[Solaria II] Creature of the Night (WIP gothic melodic metal original song)

Showroom
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Soundcloud - Creature of the Night

This is still work in progress, but close enough to what the final vocal track would be like. It may still require some tweaks in synth v and/or post-processing/mix, and feedback from more experienced users, to help me improve, is welcome.

It is one of the earliest lyrics I wrote, and is one of the four songs where I still used some AI help for the lyrics. Chorus is 100% mine. For the rest, AI helped me find the words, but the meaning, message and emotion of each verse is mine.

Lyrics: ChatGPT and me
Vocals: Solaria II
Music: Suno (AI generated) with plans to eventually replace it with a human-made version.

This song is part of series of songs about a story I am working on.

In this part, the main character has learned the truth about what she is - half human, half demon. As realization sinks in and she pounders at what she is and what it implies for her, she undergoes a range of emotions: fear, rage, sorrow, and this is what this song is about.

Note about the chorus and flying: she got wings while in her demon form (which she can assume easily while she still is in the Underworld, but is an altogether different matter in the physical world).

Creature of the Night

In shadows deep, my heart begins to race,
A truth unveiled, my mind’s a haunted place.
The darkness stirs, a whisper in the night,
I fear losing myself within this fight.

Creature of the Night,
Spread my wings, take flight,
Higher and higher, racing through the sky,
Faster and faster, far away I fly,
Am I a monster? Lost in fear I cry,
Creature of the Night.

A fire burns, my blood begins to boil,
My mind’s a storm, my thoughts in dark turmoil.
Unbridled rage, I feel the scream inside,
A force within, no place for me to hide.

Creature of the Night,
Spread my wings, take flight,
Higher and higher, racing through the sky,
Faster and faster, far away I fly,
Am I a monster? Lost in fear I cry,
Creature of the Night.

A shadow falls, my heart is filled with grief,
In silent tears, I seek a lost relief.
The weight of sorrow, heavy on my chest,
A lonely soul, in darkness finds no rest.

Creature of the Night,
Spread my wings, take flight,
Higher and higher, racing through the sky,
Faster and faster, far away I fly,
Am I a monster? Lost in fear I cry,
Creature of the Night.

Two sides of me, a war I cannot win,
A battle fought, the darkness deep within.
I cannot flee, this truth I must embrace,
A fractured soul, I search for my own grace.

Creature of the Night,
Spread my wings, take flight,
Higher and higher, racing through the sky,
Faster and faster, far away I fly,
Am I a monster? Lost in fear I cry,
Creature of the Night.

In shadows cast, I walk this path alone,
A creature torn, my fate is still unknown.
Yet in the night, a whisper of my name,
A fleeting hope, to tame this inner flame.

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I really like the song. The energy and emotion of the story, and the chorus has some nice hooks - musically and lyrically. It would be nice to have your own music in it to make it more of an original creation. But that’s the dilemma of AI created stuff - it does such a great job at some things that the effort to redo it might not lead to something better.

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Thank you very much for your good comments :slight_smile:
I have a new one coming in maybe today or tomorrow that is part of the same project, similar style and vibe, look out for “The Daughter of Lies” in this section.
If you didn’t check it out yet, I also have Filia Fraudis that I posted earlier. That one was my first still needs more polishing work though.

Ah yes, the dilemma of AI vs not AI.

My plan, in the long run, is to use the Suno version of my songs as drafts, and produce a human-made version of it.
The purpose of this is not to make it better, as the Suno version is already very good on its own, but rather to resolve several issues surrounding the use of AI. Without Suno, my project would never even have seen the light. There are a lot of things I can do, pick up the skills if needed, but there are two things I can’t do: sing and compose the music (hence Suno).

First, there are technical issues with the vocal part of the Suno songs. Some songs contain mistakes from my part, as well as mistakes (glitches) from Suno, for instance occasional duplicated syllables. These are difficult to fix in Suno other than throw away an otherwise very good generation and generate a new one. There is also the issue of voice consistency. I am making an entire album, meant to be sung by the same virtual singer. I have generated dozens and dozens of versions for each song, and picked the best ones among those who that the kind of voice I wanted. The voice is close enough between the songs, but not exactly the same from one song to another.

So, replacing the vocal track with Synthesizer V vocals allows me to fix these mistakes/glitches and use a consistent voice across the project.

Next, comes the big (huge) legal/copyright grey zone in which AI generated content sits, and the controversial perception of AI-generated content. If I ever get to a point where my project can be published and monetized, I expect distributors might just outright reject AI-generated content, as they most likely wouldn’t want to get caught up in legal copyright battles or upset their listener base. A recent court ruling said that AI content may be copyrighted, but the final result must contain a significant amount of human input, and that human input generally excludes the prompt, for instance if you make an elaborate prompt in an image generator, and want to copyright the direct output. If, on the other hand, the AI-generated content is only an element that is part of a larger, human-made work, then it could be copyrightable, depending on the amount of human work.

Then there is the audience acceptance of AI-generated content. Many reject it, considering it as not real art. Where I live, an AI-generated song accidentally made it to the local radio, and it sparked strong reactions, listeners were upset about it.
Many people are not yet ready for this.

As for the use of AI in lyrics, only my 4 earliest songs out of 18 contain some AI-generated lyrics, and these 4 are a hybrid mix of human and AI. The AI content required significant input and iterations from me, enough to be copyrightable.
I had only my very first song entirely generated from AI using the information I gave in the prompt, and in the end, I threw it away and rewrote it from scratch myself. Once I had found my own voice, I didn’t like it anymore, it didn’t fit well enough.

So, using the tools at my disposal to compensate for some skills I don’t have, I can still bring my vision to life. I can create a draft/prototype of the songs using Suno, and use it to build a human-made final version, that would be my own interpretation of that prototype. And even if it has been composed by AI, in a way I still consider it my creation.
The story I am basing my songs on is entirely my own, no AI involved. The vision of the entire album as well as each song in it, their style and vibe, are mine. The lyrics are mine for the most part. A lot of time an effort has been put in order to ensure each generated song fits within its vision, within the overall album vision, and that all together, they form a cohesive whole. There are songs for which I may very well have generated over a hundred takes! Overall, there is a tremendous amount of human work behind this project. I have been working on it for the past 6 months (not full time, I have a full time job, a wife and 3 kids, I do this in the precious little free time I have left) and have much more work still ahead than behind me.

Finally, to answer your point about whether it is worth going through this effort, it depends. For the vocal track, yes, to fix glitches, mistakes and voice consistency issues. For the music track, it probably wouldn’t be worth it only for personal listening, but for publishing/monetizing, then yes, to reach a broader audience/market and not stay in a niche.