Hey everybody welcome back to twist this Is Alex and we have a special interview For you today I am an enormous fan of Music you may not know it but I grew up Playing classical and jazz trumpet Throughout my youth and music has Remained an absolute huge passion of Mine throughout really my entire life so When the AI revolution of the last Couple years came to the world of music I was incredibly curious two companies Have really caught our eye here on this Weekend startups yudo and of course its Competitor sunno today we have David Ding the co-founder and CEO of udio on The show to tell us what it's for who's Paying for it and where AI based Music Creation is going this weekend startups Is brought to you Byte domains don't miss our jam with Jcal contest to apply and get more Details go to jamith jcal dote brought To you byte domains LinkedIn ads to Redeem a $100 LinkedIn ad credit and Launch your first campaign go to LinkedIn ./ this ween startups and brave if You're building Ai and search-based Applications train your models with the Brave search API get started for free at Brave.com Jason we're going to talk about Ai and Music David Hi how are you and welcome To the show hi hello um really excited
To be here so I want to start with some Background stuff because I know you were At Deep mine for a while and yudo is a Relatively young company I think it was Founded in 2023 so just give us what was The the moment in time in which you said I have to leave where I am and go found This company because Why yeah uh sure so yeah as you said uh Udio was fed last year November uh 2023 And before that I was a researcher at Deep Mind and uh throughout my entire Childhood I've always been interested in Two things primarily so one is Technology and the other is music so as A kid I always wanted to um you know Build computers that can simulate the Way a human brain works you know like Maybe you can wire the neurons together And then uh try to model uh the brain And then it turns out that when I went To college like this thing was starting To pick up traction my first year College I took a machine learning course So that I can U like participate in this Field and my other passion growing up Was music so I played classical piano And played it for at least like 10 years Like growing up uh uh before going to College and uh I always thought that Would be really really cool if uh like a Computer technology could compose and Make music and so then fast forward uh To when I was working at Deep Mind gen
Modeling really took off you you see Technologies like chat GPT or D or mid Journey U like emerged uh that really Revolutionize the way that computers can Make art and and uh so at that point in Time I was Like hm what what happens if we apply The same technology that I've been Learning how to build and apply to music To have a machine that can help people Create music uh ideate and create uh Create songs and so this is why we left Uh Deep Mind to create a company that Produces a product to help artists and Songwriters turn their ideas into Reality so I I want to go back to the Point about llms to image generation to Music generation because I mean my day Job is writing so that's kind of what I Know the best and so to me the idea of a Large language model taking in a lot of Data and then helping kind of do next Word prediction admittedly it's more Complicated than that but I can really Understand it I kind of get how we can Use llms to do image generation but when We expand the the the the work done to Music to me I I feel like I'm missing a Link in in how the technology actually Functions so without spilling any secret Sauce if you will how does you know the The the AI models that I best understand End up creating Tunes because I it just Seems to be like a like a real stretch
Of what was possible but clearly works Yeah so similarly to how um these large Models learn how to produce images and Text all models uh they um learn how to Produce music by listening to lots of Examples of music so you listen to music Uh and it tries to uh since syze the Common elements across music so like a Music theory elements of Music Theory Like which chords follow which other Chords or how Rhythm interacts with the Overall structure of the song as well as Other elements what does it mean to be Country music versus rock music or how Does a guitar string vibrate and how Does the sound of a piano Echo and reate Around the room and finally how does This all interact with the Recording Technology how do you turn this sound And turn it into stereo and so this Model uh because it's trained On the final output music it learns how To do everything so from like the very Fundamental music theory level all the Way to how the sound is recorded uh by The microphone okay so prepping for our Chat today I was playing around with Udio by the way I now uh your most Recent paying customer shout out and I Decided to throw a curveball at your Software and I said okay look um I Wanted to do a progressive metal song That sounds a little bit like periphery Band that I love but I'm like look let's
Do it in 68 time now you're a classical Train pianist I'm a classically train Trumpet player you and I know that when It comes to time signatures in the world Of Music 68 is not very complicated Right we're not doing like 118 or Something crazy you count in sixes and Then fives this is pretty simple and it Kind of did it but not perfectly and I Know this technology is still improving So I'm not trying to be negative but is Is this going to a direction in which I Could tell a service like yudo like I Want to do a song first half in 68 Second half in 78 and I want to do a Core change from C to C major and then Like how specific can we get and then is That underbend based on a very granular Understanding of how music is put Together or does the software better Understand like uh broader chunks of it Versus like down to the individual note Level yeah so this is definitely a Direction that we do want to support Giving um users and musicians more ways Of controlling the model like time Signature key Tempo BPM or Instrumentation uh or even like dynamic Levels like uh like start quiet uh start Sring and then like um uh and then die Down again so um this is something that We definitely want to support time Signature is something that we do not Support at the moment because uh because
