She Walks in Suno

A comparative review of Suno 5.0's capabilities

Having just about finished the first Soulsigma CD, which contains four more tracks than I’d originally intended and will be going out in physical form to the backers sometime before Christmas, I’ve been working on the second album of songs, which will be called BYRONICS and consists of nothing but the poems of Lord Byron set to music.

Of course, being poems, not songs, the verses naturally lack choruses and bridges, which means that one has the challenging task of writing them in a manner that doesn’t jar the listener out of the song due to the lack of balance between the lyrics that are written by one of the greatest wordsmiths in the history of the English language and those that aren’t.

But so long as the average listener unfamiliar with the works of Byron can’t immediately tell the difference, it works well enough for the purposes.

One of the songs I wrote and produced for the upcoming album is LIKE THE NIGHT, which is based on one of Byron’s more famous poems, She Walks in Beauty. Being one of the three or four poems that people actually know, it had to be good. Fortunately, I happened to be acquainted with a young woman of such qualities that the original poem could almost have been written specifically for her.

The original song was produced in Suno 4.5. This is the remastered 5.0 version, which sounds exactly the same as the original song with the benefit of slightly improved audio processings.

I next took the original lyrics, structure, and style, and had Suno create a new 5.0 song to see what new tricks might be produced by the new engine.

[INTRO]

[VERSE 1]

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

[INSTRUMENTAL]

[VERSE 2]

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

[CHORUS]

Too pure for day too fair for dark

She bears a true immortal spark

Shining with the divine light

She walks in beauty like the night

[POST-CHORUS BREAKDOWN]

[VERSE 3]

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

[GUITAR SOLO]

[CHORUS]

Too pure for day too fair for dark

She bears a true immortal spark

Shining with the divine light

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty

Like the night

[END]

I didn’t spend any time doing variants or utilizing the Studio to touch anything up, I was mostly just trying to see what sort of new sounds might appear, and it’s clear that 5.0 brings some excellent new qualities to the table, even if they’re not necessarily ideal for the specific song in question. I don’t prefer this mix to the original, since it’s got a darker vibe that isn’t really appropriate for the theme, but I really like the various possibilities that are suggested here.

And finally, I went to the tried and trusty Cover option, which I’ve found very useful for remastering an older song with a new engine and improving the audio quality while keeping everything else more or less the same. This time, just for the sake of variety, I used a different version of the original song, then set the Cover with 60-40-40 settings in order to increase the variability while maintaining some sense of familiarity. I had near success with a 70-30-30 setting, which sounded really, really good, but omitted the first verse vocals and dropped in two or three very odd idiosyncracies that rendered the mix unviable without a lot of Studio work. So dialing down the Weirdness - which really would be better described as Variation - proved useful here.

So let’s take a poll. Of the three versions, 5.0 Remaster, 5.0 New Song, and 5.0 Cover, which do you prefer?