AI music composer for film, games, and creative projects.
Audio & Voice
AIVA is the AI music composer that filmmakers, game developers, and orchestral producers actually use — as distinct from the AI music generators that soundtrack TikToks. Founded in 2016 in Luxembourg by Pierre and Vincent Barreau, AIVA (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) predates Suno by seven years and Stable Audio by six. It is the oldest serious AI music tool still on the market, and it survived the 2024-2026 wave of pop-focused vocal generators by doubling down on the one thing they cannot do well: orchestral, cinematic, classical, and score-style composition with MIDI export and a real workflow into a DAW. In 2016 AIVA became the first AI to be officially recognized as a composer by a music rights society (SACEM in France), and in 2026 it remains the AI music tool that shows up in the credits of actual film and game scores rather than in the background of a YouTube vlog.
What AIVA actually does, cleanly stated, is compose a piece of music in a style you specify — cinematic, orchestral, jazz, tango, Chinese, pop, rock, and roughly 250 other style presets — and return it as MIDI, audio, or both. You pick a style, choose the duration, optionally upload an influence audio or a chord progression, and AIVA generates a composition you can then edit note-by-note in the built-in piano-roll editor, download as MIDI to open in Logic, Cubase, or Ableton, or export as a rendered audio file. The output is not vocal songs. AIVA does not sing. It composes — instrumental music with the harmonic and structural integrity a working composer wants as a starting point, in styles that Suno and Udio actively struggle with.
The one-line positioning: AIVA is the tool you use when you need instrumental music with real compositional structure — a film cue, a game score, a corporate video underscore, a personal composition to finish yourself — and vocal AI generators are the wrong shape for the job. It is not a stock music library, not a pop song generator, and not a novelty. It is a composer's assistant with genuine MIDI output.
AIVA's product is built around composition rather than generation. The features that earn the subscription are the style presets, MIDI export, the piano-roll editor, and the influence upload workflow.
Style presets. 250+ built-in styles — cinematic epic, cinematic dramatic, cinematic emotional, orchestral action, orchestral fantasy, jazz, tango, ambient, EDM, pop, rock, and many more. Each preset primes the model toward that style's harmonic vocabulary, instrumentation, and structural conventions. Style Designer lets Pro users train custom styles from reference tracks.
MIDI export. The feature that separates AIVA from every full-song AI music tool on the market. Generated compositions come out as MIDI files that open in any DAW, expose every note for editing, and can be re-orchestrated with your own sample libraries. This is why film and game composers actually use AIVA — the generated composition is a starting point they can finish with real orchestration, not a black-box audio file.
Audio export in multiple formats. MP3, WAV, and stems (higher tiers) with rendered orchestral samples. The default renderer sounds like a workmanlike sample library — good enough for temp tracks and demos, not final-mix quality. The expected workflow is MIDI-out, DAW-in.
Piano-roll editor. Edit generated compositions directly in the browser — change notes, adjust duration, tweak dynamics, add sections. This is where AIVA feels more like a composition tool and less like a generator. You are not stuck with what the model produced.
Influence upload. Upload an audio file or MIDI file as an influence and generate a composition in that style. Useful for temp-track workflows where the director sent a reference and you need something in that direction without licensing the reference.
Chord progression input. Type or upload a chord progression and AIVA generates a full composition around it. This is the workflow songwriters and film composers use when they have a harmonic idea and want a full arrangement built around it.
Duration control. Set the target length in seconds or bars — 15 seconds for a sting, 90 seconds for a scene cue, 4 minutes for a full piece. AIVA structures the composition to fit.
Style Designer (Pro). Train a custom style from a folder of reference tracks. The result is a proprietary AIVA style you can generate from repeatedly. This is the tier where AIVA becomes a bespoke composition tool for a working score composer.
Commercial rights on paid tiers. Songs generated on Standard and Pro come with commercial rights — usable in films, games, ads, YouTube, and monetized content. Free tier is personal use only with attribution.
AIVA is freemium and priced in monthly tiers with download quotas rather than credits. Free is a real product tier that music students and hobbyists actually use.
| Plan | Monthly | Downloads / month | Duration cap | MIDI Export | Commercial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 EUR | 3 | 3 minutes | Yes (attribution) | No |
| Standard | ~11 EUR | 15 | 5 minutes | Yes | Monetize with attribution |
| Pro | ~33 EUR | 300 | Unlimited | Yes | Full ownership, no attribution |
| Educational / Pro+ | Custom | Custom | Custom | Yes | Custom |
Prices are billed in euros and vary slightly on annual vs monthly. Free at 3 downloads per month is a real trial — you can generate unlimited compositions and preview them; you just cannot download more than three per month. Attribution to AIVA is required on Free and Standard when the music is used publicly.