Uh in our music uh you know when we Training Ro models we did not teach it The concept of a time signature when we Were annotating the data however a key Signature um the key of the song is Something that we do support and this is Something that we did not support when We launched the model uh version one Back in April but it's something that we Added in July because we recognize that Users want to be able to control the key And so then we uh annotated our data set To contain um or if this is D major if This is C minor so that um now when you Go to Udo and you specify a key A minor It will produce a song in that key well A minor is now the most famous key in I Think all of music thanks to Mr Kendrick Lamar if you don't get that reference Congrats for being offline for the last Three months of music History wow this jam with jcal contest Has been a blast so far I've had the Opportunity to meet with four great Founders from companies like corod AMA Uptrend Ai and the rap all because they All use te domains and we have room for One more do you want to come on the pond And tell me what you're building well You only need two things to answer you Got to be a Founder with under 2 million In funding and you got to have one of Those awesome te domains so head to jam With jalte and tell me what you're
Building and if you win I will invite You on to this week in startups and You'll get to share your vision with me And the world I'm working with dote Domains because startups use them you Know 1x. te rabbit. te so many others And guess what we use it too that's Right te powers are founder Friday Program so tell me about your awesome te Domain and startup apply for the jam With jcal contest today at Jam withj Cal. we're picking the final winner soon Okay so it sounds like what I did there Was I asked yudo to do something that it Doesn't do quite yet which is probably Why it got a little bit funky but you Said something interesting there which Is data annotation and that I think is The thing that I was missing because it Sounds like you guys um the human label And like help it understand like this is A rock drum beat in 44 so it does that Create like a a flag that then the Software or the model can kind of go Back to and like like point to and Understand yes so uh by annotating the Data in the training data set you teach The model how to associate certain Descriptive words with musical elements So then it sees 34 the time signature And it hears a song uh that's in 34 and It knows oh 34 it means like you have Like three B three beats and then like The first beat is emphasized when user
Then asks the model to create three4 Music it can then like take its Understanding of 34 and apply it to the Composition of the song it's kind of Like when a human learns um if you never Teach a human oh this is 34 you can't Ask the human hey create me 34 music uh Even if it can produce three for music It just doesn't know what three for the Words actually mean so it sounds like The data annotation then provides almost Like a connective layer between music And the user's request and kind of helps Natural language inputs translate to Something the computer can understand as A as a command prompt essentially yes Exactly and we aim to improve uh our Model by giving it more annotations to Understand more elements of music so That um the model can produce these Elements upon command okay so I want to Go back in time though because I've been Playing with yudo since and this is a True story uh one of my friends started Sending us funny songs he made for us uh In the group chat and they were they Were Whimsical things like Alex doesn't Want to go to work tomorrow and like Stuff like that and I was like okay Where is this coming from and it was From you guys and so I I got a kind of An early look at the software and I've Made different songs and I've gotten to Play with the new model some but back in
The beginning Uh when you were first getting like the The 0.1 version of this out one how good Or bad was it and and how how easy was It to get from like proof of concept if You will to something you were confident That people might want to actually use Yeah so uh funny that you mentioned like The uh the first version of our model uh Like the baby uh the very very baby Version when we were still debugging our Overall um code base and training Structure we spent a couple weeks trying To figure out why our model uh couldn't Produce any lyrics uh like you you Provide lyrics and the model just Refuses uh to sing the lyrics right and Then uh we uh we spent a while looking At the model like look analyzing like uh Uh different loss curves and then um Eventually we found the reason to be uh Quite simple is that like when we were U Feeding the data set to the model there Was some kind of bug that caused the Lyricss to not appear and so so the Model never saw the lyrics and so Therefore it couldn't possibly know how To uh turn the lyrics into a song so Essentially the the it couldn't run the Engine of lyrics because there were no Words going in exactly yeah and so uh This really goes to show how uh the Process is quite dependent you had to Like pay attention to detail and it's
All about the uh the input data and so We fix a bug and then after after we Fixed the bug the model actually just Kind of uh took off uh it um every week We saw improvements the first week it Probably knows um like the broad genres Like Rock versus Jazz as model training Progressed and start started learning More um more specific keywords like Energetic what's Hard Rock what is um Like Smooth Jazz and also the sound Quality improved starting from something That sounds like very noisy to something That's much more refined and more like What you get from a studio yeah no the The actual Fidelity is pretty good um in My experience and one thing as a a fan Of heavier music in general there are Certain heavy metal sub genres that Depend a lot on orchestral additions That are mostly programmed and so I'm Familiar with like the current state Of-the-art for Studio music with uh Added digital elements if you will and We're not that far off from this just With udo's own creation software so That's very exciting but it it sounds Like from the the point of inception of The initial like it works to go to Market to 1.5 released in July is pretty Quick and that chart's going up in terms Of model quality and Fidelity and so Forth do you think that trajectory Continues for a long time or were there
