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Stable Audio 3.0 is built for the iterative nature of audio production. So our models give you several different ways to work with audio:
  • Music composition
  • Samples and sound effects
  • Audio-to-audio
  • Inpainting and continuation
You can generate full songs, individual instruments and stems, samples and sound effects, or use existing audio as the starting point for a new idea. Here are a few ways to approach each one, with examples you can try in your own work. All Stable Audio models are trained on fully licensed data. You own your outputs, and can distribute and commercialize them freely, and you have as many downloads as you’d like. We can’t wait to see what you make. Start creating now

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1. Music composition

Start with the basics of what you want to hear:
  • Genre: What style of music are you making?
  • Instruments: What is playing, and how should it sound?
  • Mood and energy: What feeling should the track create?
  • BPM: What tempo does the track need?
A useful order is: start with the genre, name the main instruments and rhythmic elements, then describe the mood, arrangement, and production character. Then add details about performance, texture, arrangement, or production when they’re important.
Stable Audio 3.0 is designed primarily for instrumental work. It can sometimes create non-lexical vocal-like textures, but it is not intended to generate intelligible vocals.

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Try style references

It’s helpful to reference an era, location, recording style, or musical context to describe what you’re after. For example:
You can also describe the context in which you’d hear the music:

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Experiment with generating full mixes vs. instruments

The models allow for generating different track types, including full mixes and stems. If you need an individual part, like a bass line, guitar texture, or percussion layer, you can try prompting for a stem instead.

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Use tags to specify what kind of track you want

Start with TrackType: Instrument, then say what instrument you want and how it should be played, recorded, or processed. TrackType: Instrument is an optional tag. Tags are simple labels that help tell the model what kind of result you want. For example:
  • TrackType: Music signals a full musical track.
  • TrackType: Instrument signals an isolated instrument or stem.
  • TrackType: SFX signals a sound effect or one-shot.
  • Format: Duo signals that you want two instruments together.
  • Genre: Funk adds a direct genre label.
You do not need tags in every prompt. Use them when you want to give Stable Audio a clearer signal about the format of the output.

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Music example: The last track in the DJ set

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Music example: A 70s TV-theme hip-hop groove

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Stem example: Sombre finger-picked acoustic guitar

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Stem example: Dynamic Latin percussion duo

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Stem example: Vintage-studio electric guitar lead

For stems, you can add details like technique, room sound, mic perspective, effects, performance energy, or recording character.

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2. Samples and sound effects

For sound effects and samples, describe the sound as precisely as possible. Focus on:
  • The source: What object, instrument, or synth is making the sound?
  • The action: How is the sound being triggered, and how long does it last? (e.g., slamming shut with fast decay, or a massive suck-back followed by a supersonic crack)
  • The production/characteristics: Where is the mic placed, and what’s the room character? How is the sound processed? (e.g., recorded in a dead room, captured with a vintage ribbon mic, or processed with a dark wooden reverb)
TrackType: SFX is another optional tag. It tells Stable Audio that you want a sound effect rather than music. This can help when you are making hits, risers, foley, or transitions.

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Example: Distorted wooden-drawer slam

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Example: Tape-stop sub-bass effect

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Example: Fast-decay hi-hats

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3. Audio-to-audio: Generate variations of existing audio

Audio-to-audio lets you start with an existing piece of audio. You upload or select a source file, then write a prompt that explains what you want Stable Audio to turn it into. You can give three inputs for audio-to-audio:

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Use noise level to tell the model how much to change

Use init_noise_level to control how much the original audio is modified. Lower values usually preserve more of the source. Higher values create a more substantial variation.
“Noise level” in this context does not refer to volume or decibels. In a diffusion model, noise is the random signal used during generation.
A lower noise level keeps more of the original performance, including details such as rhythm and melody. A higher level changes the input more substantially, allowing Stable Audio to take on more of the new prompt’s style. In general, keep the value here between 0.3 and 0.9, with 0.3 being almost no change and 0.9 significantly modifying your original audio.

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Timbre transfer

Change the instrument while generally preserving the notes. Prompt examples: Input: violin_solo.wav | Prompt: TrackType: Instrument, electric guitar | Noise level: 0.82 Violin solo Electric guitar Input: beatbox.wav | Prompt: Lofi hip hop beat, chillhop | Noise level: 0.5 Beatbox Lofi hip hop beat

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Style transfer

Shift the overall style of a track to create variations. Prompt example: Input: trance.wav | Noise level: 0.6 Prompt: (none) Trance Generated trance

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4. Inpainting and continuation

Inpainting and continuation let you keep the parts of a track that are working while generating new audio where you need it.

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Inpainting: Re-create a specific section

Use inpainting when part of a track needs a new take. Select a section of audio, write a prompt, and Stable Audio regenerates that section while preserving the rest. Try using it to:
  • Replace an awkward transition.
  • Rework a section that is too busy.
  • Change a passage without losing the rest of the arrangement.
  • Introduce a different instrument or energy level later in a track.
The audio around the section you are changing matters a lot. If you mask only a few seconds, Stable Audio has a lot of context and may make only a subtle adjustment. If you want a bigger change, regenerate a larger portion first, then refine it with a smaller selection.

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Example: Bring a guitar solo into a classical piece

Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major “Eroica”, Op. 55 - III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace, Czech National Symphony Orchestra An electric guitar solo live-recorded in a vintage studio with an orchestra This keeps the first 30 seconds as context, then regenerates the remaining 77 seconds in a direction that introduces the guitar solo.
If it’s too far from the input audio, the prompt does not work. Also, if the section to replace is too small compared to the rest of the audio, it will likely ignore the prompt.

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Continuation: Extend the length

Use continuation when you want to make a piece longer. Start at the end of the existing audio, choose how long you want the continuation to run, and generate the next section. Your prompt should fit the audio around it. If you are extending a progressive house track, a prompt for a build and drop is more likely to create a smooth result than a completely unrelated sound.
Stable Audio 3.0 enables variable-length generation, which means you can output the exact length you want, up to about six minutes for Stable Audio 3.0 Large.

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Example: Extend a bird-call recording

Birdsong Birdsong (no prompt) This tells Stable Audio to continue the existing audio from its endpoint until the file reaches 100 seconds total. Birdsong continuation

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5. Try using the plugin and web app

The new Stable Audio plugin and updated web app are now in beta, giving you two ways to bring Stable Audio 3.0 into an active production workflow.

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In the Stable Audio plugin

Use the Stable Audio plugin when you want to generate directly inside your favorite DAW. Prompt for material with a clear role in your arrangement: a bass part, percussion layer, guitar texture, transition, sound-design element, or alternate section. Then treat what you generate like any other audio in the session:
  • Arrange and edit it against the rest of the track.
  • Process it with your effects chain.
  • Layer it with recorded instruments or samples.
  • Chop it into new phrases or textures.
  • Print the take and keep building.

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In the Stable Audio web app

Use the enhanced web app to go beyond the initial generation to give iterative direction, try variations, mix and edit, work with multiple tracks, and extend the length. You can also make tape and splice edits, such as reverse, stutter, freeze, cut, copy, and paste, without generating new audio. For a full walkthrough of mixing, editing, and exporting in the web app, read our guide to making your first mix with Stable Audio.

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There’s no perfect prompt, only your process

A good prompt gives Stable Audio a clear creative direction, but there is no single perfect way to write one. Stable Audio will not produce the same result every time. That variation can help you find unexpected ideas. Start with a prompt, and then follow your own creative process to experiment and keep shaping the sound until you have something worth taking into the next stage of your production. Start creating with Stable Audio