AI music platform Suno has unveiled a new suite of music generation models, the first to be developed in partnership with major record labels following its licensing agreements with Warner Music Group and BMG.
Suno claims that its V6 models are the best that the company has ever developed, describing them as “faster, more expressive and higher quality” with new features that offer more precise control over the music they produce.
The V6 models are said to understand “more of the language and building blocks that musicians use”, and prompts can now cover everything from vocals, instrumentation and structure to more abstract attributes like mood, feel and non-musical references.
Rolling out today, Suno’s V6 suite consists of three distinct models, each designed for a different use case. V6 is the flagship model for subscribers to Suno’s Pro and Premium plans: it’s described as reliable and precise and said to deliver “polished music across every genre and style”.
V6-wild is a more experimental model built for creative exploration. Also only available to paid subscribers, it’s less predictable than V6 and capable of producing “unexpected, textured and ambitious results”. Finally, V6-mini is the only model that’s available to all users, and is described as fast, efficient and easy to use.
The V6 models offer more fine-grained control over their output than the previous generation. Creators can now edit specific parts of an existing song using prompts, combine elements from multiple songs together, or sample an element of an existing track and build something new around it. Along with text and audio, V6 can also use images and video as the basis for a track.
Following the launch of V6, all of Suno’s previous models will be permanently retired. While the previous models were trained on tens of millions of songs – including copyrighted works – Suno tells us that its V6 models have been trained from scratch.
The company has confirmed that they were not trained on the same data as the previous models, and instead were trained on a combination of licensed data from its industry partnerships and user data. This includes licensed recordings from the catalogues of Warner Music Group and BMG.
Warner and BMG have both stated that artists and songwriters will be compensated under their partnerships with Suno, but neither company has disclosed how much individual creators will receive or exactly how the money will be distributed.
Suno has also announced today that it has inked a partnership with Believe, a digital music company that provides distribution, publishing and artist development services to independent musicians and labels. Believe is the owner of TuneCore, a DIY distribution platform for self-releasing artists.
Tracks created using Suno will now be eligible to distribute through Believe and TuneCore, and music from participating Believe and TuneCore artists and labels will be used to train the new V6 models, should they choose to opt in. Believe said in a statement that “artists who consent to participate will be compensated for their music and their rights will be protected”.
Alongside the launch of the V6 family of models, Suno has revealed that it’s developing new product experiences that will allow users to create with and remix the music of individual artists who choose to participate. Suno has confirmed that participating artists will be compensated for the use of their music, and says that the products will “open up revenue opportunities across the music ecosystem”.
Suno’s move towards licensed training data arrives as the company faces ongoing legal challenges from the music industry.
Warner Music Group settled its copyright lawsuit with Suno last year as part of the partnership that led to the development of V6, while Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment continue to pursue copyright claims against the company, alleging copyright infringement “on an almost unimaginable scale”. Suno maintains that its use of copyrighted material was lawful under the fair use doctrine.
In July, a German court ruled against Suno in a case brought by performance rights organization GEMA, finding that the company had infringed copyright by using protected works to train its models without permission.
In a press release, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said the release of V6 marks “the beginning of a new chapter for music”.
“V6 is designed to expand what is creatively possible and open up new revenue opportunities across the music ecosystem,” the statement reads. “We believe this is a blueprint for how AI and the music industry can strengthen one another and build entirely new product experiences for artists, fans, and the broader music community.”
Last month, Suno launched the next iteration of its browser-based DAW, Studio 2.0, enabling users to work with its music generation models in a more conventional production workflow. Studio 2.0 introduced a number of new features, including MIDI support, audio effects, and a chat interface that lets users generate stems, create plugins and interact with their projects via text prompts.
