AIVA and ethics of genAI for music
Summary of AIVA Technologies, an uncertified company working on generative AI for music. Includes some product announcements, key features, and a few insights on ethics of genAI for music.
Our PART 3 article provides the big-picture view of 85 companies offering AI-based tools or platforms in this musical melody space. This summary covers one of the 11 uncertified companies not already profiled, and it is not as in-depth as other profiles. It is meant to provide insight into why the company is significant enough to review at all, but wasn’t chosen for deeper dives.
Acronyms
AIVA - Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist
DAW - Digital Audio Workstation
AIVA Technologies
Description from AIVA website:
Description from PitchBook: “Developer of an AI-based music platform designed to compose music for movies, commercials, games and television shows. The company's platform composes soundtracks in a variety of genres, ranging from symphonic to electronic, jazz, pop, rock and ambient, enabling musicians and artists to collaborate and compose soundtracks for everyone.”
History & Partnerships
AIVA was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Luxembourg. Pitchbook says they currently have ~13 employees; LinkedIn says 2-10. They are privately held and later-stage VC funded. According to the AIVA Website, AIVA is funded in part by the government of Luxembourg (Ministry of Finance) and by the Horizon 2020 programme of the EU.
AIVA has been extensively referenced in industry articles comparing “top” AI music tools. See the References for a list of articles reviewed for this profile.
Their YouTube playlist has 186 songs “created with AIVA”, ranging from 6 years ago to 3 days ago. The account includes a 3-minute track generated to accompany a TED 2018 talk.
Key Features
AIVA is a DAW with an AI track generator and a MIDI track editor. Its user interface includes an achievement panel (gamification) and a “radio” for playing music created on AIVA. Ways to create a track include:
Generation Profiles: Choose a genre, tempo, and duration.
Influences: Provide your own MIDI or audio file, and AIVA will create a track inspired by it.
Preset Styles: Choose various options from the "Emotion View" or use the "Advanced View" window.
As of August 2024, the AIVA website claims that tracks can be generated in “more than 250 different styles, in a matter of seconds” and lets users create their own styles.
Their website “radio” allows anyone to “Listen to over 150 tracks generated by AIVA, and arranged by humans”. Their Soundcloud account has 46 tracks. Their Apple account has 23 songs in the “classical” genre; all songs list a human collaborator.
Training Data & Technologies
AIVA offers desktop apps for MacOS, Windows, and Linux. No mobile app is available.
AIVA is said to focus on music theory in lieu of using of a diffusion model for sounds. Little other information is available about how their AI works.
Their About page on LinkedIn refers to AIVA as feminine and says “Aiva is not your average classical Composer as she is not a human but an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Even amongst her kind, she is quite special; as opposed to the A.I. systems that we use in our daily lives — search engines, voice-over assistants, auto-pilots — Aiva is able to write beautiful and emotional music, a deed that is considered to be deeply human.”
Regarding training, their LinkedIn page also says: “To achieve this, she frequently reads large collections of music written by the greatest Composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, …) hoping to reach their level of genius in a near future. This vision — which is at the core of our work at Aiva Technologies — might seem like Science Fiction to many. But recently, Aiva acquired the worldwide status of Composer in SACEM music society, a feat that many artists thought impossible to achieve for at least another decade. This achievement does not mean that Aiva will replace musicians, and we will continue to encourage collaborations between man and machine.”
“Aiva’s first album was recorded in collaboration with human artists: Olivier Hecho (conductor), Eric Breton (concert pianist) and Pierre Barreau, producer of the album Genesis. You can listen to Aiva’s full debut album for Piano and Symphonic Orchestra Genesis here: www.aiva.ai.”
Since the works of the classical composers mentioned are considered to be public domain, this implies that at least some of AIVA’s training dataset is ethically sourced. However, it is not clear if:
the training dataset included other songs and musicians whose work is not public domain, or
their feature allowing users to “Upload an audio or MIDI influence” enables use of copyrighted works without consent.
Ownership, Usage Rights, and Pricing
AIVA Technologies owns copyright on all generated tracks unless you pay for a Pro plan. The screen shot below shows the annual pricing (in euros) and usage rights as of Aug. 2024. Their “free forever” plan allows 3 downloads per month of tracks up to 3 minutes long. These tracks may be used with credit to AIVA, but not for commercial purposes. The site indicates student and school discounts are available.
What’s Next?
AIVA will not be profiled further in this series on AI for Music. This post is one of the last big pieces in PART 3. Subscribe for FREE to be notified automatically of new posts and support our work:
REFERENCES
See this “AI for Music” page for links to all posts related to this series, as well as bonus articles on voice cloning and other music-related topics.
Industry Articles about AIVA
undated; last accessed 2024-07-26 “Generative AI at UVA”, University of Virginia (uncredited)
undated; “AI Music Making”, Fadr blog (uncredited)
2022-06-22 “Composing with artificial intelligence: how AI can help you write music”, MusicRadar
2023-03-13, “AIVA Review - Everything You Need To Know - AI Composition”
2023-07-07, “9 AI Music Generators You Need to Know About”, Analytics India / K L Krithika
2023-08-25, “Top 12 AI Music Generators in 2024”, Analytics Vidhya
2023-09-06, “6 Best AI Music Generators (2023)”, Two Story Melody / Marco Alexis
2023-12-14, “16 Best AI Music Tools In 2024”, Musicfy / Arib Khan
2024-03-01, “9 Best AI Music Generators (March 2024)”, Unite AI / Alex McFarland
2024-03-27, “Top Best 10 AI Music Composers in 2024”, Wondershare /Benjamin Arango
2024-05-10, “Generative Audio Workstations: AI VSTs & The Future of DAWs”, audiocipher / Ezra Sandzer-Bell
2024-05-22, “Top 3 AI Music Platforms and Tools”, Soundful (uncredited)
2024-05-22, “15 Best AI Tools for Music Production in 2024”, Animotica blog (uncredited)
2024-05-22, “10 AI tools for music production”, Hypebot (uncredited)
2024-05-22, “AIVA Review 2024: What It Is, How to Use It & Is It Worth It?”, aihungry.com (uncredited)
2024-07-02, “10 AI Products”, Dan Radin