The AI-powered music-making app business is hotting up.
In May, music-making platform Splice, reported to be valued at nearly $500 million, launched an artificial intelligence-powered music app called CoSo, which uses what Splice calls its ‘Complementary Sounds’ AI technology to create music “in split-seconds”.
Bandlab, meanwhile, the social music-making platform that recently raised $65 million, has an AI-powered app called SongStarter that, it claims, can “generate royalty-free music in seconds”.
Could TikTok and parent ByteDance be one of the sector’s next major players?
Back in July 2019, ByteDance acquired Jukedeck, a UK-based AI Music startup that specialized in creating royalty-free music for user-generated online videos.
This year, the company appears to be doubling down on its AI-powered music-making ambitions.
In May, ByteDance launched Mawf, a machine-learning driven music-making app that analyses incoming audio signals and then “re-renders” those signals using what it says is machine learning models of musical instruments.
Additionally, according to a report from news site Tech Planet, ByteDance has also launched a music creation app in China called ‘Sponge Band’.
According to Tech Planet, this recording and music editing app also features AI tools, and notes that it is particularly “helpful for users who want to further improve audio effects and background music for short videos”.
Now, according to a number of job ads spotted by MBW, TikTok and parent company ByteDance are hiring for a number of highly-skilled specialists in machine learning and AI music creation in both the US and China.
Here are some of those roles:
Research Scientist in Music Creation (SAMI）
According to the job description for this role, which is based in Mountain View, California, this person will, “conduct cutting-edge research and development in music creation tools to lower the music creation barrier for everyone”.
They will also be required to “transfer advanced technologies to TikTok products” and to, “explore new products with music intelligence technology at its core”.
Elsewhere in the job ad, TikTok says that this “team’s mission is to empower content interaction and creation using speech/audio/music related technologies”.
The ad continues: “We focus on cutting-edge R&D in speech, audio, and music processing. We are looking for top talents to work on music creation tools, integrate them into various TikTok products and ultimately bring the joy to our global user base!”
Research Engineer in Machine Learning Music
This person, to be based in Seattle, according to the ad, will “conduct cutting-edge research and development in music information retrieval, music creation, music/audio signal processing, interactive music and related fields”.
Candidates will need to have either a Masters or PhD in computer science, mathematics, engineering or a related field.
They will also be expected to have experience in one or more areas of “music intelligence” and deep learning, including but not limited to:
- Music information retrieval
- AI music composition and creation
- Digital signal processing for music and audio – Interactive music
RESEARCH SCIENTIST IN MULTIMODAL MACHINE LEARNING（SAMI）
According to TikTok, this Seattle-based role will involve “cutting-edge research and development in multimodal machine learning models (audio, vision, music and text).”
TikTok says this person will need to have, “experience in multimodal machine learning across speech & audio, computer vision, NLP and music information retrieval fields”.
“The speech audio music team mission is to empower content interaction and creation using speech & audio related technologies,” states the ad.
“We are focus[ed] on cutting-edge R&D in areas like speech & audio, music processing, natural language understanding and multimodal deep learning, we are looking for top talents to work on these exciting technologies, integrate them into various TikTok products and ultimately bring the joy to our global user base!”
Audio AI Software Engineer
According to the ad (translated), this Beijing-based engineer will be responsible for “research and development and business support of Bytedance’s audio content creation and consumption business scenarios”.
This person will need to have “rich experience in digital signal processing and artificial intelligence/deep learning system development”.
This experience will also need to be in the fields of “3D spatial audio rendering, audio preprocessing such as noise reduction/echo/de-reverberation, voiceprint/awakening, sound event detection, speech recognition, natural language”.Music Business Worldwide
