Currently available to the public on Meta’s Hugging Face website, MusicGen has some limitations. Unlike Google’s MusicLM, which includes vocals, MusicGen focuses solely on instrumentals. This limitation may be a positive aspect since MusicLM’s vocal outputs often resemble unintelligible Simlish. However, musicians need not worry about AI replacing their careers just yet. While MusicGen is capable of creating simple and short melodies, its quality falls short compared to human-made compositions. The generated songs can become repetitive as MusicGen cycles through the same progressions multiple times. It is more suitable for creating background audio for videos or presentations rather than producing engaging music. The next pop hit is unlikely to come from an AI-generated source—at least for now.
For those interested in trying out MusicGen, it is advisable to act swiftly due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, the Hugging Face website’s stability is questionable, with reports of frequent crashes and dead links, potentially caused by high user traffic. Secondly, Meta may face legal challenges due to their use of licensed music tracks during the training of the LLM. Artists have recently filed lawsuits against developers and platforms for alleged copyright infringement. Meta might find itself in the crosshairs of litigious musicians or face industry pressure from record companies attempting to protect copyrighted content.