Early winnings David that let you Improve faster than you might be able to Now and in the future so obviously there Is a point where you start from zero and You get something and so that's the Biggest Delta and as you observed our Audio quality is actually um like pretty Good although there are still areas for Improvement which are we are working Towards but the big Focus going forward Is additional controls for users so Giving people um like more ways of Controlling the music like um maybe you Want to provide um uh like a guide like You had this a Melo like melodic line Already and you want the the model to Follow this melodic line and and add Musical elements to it or maybe you have This like musical style but you don't Really know how to describe it using Words so how would you um take this Musical style synthesize it and um feed It as an example for the model to follow And so we want to enable these Additional controls because we recognize That Music Creation The Creator wants to Have a lot of control over the music Because that it's their own creation Right and so um uh so that's the area That we really want to focus on going Forward okay I want to I want to do some Demos in a little bit to show people What we're talking about because you and I have used this of course a lot and
They might not have but one thing that I Was thinking about is is who this is for Because I am an enormous music fan so To Me music is part of my day from kind of When I get up to when I go to bed I'm Either listening to audiobooks or music Right and so to me it's very personal Very important and I know music theory And I love it and it's it's key to me Not everyone's like that and so people Have different music tastes different Consumption habits and so I don't know Is is yudo aimed for folks that want to Create stuff for their consumption is it More of a rough draft machine for Artists as they explore new ideas um is It a way to generate musak for elevators Uh so I guess kind of like who is who do You think this is for now and and in the Future so we think that yio is for um People who love music people like uh Like yourself and also like you know Artists and songwriters who obviously Love music as well we just want to Create a tool to allow to make music cre A lot easier than before kind of like Other tools that have come that came Before in the past like for example like Daws sampling drum machines these are All innovations that uh turned uh Something that was a little bit harder Before and with the aid of new Technology uh just making this creation Process easier so that more people can
Participate in the creation process and That existing artists can leverage this To um try out ideas at a faster pace and And come out with uh like music that Incorporates these element in creative Ways that maybe even the creators of the Technology never had in mind I think Like one good example for this is Autotune like when autotune came out you Know a lot of people uh they had quals About using it it's like oh it's like Che using it that's a play way of saying It yes but sorry keep going yeah like People were like oh this thing is like Cheapening the uh the experience like it Allows like people who can't sing to to Sing and that's a bad thing but then Like you know like um what really Happened was like you know it like um Really transformed uh the the industry Like people were using it and then People found ways of using it very very Creatively like you know like bumping it Up beyond the like the Spectrum and Embracing the aut sound as as a musical Style right and so uh we think that with These Technologies it makes Music Creation easier and people will find Like creative ways of using it okay so It sounds like for someone like me a big Music fan I could use it to create fun Things for myself to Listen to If I was A musician I can use it to expand an Ideas and give me new ideas but this
Doesn't Replace you know I don't know my my Spouse's Spotify account at some point In time this is more like distinct acts Of Creation in the future versus passive Consumption exactly so um I mean uh you Might you said that you play a trumpet Right uh like your trumpet doesn't uh Replace uh listening to like uh uh like Great trumpet players of the past on Spotify right because you enjoy uh Listening to music that other people Create but you also want the like the Joy of creating music yourself yeah no I I think that's right and what I what I Like about the idea behind taking modern AI techniques and applying them into Music is it just allows a lot more People to do stuff uh you know David Like uh five years ago people talked a Lot about low code and no code and there Was this big chat about the Democratization of software development And that's kind of worked out but I love The idea of more power to more people And this to me seems to fit into that Now on on the critical side though some Musicians are worried that they're going To be replaced whole cloth or diminished In some way I want to run my theory past You which is that I don't think that's Going to happen because the musicians That I love to listen to have their own Very specific sometimes experimental
Style that probably couldn't be Replicated by even very intelligent Models so to me this exists if you will Side by side with kind of how music is Made today I'm curious if that's your View as well yeah so we so so that's Definitely my view as well uh we we so I Believe that people will continue make Making music the way uh they've always Made music and this is simply another Tool in a toolkit that they can choose To use well they don't have to use it But then it just um something additional Right like uh just because like electric Guitar got invented doesn't mean that The acoustic guitar got completely Replaced right it just just means that Like there's yet another instrument that You can add on to your band yeah Actually I remember um in my high school Jazz band we had a song I think it was An old Buddy Rich tune and um it had a Little bit of Guitar by itself and our Guitar player played electric and one Time he forgot to turn his guitar up so We got to that part of the song and he Played and no sound came out and my our Director was like well you know he was a Trumpet player and he was making fun of The electric guitar for needing you know Help essentially and I was like I don't Know that seems a little bit Oldfashioned but this probably fits Somewhere in there um I do want to ask a
