Soundraw and ethics of genAI for music
Summary of Soundraw as 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 profile page is meant to provide insights into why Soundraw is significant enough to review, even though it wasn’t chosen for deeper dives.
Soundraw
Description from PitchBook: “Developer of an artificial intelligence-based music generation software designed to assist musicians in creating music. The company's software automatically generates music by combining phrases generated by artificial intelligence by selecting a genre or mood besides featuring an intuitive user interface that helps artists flexibly customize their songs, enabling musicians to create their music easily.”
History and Partnerships
Soundraw was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. They are privately held and have raised around $5m. Their company LinkedIn page says they have 11-50 employees; Pitchbook says they have 13 (and 14 investors).
Originally, Soundraw was primarily associated with hip hop, drill, phonk, and afrobeats genres. When they raised $3m in March 2024, the press release noted that Soundraw “has quietly gained a following of 557K creators”. A 2023 spike in users was driven in part by a viral ad for a fake business called “Pepperoni Hug Spot”.
Soundraw appears to have acquired Ecrett Music - however, as of Aug. 2024, no information is available online about when or how that happened.
Key Features
Like Ecrett Music, Soundraw is primarily intended for creating supplemental background music for inclusion with other content, such as a game, video, or podcast. Its tracks are not meant to be released as standalone music.
However, this written position is contradicted by their home page; one of the options shown in the animation says Soundraw is for “selling songs”:
Soundraw takes mood, genre, and theme as inputs for creating a track. It will generate 15 songs and allow the user to iterate further on them by changing those settings or by specifying length, tempo, and instruments.
Soundraw also includes a block-based music editor.
“Soundraw is another popular AI music generator that lets you generate AI music with an easy-to-use interface and advanced customization options. This is the best option for users who want flexibility in choosing both easy-to-use interfaces and also pro-level customizations.
You can access Soundraw directly from the website and generate AI music with a wide variety of genres. The website also offers advanced customization options for setting the length, speed, instrument key, and volume of the track. You can directly download the songs and save them locally on your device.”
Training Data & Technologies
Soundraw’s March 2024 press release states “We want to assure our users that all the music generated through our platform is created using proprietary algorithms and data sets that have been created in-house by our music producers.” This implies that all of their data has been ethically sourced from paid Soundraw staff.
Ownership, Usage Rights, and Pricing
Soundraw has free and personal plans. The free plan allows experimenting, but not downloading. The personal plan enables 50 downloads per day (WAV format) and supports commercial use of the tracks.
A Soundraw license is perpetual and royalty-free. This allows users to monetize their videos on YouTube, TikTok, etc. without risking copyright strikes. Distribution of tracks on Spotify or Apple is not consistent with their terms of service, though.
What’s Next?
Soundraw will not be reviewed further in this series since its purpose is background tracks only, not songs which can be distributed and sold.
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 mentioned above on voice cloning and other music-related topics.
Industry Articles and Links
Soundraw website, https://soundraw.io/
2022-07-29, “Soundraw, AI music composer from Japan, secures $1.4M to boost global expansion effort”, The Bridge
2023-03-20, “Soundraw Review - Easy AI Music Generation”
2023-07-13 (updated 2024-05-23), “8 Best AI Music Generators You Need to Try Today”, by Ramesh Reddy
2024-03-13, “SOUNDRAW Raises $3M for its AI Music Generator”, Record Of The Day (press release)
2024-08-05, “AI Takes Center Stage In Media Production”, Forbes / Amir Husain, (minor mention, no real info)
If you enjoy my work, I’d love to have your support via a heart, share, restack, Note, one-time tip, or voluntary donation via paid subscription!