the Dream Track feature in November 2023, powered by the Lyrica music generation model developed by Deepmind. At that time, the platform also released a tool that created a track by a user just humming a tune. "These experiments explore the potential of AI features to help artists and creators stretch their imaginations and augment their creative processes. In turn, fans will be able to connect to the creatives they love in new ways, bringing them closer together through interactive tools and experiences. All of this will help us iterate and enhance the technology, informing applications for the future," YouTube said at that time. To save itself from the music industry's ire, YouTube declared last August -- before releasing any of these tools -- that it plans to compensate artists and rightsholders for usage of their work in AI features. To that end, the company announced a partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) to develop a structure to pay rightsholders. YouTube is not the only company working on providing ways for users to remix tracks. Former JioSaavn exec Gaurav Sharma is building an app called Hook, which allows users to legally remix songs that could be used to create short videos.

YouTube to allow creators to restyle songs using AI for Shorts

Disclaimer: This content generated by AI & may have errors or hallucinations. Edit before use. Read our Terms of use YouTube has announced the testing of restyled music tracks created by AI for YouTube Shorts. The experimental feature enables a small group of creators to restyle a set number of official songs made available by select music partners. This feature comes as an addition to YouTube's Dream Track experiment that allowed a handful of US-based creators to curate soundtracks comprising the AI-generated voices of select artists including Charlie Puth, Sia, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Alec Benjamin, Charli XCX, Papoose, T-Pain, and Troy Sivan. The Dream Track soundtracks are created by remixing the AI voices of the artists who had their consent to the experiment, and could then be used to create Shorts. According to YouTube, creators from the experiment group can select from the limited variety of songs available, following which they could describe their vision for reshaping the song. Within their description, creators could seek to redefine the genre or mood of the song via the 'Restyle a track' prompt. AI would then produce a "unique 30-second soundtrack" that can be used to create Shorts. The restyled soundtrack would have a clear attribution to the original song mentioned in the Short itself and within the Shorts audio pivot page. The Short would also display explicitly that the track was reimagined using AI. While using the Dream Track soundtracks, Shorts curated by creators follow the same monetisation policies based on the Ad Revenue Sharing model as Shorts with regular music. Additionally, the curated soundtracks cannot be downloaded by viewers. These conditions were set forth during the testing of AI-generated soundtracks created earlier in 2023. However, there is no explicit mention of the same with the new AI capability using songs by select music partners. Additionally, while there will exist a clear attribution to the original song within the Short, the remix itself runs the risk of threatening the authenticity of human artistry. As such, music labels and composers have also expressed concern over the identical nature of songs mixed using AI and those produced by real artists. Universal Music Group, one of the premier music companies, has been in vehement opposition of AI music, in 2023 going so far as to labelling it "fraud" and advocating for its ban. Earlier this year, MediaNama had also reported on the discussions initiated by YouTube with record labels like Sony, Warner, and Universal with the view of licensing their songs for the creation of a unique AI-based song generator. There isn't, however, a clear consensus in terms of the general adaption of AI in the music industry. While a letter from 200+ musicians earlier in 2024 called on AI developers, companies and platforms to "cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists", in India, During a panel discussion at the FICCI Frames 2024, several professionals from the music industry termed AI a "great enabler" stating that it aids efficiency. In addition to the remixing of soundtracks utilising AI capabilities, YouTube has employed the technology to alter the gesture navigation on its mobile application. This feature automatically starts playing the next video as per the recommendation of YouTube AI. Besides this, YouTube was also experimenting with AI-enhanced comment reply suggestions that could allow creators to respond to the audience in their own tone and style. This optional feature essentially displayed AI-generated recommended replies in the Comments tab in the Studio and YouTube mobile application.

YouTube trials new AI tool to restyle licensed music for Shorts

Key Takeaways YouTube's AI-powered feature allows eligible users to restyle licensed tracks for Shorts. The tool lets users create custom background tracks by selecting a track to modify, and entering a prompt defining the style. We hope YouTube makes music restyling available to all users and Shorts creators in the future. ✕ Remove Ads YouTube is one of the best entertainment apps on Android popularized by long-format video uploaded by users, but one could argue the integrated Shorts are among the most important factors that help user retention. However, the short-format video space is extremely competitive, filled with big players like ByteDance's TikTok and Instagram Reels. To stay on top, YouTube has been experimenting with AI-powered features for a handful of creators, and a new feature was just added to the test, letting eligible users restyle a handful of licensed tracks for use in Shorts. Related What are YouTube Shorts? Everything you need to know about YouTube's TikTok rival ✕ Remove Ads The Google-owned media platform is constantly running experiments hoping to enhance the user experience, but in the last couple of years Google has focused on AI advancements, and it has had a cascading effect on YouTube as well. The company introduced the Dream Track experiment in November, to help creators make Shorts more engaging with AI-generated background music. Dream Tracks helps a few testers create custom background tracks using an AI-generated voiceover from eminent artists such as Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, and T-Pain. The process is fairly automatic, where the user just enters a prompt, selects a voice, and lets AI do the heavy lifting. Now, The Verge spotted YouTube adding another feature to Dream Tracks, this time focused on customizable music generation for Shorts content. Create your own version of licensed music Custom music made easy Source: YouTube ✕ Remove Ads Like the original Dream Tracks feature, this extension of the test gives the testers a handful of licensed music to choose from, followed by a prompt window where they can describe how to stylize it. The AI then takes over to create a 30-second long audio clip. This way, you can convert tracks into different genres or moods, like making One Dance a Rock number. YouTube says the tool will retain the original track's lyrics and vocals, and will be attributed to the original music's artists for Shorts viewers. The page will also make it clear the track was restyled with AI. While on the one hand, this feels like AI butchering perfectly good songs, it's worth noting the testers can't use this Dream Track experiment for any song, and the original license owners likely consented to such application of their work. Moreover, AI adds a plethora of possibilities to the mix, and we are excited to see what comes of this experiment. ✕ Remove Ads For now, YouTube isn't saying when music restyling will be available to all its users and Shorts creators, but we can hope.