Quick question though about uh where Udio will come up because you mentioned Daws or digital audio workstations Earlier um very much now a well-known Kind of ENT musical world does yio ever Become part of one of those a plugin a An API that I can call does it leave the Website and end up somewhere else oh Quite possibly like we think a lot of Our power users they use Edo to come up With ideas and then uh they uh download Uh the individual stems which is a Feature that we allowed we allow so People can download stems and then load The stems up in their DW for uh fre the Postprocessing ah okay so essentially They take the r traft bring the stems Over and then you can do okay all right That's pretty cool is is it hard to do Individual stems because that implies That the model is making a collection of Tracks that are then mixed together is That how it's always been or is that a New change to how the underlying model Works so underlying model always Produces a um the fully mixed track um But then um recently we with version 1.5 We added the ability for users to Download uh the individual stamps which Are separated post talk from the mixure Oh post Haw interesting yeah oh okay so You so create something that's mixed and Then you isolate I would have thought This the other way around but that's why
We ask questions yeah okay so uh before We talk about money stems are the Individual tracks inside of a song for For example bass or guitar piano or Whatever um I just want to make sure That everyone listening understands Stems David is that how you would Define Them as well yep okay cool so if you Don't know what stems are now you do Okay there are more than 50,000 Venture Back startups in the United States alone This means marketing has has to be Perfectly targeted you got a lot of Competition out there or you're just Going to fade into the background and Your money will go with it all your ads Spend will be for not you got to make Sure you target the right prospects so How you going to do that especially in a Busino business context well the answer Is obviously LinkedIn ads where you can Precisely reach the professionals who Are likely to find your ad relevant just Think about it wouldn't it be great to Target your ads by the job title where The industry the location that that Company is is you know maybe even a very Specific company maybe you got a A list Of 20 Lighthouse customers that you want To bear hug that you want them to know About your product or Services LinkedIn Ads is going to help you do that by Building a relationship and driving Results LinkedIn is the environment
Where people are receptive to business They're not there for food or politics Or entertainment or music they're there To do business a billion members 130 Million of them are decision makers and 10 million of them are are SE level Executives so start converting your B2B Audience into high quality leads today Get $100 from your boy jcow linkedin.com Thisweek in startups to claim that Credit again linkedin.com this week in Startups no spaces no dashes terms and Conditions why because they giv you a Hyy okay so udio raised $10 million that Was earlier this year andreon horz was In there a number of artists including The producer te Keith and love see Venture Capital funds glad you guys ra Some money but my thought is this I Currently pay you $10 a month to use Something like 1,200 song creation Credits I I I I I look at that and I Know how much AI costs to run people Talk a lot about that I feel like I'm Burning through your bank account so is It as expensive as I imagine it is to Run the model to create music because it Sounds very compute intensive yeah Obviously uh it's a balance for us we Want to make sure the price uh is set at A point where um we allow people who are Curious about the technology uh to try It out while being able to um like make This process sustainable so um so we
Chose a price in way uh to basically Allow for this like uh to be able to Sustain usage while um uh while not Being like very expensive and uh going Down the road we definitely want to Optimize our models make them more Efficient so that they can run at a Cheaper cost because we want to maintain This commitment to users but we also Want to run a sustainable business yeah So we've seen this with just to pick one Example out there open AI uh GPT family Of models um when 40 came out it was one Cost and then it's come down I think and We've seen that pretty frequently does That mean that you guys are able to Extract a lot of efficiency from the Underlying model and that this should Get much cheaper to run over time or is There less uh loow hanging fruit because It's doing music which is just to me Seems harder than doing text we think That there is um a lot of um uh room for Improvement for sure I wouldn't comment On whether or not it's on the same scale As openi openi obviously has entire Teams of incredibly talented Engineers Working on this and we are a much Smaller company but we do believe that Uh there uh there are like similar Levels of um efficiency gains to be had Okay so essentially Yes you know yudo is a smaller company I Think open AI has over 1,700 people now
But with work a Similarish curve okay um that's actually A really good question for me to ask how Big is the company today what's your Current staff size so we currently have About uh 17 people uh so we've grown Quite a Bit how many people did you have before When we when we launched the company uh Or when we launched um uh our model back In April we only eight people eight oh God yeah um and just because this is a Startup show let's do some Basics remote Hybrid or in Office uh mostly uh mostly in office but Some uh some working remote okay and um Just thinking about Staffing for the Rest of the year are you going to keep Hiring as aggressively as you have or Will that slow down that you've more Than doubled in size uh we'll probably Stay a little bit more steady okay so I Know you guys raised uh from Reon I mean Iirm that everyone watching the show Knows and you guys raised 10 mli is that Enough money David because some of your Competitors have raised more and we are In the era right now of companies that Use AI raising lots of money let's say So I'm just kind of curious why why 10 Million was the number and also you know How soon are you going to be back on the Show telling me about your shiny new Round yeah so uh when we started we
