Regular readers of Kill the DJ may be familiar with the rising number of AI-powered music production tools that are entering the market. We’ve previously spoken with Soundraw and AudioShake, and we’ve discussed Suno and Udio plenty of times too.
Today, we’re reviewing Lemonaide’s new offering to the field of AI music production platforms, Collab Club. We’ll discuss the concept behind Lemonaide Collab Club, take a look at its core features and then see how it performs in a real creative project.
What is Lemonaide Collab Club?
Collab Club is Lemonaide’s new ethical AI-powered music production platform. It is based on their existing product, Seeds, and runs in their standalone Lemonaide application. What sets Collab Club apart, is that it contains AI models that are ethically trained on the work of leading music producers. Currently available artist models include Kato on the Track, KXVI and Mantra.
Lemonaide works directly with said producers to create each AI model, and the artist is fully involved in the process. The result, says Lemonaide, is a tool that lets you infuse the sounds of your favourite producers into your own productions. This approach ensures that artists are more fairly credited and reimbursed for their creative output.
Lemonaide’s Approach to AI
Artificial intelligence is still a moderately new technology, and so there are many questions being asked about its compatibility with the creative industries. These questions have brought up the concept of ‘ethical AI’, which refers to artificial intelligence operating within a set of defined values and guidelines.
By fully involving and fairly compensating artists for their work, Lemonaide has set out to spearhead the use of ethical AI in music production. They describe themselves as ‘the first artist-first creative AI’. This approach is clear in the way they present their products.
Each artist has their own page on the Lemonaide website, which details their career, previous work and how their model reflects their signature sound. It’s the same story when you open the Collab Club app. Each artist’s model clearly displays headlines about their credentials, as well as links to their Beatstars and social media profiles.
How Does Collab Club Work?
Pricing Model
Once you’ve downloaded the standalone Collab Club app, you can decide which artist models you want to work with. The pricing model is relatively straightforward and costs $9.99 per model per month, which gets you 150 monthly credits. Your models will show up in the Your Models section on the left of the interface. Once you’ve chosen a model, you can start creating.
Setting the Melody Generation Mode
Collab Club has two main modes of generating melodies. If you’re looking for some extra melodic content to complement an existing project, you can set a specific key and scale with Key/Scale mode. Or if you’ve got a blank canvas and you’re open to working in any key and scale, the Inspire Me mode will generate melodies across all scales. Once you’ve set the right mode, hit Get Inspired and Collab Club will get to work.
Generating Melodies
Your AI-generated melodies will now appear on the right of Lemonaide’s interface, where you can hit the Play button to preview them, or the Plus button to add a melody to your library. Adding a melody to your library costs one credit, but unused credits will roll over into the following month if you don’t use them all right away.
Lemonaide’s instrument and BPM parameters feature a Lock Mode, so you cycle through melodies without changing the sound or playback tempo. While the instruments differ according to the selected artist model, the BPM remains locked when you switch models. This is helpful if you’re hunting for a melody for a particular project.
So far, so good. But let’s see how Collab Club’s AI models actually sound.
Audio vs MIDI
Each melody is created with MIDI and then played back in audio according to the selected instrument. This has some advantages, one of which is that you can change the instrument at the click of a button. Each model comes with a few different instruments, from Lo-Fi piano and keys sounds to pads, brass and string sounds.
To our ears, the included sounds are a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the piano and keys sounds are passable in the right context, but generally, the sound quality and usability of many of the instruments leave a lot to be desired.
This leads us nicely to the next advantage of Lemonaide generating MIDI rather than pure audio; you can drag MIDI straight from Collab Club into your chosen DAW. This means you can play back your AI-generated MIDI with any plugin instrument you like. Alternatively, if you happen to like how Lemonaide’s internal instrument sounds, you can drag the audio from the app straight into your DAW too.
DAW Mode and Lemonaide Bridge
Collab Club lets you apply basic transposition to your AI-generated MIDI sequence within the app. But if you want to take a deeper dive into your MIDI sequence, you can do so thanks to DAW Mode and the separate Lemonaide Bridge plugin. After loading an instance of Bridge in your DAW and engaging Lemonaide’s DAW Mode, you can preview melodies with your chosen instruments in real time.
When entering DAW Mode, a dialogue window pops up, in which Lemonaide recommend using Collab Club in DAW mode for maximum inspiration. This could be seen as a loose acknowledgement that some of the inbuilt instruments are somewhat lacking, and that you’ll achieve the best results by pairing their MIDI with other sound sources.
Setting up DAW Mode does require two MIDI channels in your DAW - one to host the Lemonaide Bridge plugin, and a second to host your chosen instrument. It’s simple enough to set up, and works nicely once you’ve configured the MIDI routing correctly. The additional benefit of DAW Mode is that with it engaged, you can adjust your sequence’s MIDI notes within Lemonaide.
So how does Lemonaide’s Collab Club stack up in practice?
The Good
You cannot fault the Lemonaide team’s commitment to creating ethical AI-tools for musicians, by musicians. It feels like they’re onto something in terms of the model and concept. While there are currently only four artist models to choose from, it’s easy to see how getting more artists on board would help expand the platform's scope and versatility. This is something that Lemonaide are working on, and established artists can even apply to join Lemonaide’s partner program by filling out a webform.
Some of the sounds such as Mantra’s Dream Keys and KXVI’s Billboard Piano work really nicely, and would have no problems fitting right into a range of contemporary productions. If you want to put your own sonic signature on your creations, though, DAW Mode makes it quick and easy to do so.
The application itself is intuitive and quick to use. There are no lengthy vibe-killing wait times while it generates melodies, and being able to lock the key and BPM while you switch melodies or models is another nice touch. Both of these factors help you to build and maintain your creative momentum, which is really what Lemonaide’s products are all about.
The Not So Good
Unfortunately, many of Collab Club’s included sounds don’t seem particularly usable. Some of them lack the depth and clarity required in professional-sounding productions, while others are noisy and harsh. The quality of audio differs according to the note density of the MIDI sequence, tempo and register.
Having said that, Lemonaide themselves acknowledge that the tool is best used with external instruments via the Drag MIDI to DAW functionality, or Lemonaide Bridge and DAW mode. Using the platform strictly for MIDI generation and disregarding the internal instruments made for a far more compelling creative experience.
The Verdict
Lemonaide is a promising proof of concept for how an AI music production tool can and should work. The transparency with which they collaborate with experienced artists should be applauded, and sets an example for how AI and creativity can exist in harmony.
From our testing, very few Collab Club-generated sounds and AI sequences come radio-ready, but that’s not really what Lemonaide is about. Instead, it’s designed to spark inspiration and give you a peek into how leading producers might approach writing melodies, and it does those things pretty well.
If you want to find out whether Lemonaide Collab Club will complement your creative workflow, you can try each of the artist models completely free via the Collab Club trial.
