Meta releases open source AI audio tools, AudioCraft

On Wednesday, Meta announced it is open-sourcing AudioCraft, a suite of generative AI tools for creating music and audio from text prompts. With the tools, content creators can input simple text descriptions to generate complex audio landscapes, compose melodies, or even simulate entire virtual orchestras.

AudioCraft consists of three core components: AudioGen, a tool for generating various audio effects and soundscapes; MusicGen, which can create musical compositions and melodies from descriptions; and EnCodec, a neural network-based audio compression codec.

In particular, Meta says that EnCodec, which we first covered in November, has recently been improved and allows for "higher quality music generation with fewer artifacts." Also, AudioGen can create audio sound effects like a dog barking, a car horn honking, or footsteps on a wooden floor. And MusicGen can whip up songs of various genres from scratch, based on descriptions like "Pop dance track with catchy melodies, tropical percussions, and upbeat rhythms, perfect for the beach."