Raised 10 million because we want to be Disciplined in how we um spend the money We believe that like um there's some Amount of Truth in the idea that Scarcity produces Innovation and uh and so uh we try to be Super efficient in a way that we use all Capital to develop all models so tell me Tell me about that Because you know developing a model I Mean people talk about how models are Eventually going to cost like a billion Dollars to put together but that's for a Very general purpose model and so forth So for for you guys how do you ensure That your Capital expenditures on model Creation and improvements are cash Efficient yeah so one thing that uh we Do is to try is try to secure the Cheapest compute power that's available Like the the chip that's cheapest in Terms of um floating Point operations Per second uh versus Dollars and so uh we ended up like Choosing Google Cloud's uh tpus which we Identified as offering significant Savings over other uh like chips like G Like Nidia gpus Google's startup Cloud Program is one of the occasional Sponsors of the show so I just want to Point out that no no one asked him to Say that that was off the cuff but there You go so we're not we're not being Biased um just to put it in true
Perspective for me though because I Don't get to go to those negotiations How much cheaper was uh gcp for udio Compared to competing providers was it a Lot cheaper or was it more of a marginal Differential yeah I'm not sure if I Should comment on specific numbers but Uh it is oh you should David you Definitely should you should drop all The numbers you can right now yeah but It's definitely quite a bit uh cheaper And um and so that's one factor and the Other factor is that we have quite a Quite a few really talented modeling um Research scientists among our Co-founding uh among our co-founders and Um because they have a lot of experience Training these really big gen models They know how to make maximal use of the Available Hardware how to U create Really efficient programs and how to Like design architectures that can train Efficiently so if you're doing that work Though cuz that's that's Nitty Gritty Stuff if you're doing all that already Why not buy your own h100s or equivalent And and just run your own mini data Center it seems to me like if if Computes going to be such a core element Of what makes the the digital brain that You use why not own the the neurons Themselves I guess for us uh we uh as a Startup we didn't really want to deal With uh the logistics of running our own
Data Center and we thought it would be Simply to go with a cloud oper uh Cloud Option do you see the company in let's Say five years from now just looking Down the road so far that I know we're Making kind of almost a joke here but Like do you think that you'll still be On a major public cloud provider in 5 Years or do you eventually off ramp when You have more more money and staff and So forth and do your own data crunching Yeah it's hard to say like the cost of Computation on on on clouds have been Has been going down um I think there's Like U some kind of new law like Juan Law or something uh uh that supplanted Uh Mo law about the cost of gpus uh over The years the cost of a cloud computing Could uh go down like very significantly And it's very hard to predict uh 5 years Down the line whether or not it will be More economical to buy your own chips or To release them from the cloud okay so Huang's law by the way this was of Course a reference to Jensen from Invidia I presume yeah yeah okay so if You know Nvidia you know the guy hang Law is um and I'm Wikipedia this live so This is not very lettered of me but it's A general idea that as Moore's Law Predicted that the number of transistors Would double about every two years Wong's law is that gpus will more than Double their performance every two years
So it's a essentially an acceleration or A faster version of mors law for gpus That speaks very well for you guys Because that means that the your gross Margins should improve over time just Naturally as you know chip companies Make better chips that's kind of cool That's a Tailwind for you as a CEO yeah it's definitely something that We're very excited about uh like cheaper Compute making even more powerful Technologies uh POS possible All right are you building the next Great AI product well if you're doing That you know how expensive all these Apis can be for model training data Obviously and training AI is very Expensive that's a fact we all know that So you have to try Braves new search API Yes I'm talking about Brave the Privacy Browser that I use every day and on my Mobile phone Braves browser has 65 Million users and that drives a lot of Data into the brave search engine which Is the only global scale in dependent Search index outside of big Tech and That index is available to anyone with a Brave search API so you're going to be Able to use the brave search API to Power your chatbot or train models Inform answers to real-time queries and Serve images web results even Rich Tex Snippets the brave search API features An easy to ous intuitive data structure
So you're going to be able to get things Done quickly and it's data is populated By real human interaction not web Crawlers that's critical and it's all Done out of FR fraction of the cost of The major players free for up to 2,000 Queries per month so you can try it on Play with it really sort of Brainstorming and then plants are as Little as $3 CPM so here you go if You're building NextGen AI apps or chat Boot you've got to try the brave search API get started today at brave.com Jason on the public Cloud front I'm Going to not ask about an individual Provider because I don't want you to get In trouble but I have heard that there Is a capacity crunch out there that There's not enough total GPU based Compute for people that want it has has Yudo had any issues getting the amount Of compute capacity that it needs at any Point yeah I mean um it's always a Balance where uh eventually we'll be Able to get the compute but definitely At times takes it it just takes a while For different Cloud providers to be able To find the chips uh that are available Okay now I want to go from there to a Demo so everyone can see the product That we're talking about from a compute Perspective so David we drew straws Before and you're going to drive because You you told me that you have um some
