After several days of headaches, I was able to find out how to generate AI Music. I was inspired by a video by @MattyAI1406 on the subject, but the tool they used appears to no longer be available. I ended up coming across a tool called MusicGen which was created by Meta. With absolutely no coding knowledge, I was eventually able to get the thing running on my PC and I started generating the Super Mario Bros. OST. This is the tutorial that helped me get it working. If you’re interested, definitely check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiH0TVIPLMc
MusicGen doesn’t “continue” melodies like seen in other AI Mario music videos. Quite frankly, I’m not sure precisely what it does or how it does it. You can provide input text as a prompt just like with the viral DALL-E Mini from back in the day, and you can also input a sound file to give it inspiration.
What I did, was I asked ChatGPT to analyse the music, then I used that analysis as the text prompt for MusicGen. I then generated each song twice. Once as a short 5-20 second version so I could make sure the prompt was alright, and a second time as a full 2-minute song which I will not listen to until this very stream. Half the time, ChatGPT would just spit out complete nonsense but hey that’s part of the fun.
I also used some music from Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Maker/2. Lost Levels has an extended version of SMB’s ending theme, and SMM/2 features brand-new level themes in the Super Mario Bros. style. It also uses some Super Mario Bros. 3 music for boss battles so I decided to include them. I could also have used Super Mario All-Stars’ dedicated boss music for SMB1, but wanted to only use NES music to keep things consistent.
As a final note, I’m aware the ethics surrounding AI can be pretty blurry. From my perspective, I am simply using this tool for entertainment purposes. In fact, if any of these turn out even halfway decent, I may commission real musicians and artists to bring them to life properly. Nothing I do here today is intended to replace the hard work of real musicians or is it supposed to undermine their abilities or struggles. I intend to turn this into a video and I would like to have at least one commissioned song in that video if possible.
Merch store: https://mayros-realm.creator-spring.com
0:00 Intro
2:04 How I made this
8:24 The songs
