WavTool and ethics of genAI for music
Summary of WavTool 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 WavTool is (or was) significant enough to review, even though it wasn’t chosen for deeper dives.
Acronyms
DAW - digital audio workstation
TTA - text to audio (more general than music; can include spoken vocals as well as sung vocals & instruments)
Note: As of Dec. 30, 2024, Wavtool has “gone offline”, with stated hopes of returning. Accordingly, this profile uses the past tense for the features and policies previously reported about Wavtool.
WavTool
Competitor Musicfy described Wavtool as: “Wavtool AI is a pioneering Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that leverages the power of artificial intelligence to transform the way music is created and manipulated. This groundbreaking platform offers a range of innovative features that empower artists to explore new soundscapes and push the boundaries of their creativity.”
Description from PitchBook: “Operator of an AI-assisted music production platform intended to help musicians of all skill levels creates music. The company's platform allows musicians to create complex soundscapes by routing audio signals through different plugins and effects and to customize the look and feel of their plugins, enabling musicians to generate beats, chords, and melodies.”
History and Partnerships
WavTool was founded in 2023 and is/was based in Singapore. It was privately held and its latest phase was Accelerator with one major investor (Iterative Accelerator).
Key Features
In April 2023, WavTool's AI DAW “debuted with a GPT-4 chat assistant. It was able to help compose MIDI, generate instruments, control effects, and run activities in the workstation through AI chat commands.”
In Oct. 2023, WavTool introduced new premium “Skills” or AI-based features, including a TTA interface to generate ‘short loops’ (5-second samples).
WavTool also included an ironically-named premium AI-based feature called “Humanize Clip” (which adds rhythm and velocity variations).
Training Data & Technologies
There has been no confirmation of what data was used to train the TTA model driving the loop generation feature introduced in Oct. 2023.
Ownership, Pricing, and Usage Rights
WavTool’s Conductor feature could not only interact with the DAW, it could explain why it generated the MIDI it did. This was a plus for transparency.
They also had a premium ‘Prototype’ feature which enables creating a voice model with a consenting person’s voice. As a precaution to support true consent, recording a unique script is required. They support instrument prototypes as well as voice.
As a DAW, it supported sandboxed plugins for additional capabilities.
What’s Next?
This post is one of the last pieces in PART 3. PART 4 is coming up next. Subscribe for FREE to be notified automatically of new posts and support our work:
REFERENCES
Specific references for this article include:
"WavTool: The World's First Text-to-Music AI DAW Uses GPT-4" by Ezra Sandzer-Bell (2024-01-29).
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.
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