New stuff to show off so let's pull up Yio if you're watching this on YouTube You can see what we're doing live if You're watching listening to this on Spotify or apple podcast we will narrate As best we can but we are going to do a Little bit of testing around here to Show off what we can pull off so David Uh talk to me what are you showing me Yeah so I'm showing you um the Udo crew Page it's a dedicated um you can think Of it like a creation Studio where you Have a list of your recent Creations uh On the right hand side and then on the Left hand side you have um um a place Where you can specify the type of music You want to create as well as any lyrics That you want to uh you want to have so Maybe we can start very simple let's Start with just creating uh I don't know Like rock music so here we can type Rock And then um for Simplicity sake I'll Just uh create a song about New York and So um this it's a feature that we Launched uh just uh yesterday actually Where uh you can write um you can ask The language model to write lyrics for You before you submit the song and can Even like tell it to um give it Suggestions on on what to do like for Example let's say uh we want to make it A little bit shorter Nice okay so you can essentially tell it To get more verbose or less verbose and
You can do other things as well I don't Know uh like make sure to mention New York does it keep the last prompt in Mind when you give it another Instruction so is it still thinking keep This short as you add the make sure to Mention New York in the update box oh uh Yes so like we actually have a prompt History that shows all the prompts that Have accumulated so far um so we aim for This to be um to improve upon our Previous uh lyrics writing experience by Giving people the aid of AI to help them Uh come up with ideas when uh they might Have writers block they don't really Know what to do for example like like me At this current moment and so now like I Have now that I have like the the genre And like lyrics I can hit Create and that will queue up this Creation yeah and while while while that Goes I just I've been thinking about This because whenever I sit down to use Yio or a simil other product I tend to Think in not genre terms but in terms of Um bands that I love and kind of how They approach the world and um I'm kind Of curious when when you're using udio Do you tend to stick more towards like Like rock or do you get hyp specific Like make me a rock song with a A Touch Of I don't know Tom Petty or something Like that because you can pull in Different influences
Yeah so uh I would say that I usually uh Just stick with genre information uh but For users who um have a specific artist In mind we give we provide functionality For a user to type in the name of the Artist and we look up the style for the Artist so we don't actually put the name Of the artist anywhere in the prompt Because we don't want to create Something that sounds exactly like that Artist but then for example when you Like type in like lead Zeppelin it will Like replace Le Zeppelin with uh the List of like he is that they are like You know like commonly associated with So like you know like uh like maybe Hyrock maybe U male vocalist 70s um just Things like that okay so if I put in I Mean this is again a niche genre but Like periphery it's going to think Progressive metal guitar forward male Vocals so it'll essentially atomize an Artist name and so essentially then Artists become shorthands for genre and Style That's correct and um and we try to make Sure that like the generated outputs um Are definitely influenced by the style Of that artist but it's not that exact Style because we that's one thing that We really do want to avoid and we Dancing around the lawsuit here and I'm Trying to deliberately ask questions you Can't answer but yeah thank you for
Answering that can we play this let's Let's hear it uh yeah sure so this is uh The first uh example that came out [Music] Concrete Jungle Rising that's Pain people Rush P lock in the Brain in my Heart dreams are [Music] Made something that I could could write So shout out to that and then for Example you can then uh like add Additional descriptive do this so maybe Um not just rock maybe you want to make It uh a Minor uh and then uh you hit cre again Um and it cues it up and so you I'm Curious about this though because there Is a there is a little bit of time that Goes through to from when you click Create to when udio gives you the song Which by the way to me is is is no big Deal um but it does seem to be variable David so what makes it a longer or a Shorter kind of calculation process on The UI side side yeah so on the UI side Um so we submit the request over to the Server and the server uh reads the Prompt like rock a minor and tries to Figure out what to do with it before it Sends it uh to the model so we have some Processing that goes on we also have we Also run checks um for every song that
Gets submitted we take the lyrics and we Uh do a copyright check to make sure That uh the lyrics are not copyrighted Lyrics and this is something that's um Probably a little bit overly strict Right now there are a lot of um public Domain songs or things that should not Be that are not really copyrighted that Gets flagged but we wanted to on the Side of caution rather than um not Flagging something that's actually Copyrighted okay now we have this new Song same idea but now in a minor Let's Uh let's listen to the new song Chasing The let's See Concrete Jungle Rising lights Never Fade People are P me not [Music] In in the [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heart I'm not sure if you have perfect Pitch or not but like uh uh it's a Little bit hard for me to tell but it's Definitely a minor key David I'm not Going to lie I do not have perfect pitch Indeed if you had ever heard me sing a Bedtime song you would think to yourself That guy plays music because it doesn't Sound like it um so I can't tell if it's A minor or not it did sound minor but What what hit me though is when the in
The course or maybe it was the bridge When the harmony voices came in wasn't On the first note they came in a little Bit later which feels very Stylistic and therefore and I mean this In the best possible sense like like Human it felt like something that that Would be a music editorial decision that A human can make to say hey we're going To have lead singer and then the harmony In Inay I don't know I I I'm I'm I'm always A little bit torn with this between Going this is the coolest thing I've Ever seen and oh God are are are are Humans gonna lose just because you know I've sat in the guts of a symphony as we Took Beethoven's Fifth down to the studs And rebuilt it and I I I don't want a Future in which we lose that but at the Same time I'm going to click these Buttons a 100 times because it's a lot Of fun so maybe I'm part of my own Problem I suppose Yeah well I I think that um uh people Who play in bands uh they don't Necessarily uh they won't stop just Because uh there's this additional Source of Music uh one of our Co-founders actually um is involved in a Band and he regularly towards the UK to To perform with his band and so um I Think and he continues to enjoy this Right because it's just fun for humans
To create music and we just want to like Give people uh more people the Opportunity like he can can create music With his band but previously he couldn't Create music in his bedroom uh or like Lying down uh like on his couch and then U oh I want a song and like previously What would you do like you can't even do Anything and so now uh this is possible Yeah and just because I'm going to be an Enormous brat because I can um cour one Of our fine producers here at twist has Given me a prompt he would like us to Try so David if you're up for it in Zoom Chat there is a prompt entitled a jazzy Neo Noir offbeat rap song about Dinosaurs which is evidence that court Is genx but we'll leave that aside for Now um but can we give uh can we give That a try yeah Jazzy Neo no Offbeat rap Song about Dinosaurs let's see what we get uh the Person who requested this song for Everyone who's listen to this later on Um was in a punk band once so there you Go this is what a a punk fan is going to Put into the the yudoh uh generation Process all right uh well this is Waiting David one question I had written Down just because you know I love this Sort of thing what's the craziest song That you guys have seen people come up With because everything that I've done
Thus far has been pretty standard but I Here has anyone like really blown your Head Off well one of the examples of a song That took off pretty unexpectedly it's a Song called BBL Drizzy it's a uh it's a Song that one of our users created he Himself is not a musician but he is a a Comedian actually and so he wrote like The funniest lyrics and he used use yio To turn this set of lyrics into a song And uh it ended up being um sampled from By Metro boomman who created a beat like Part of like entire like Drake and um Kendrick Feud And challenge people to create like voes On top of this and the funny thing is Like Drake himself actually wrapped on Top of It it's uh pretty amazing watching it From Sidelines to see your Tool uh be Genuinely immersed in pop culture we We'll come back to that in a minute but I want to play everyone this song so Here is the first sample clip of Jazzy Neo Noir offbeat rap song about Dinosaurs hit it David through the Night lost in City light see no feet at The floor BR is r t-x on a ro soda Rhythm digging in my soul bones of the Past we dance like for ageless history Brea and Jazzy night B stages echos in The alley Shadows keep time jassic Jaz Notes in the moon climb dinosaurs in the
Urban glow rhythms of time let the Ancient show underneath the starlow Where the city of wild Collide we go I Mean I'm not going to lie that's not bad That's not bad brontosaurus Groove T-Rex On a roll terod doct will fly Rhythm Digging in my soul that is actually Probably better than some stuff that I Listen to on Spotify Currently yeah uh I uh lyrics are very Uh very uh peculiar uh it's an artifact Of uh language model no no no no I I I Meant all that that was not sarcasm I Mean I never thought I'd see Brontosaurus T-Rex and pterodactyl all Within one rhyming couplet essentially Yeah no uh again I don't know if you Answer this but is the model that writes The lyrics the same model as what does The music generation or are those two Different models that then are are Brought together for this final product That we just heard we use uh different Models so um the the model that creates Music is a proprietary model that we Trained uh because there's nothing like That uh elsewhere And and the model that writes the lyrics We just use uh GPT actually oh simple Enough yeah well I mean it worked pretty Well okay I want to talk about 1.5 a Little bit and then we'll wrap on Verality so 1.5 came out back in July um That brought key control improved I
Think it was Global language and then Also audio quality so how has been the Reaction 2 1.5 and then what's next uh From yudo in the feature context yeah I Think people were excited by the uh by By the changes like for um a better Global languages um uh a lot of our uh Chinese speaking users remarked how the Model suddenly became a lot better at Producing lyrics that have Chinese in Them our um uh key control is definitely Like uh some feature that people have Wanted for a very long time and people Love the ability of like uh specifying The key and then modulating within the Song so you can you know like specify a Key for the free section and when you Extend the section you can of specify a Different key and you can kind of like Um you know uh specify your own harmonic Progression throughout the course of the Song how long until that's like super Visual like I can imagine myself like um Let's say a song's three minutes and i' Like a a line and I'm like this chunk Should be an A Minor and be Up Tempo XYZ And then I want six measures of this That like does this become a visual tool Versus just something that I prompt at Least in my experience with words yeah So it's this is something that um going Forward uh we do want to make more Visual over time so we recognize uh There are some deficiencies in our
Current interface and make it a little Bit harder than necessary and so we want To do like um a user research to figure Out how best to of craft the interface In a way that's intuitive for musicians Okay so because musicians are already Super familiar with editing software and So forth so that kind of interface would Be a second nature to them now I want to Talk about verality because if we go Back to when you guys announced your Fundraise I think Bloomberg reported and I have it somewhere in my notes here That you were seeing something like 10 Songs created every minute or something Like that I forget the exact um Pace but How has the company been doing in in Usage terms in the last couple of months And how much bigger is it compared to That April June time frame yeah so it Was actually like 10 uh songs every Second uh not uh minute but uh people Are uh people still like like super Engaged with the entire process we have A like a very dedicated group of power Users who um you know go on Discord all The time and they um they share the Songs that they have created uh there's Actually a bit of a collaborative flow As well where people work on lyrics and Songs together and you see this because Um in the final output they will credit Each other uh uh they would say oh this Song uh created with the help of this
Other user and um and it's really fun to See people uh working on music uh in This way it's kind of like how people Would jam together in the past right and What people still Jam together but like Now we have another way for people to Jam together and I think this is also Part of what music is about like Bringing people together with a common Passion I I agree with that entirely I Was just thinking that you know right Not everyone now has to go to a jam room Which means that they don't have to get Hearing loss like I did Growing Up in my Scull band which rest in peace did not Make it big and turn us all into Multimillionaires I'm sad to say now on The verality point you mentioned a Discord you mentioned power users I Learned about you guys from a friend but I'm kind of curious is is the product Here inherently viral because you know I Was sent a song about me and my friends I like to use it and then I've been Playing with it showing it to people U And so I'm just kind of curious if that Limits your sales and marketing costs Because people are almost taking your Product to their own Networks Ambiently yeah I mean most of our growth Almost all of our growth is via Completely organic channels where uh People are just like sharing uh amazing Outputs that they have and then people
Asking each other how do you do that and Then like uh just spreading this way so How has been uh like registered user Growth at the company is it Still as quick as it was before in like Percentage terms or gross number terms How should I think about growth at the Company essentially yeah I mean Obviously there was a a very large uh Initial Spike when we launched but we do Uh still see like steady uh steady Growth uh every single month and uh we Believe that like once we uh launch uh New versions of the model there will be Renewed excitement and um as people find New ways of controlling the outputs and Using the model for their own production Needs okay all right well I mean I'm Going to be watching with with very Close eyes because I'm a user and now a Customer but one thing I've heard from VCS lately I think Sarah tavl from Benchmark wrote about this and she said That a lot of the AI the big AI model Companies the open a and so forth um are Going to go kind of up stack in time and So that startups not yours but some Startups that do build products using Well-known commercial models for example Might eventually get supplanted by their Model provider essentially going up Stack and taking their lunch um are you At all worried as a company at one of The larger model companies a Mistral and
Anthropic and open AI I'm going hey Music is cool we should do that too and Then kind of bulldozing into your Market Yeah so we think that um inevitably in The future there will be more uh Companies who enter This Music Creation Space uh we believe that um music is Sufficiently different from text and There's a significant product element as Well people uh you want to have the Right interfaces for people to interact With with these models so like a chat Like kind of like like chat GPD is Probably not the right interface for People uh want to create music and so I Think there's U um actually like an open Question on like how to best produce This type of product it's something that We're working towards U it's a like it's A tight coupling between the model and The product and like getting the right Level of controls in the model so that You can expose them to the user in an Intuitive way in the product okay and Then just to wrap things up here David I Just want to ask you one more thing Before I let you go which is you know I Think about yudo and sunno is the other Company that I think people best know in Your space and so I I'm kind of curious Where do you see udio today in Comparison to sunno and um how many of Their Engineers are you currently trying To poach so I think like we want to
Position ourselves um as a as allies to Artists and songwriters and producers we Want to focus on like giving them the Highest quality tools available um so Instead of focusing on like meme songs Uh in particular we want to focus on the Really powerful creation tools um to Help creatives uh like make music and Make like high quality music that They're proud of and maybe eventually uh They want to uh incorporate in their Other like music workflows that was a Very very deaf non-answer but um let me Take another run at this uh do you Consider Yo's music model to be the best In the market today I would say so yes It's the only model that's um uh that Produces stereo music at uh like 44 khz Sampling rate it's a lot High higher Fidelity than any other music model That's out there it has a better Understanding of um genre and uh like Almost any other music model okay I I'll Take that I do want to have you back Though in I was going to say a year but Given that you launched the product in April and it already feels like we've Gone through two generations probably Sooner than that because I'm curious to See how fast things improve how Competition evolves and if you guys do Decide to go back out into the market Because I I think that given your Traction early monetization and so forth
You should be able to raise more um so It'll be very curious but David thank You so much for coming by twist I really Appreciate the information and the notes And um thank you for making a new tool For me to play with because I absolutely Love music yeah thank you for hosting The podcast it was really fun all right Everybody twist is back we do live news If you're not with us on YouTube see you There we're also in every single podcast Platform you can possibly find and we Are always trying to find the best and Most interesting Founders to explain the Market as it is this has been yudo David Deng and Alex hey R out of here