Standard at ~11 EUR/month is the tier hobby composers and small YouTube creators use. 15 downloads per month covers most casual creative work; you keep the right to monetize the resulting content as long as you credit AIVA in the description or credits.
Pro at ~33 EUR/month is where full commercial rights kick in — no attribution required, 300 downloads per month, unlimited composition length, and Style Designer for training custom styles. This is the tier working film composers, game composers, and studios sit on.
The honest read: AIVA is cheaper than a stock music license per track and radically cheaper than commissioning original composition. Compared to Suno Pro at $8/month or Udio Standard at $8/month, AIVA Pro is 3-4x more expensive — but the two products do genuinely different jobs. AIVA is not overpriced; it is priced for a different customer.
Pros
Cons
Film and video composers writing temp tracks. The director sent a reference, you need something in that direction fast, and licensing the reference is not an option. Upload it as influence, generate ten variations in ten minutes, hand a much better brief to the composer or ship the best version yourself.
Indie game composers scoring on a solo-dev budget. A full game score with cinematic themes, boss battle cues, exploration music, and menu music is a week of work in AIVA plus a DAW. Doing it from scratch is months.
YouTube channels in genres AIVA is strong at. Documentary channels, history channels, classical music education, chess channels, science communicators — the underscore genres AIVA nails are exactly the genres where Suno's pop-focused output feels wrong.
Music students and composers learning arrangement. Generate a composition in a style you are studying — Bach chorale, Debussy impressionism, John Williams cinematic — and read the MIDI. Not a substitute for lessons, but a genuinely useful practice partner.
Corporate video and brand underscore. The music beneath a product launch video, a keynote intro, or a company anniversary montage. Cinematic and emotional underscore is AIVA's strength; the DAW-in workflow means it can be edited to hit specific beats.
Producers using AI as a compositional sketchpad. Chord progression in, full arrangement out, MIDI open in Logic, real orchestration on top. AIVA as the "get me past a blank page" step of the workflow.
Personal composition and hobby songwriting. Someone who wanted to write orchestral music and never had the time — AIVA is the closest thing to a compositional collaborator at consumer pricing.
AIVA's competition splits into three lanes: full-song AI generators that AIVA is deliberately not competing with, other composition-focused tools, and stock music libraries.
Suno — the full-song lyric-and-vocal generator. Better for pop, rock, hip-hop, and any genre with vocals. Worse for orchestral, cinematic, and classical. No MIDI export. If you want a song with words, Suno is the tool; if you want a composition to finish, AIVA is the tool.
Udio — the other full-song generator, at parity with Suno on pricing. Higher audio fidelity than Suno on many genres, extend workflow, stems on Pro. Same limitation as Suno: no MIDI, no compositional editing, no orchestral depth.
Stable Audio — Stability AI's music generator. Instrumental focus, sample-length and loop-focused, no MIDI, stronger on electronic and ambient than orchestral. Different tool, different job.
Amper Music — Shutterstock's AI music composition tool, aimed at video creators. Simpler than AIVA, weaker on classical and cinematic, no MIDI export. Narrower use case.
Ecrett Music and Soundraw — parameter-driven stock-music alternatives. Pick mood, genre, length; the tool assembles a track from a sample library. Cheaper feel, no MIDI, no compositional depth.
MuseScore Studio with plugins — the traditional composer's workflow. Notation-based, not AI-driven, requires actual compositional knowledge. AIVA generates the starting point; MuseScore or a DAW finishes it.
Human composers via Fiverr or a commissioning platform — the honest alternative for a one-off film cue with a real budget. A working composer at $200-500 per minute of finished music is a real deliverable; AIVA at ~33 EUR/month is not the same product.
Try the free tier at aiva.ai. 3 downloads per month is enough to test the model on the styles and durations you actually need. Generate five compositions in different styles to feel the range.
Start with cinematic and orchestral styles. These are AIVA's strengths and the styles where it clearly beats every full-song generator. Try "Cinematic Emotional" or "Cinematic Epic" first — these are the presets working film composers use most.
Test the influence upload workflow. Upload a reference audio file (or MIDI) from a piece you like and generate in that style. This is the workflow that separates AIVA from prompt-only generators.
Open a MIDI export in your DAW. Download a composition as MIDI, open it in Logic, Ableton, Cubase, or GarageBand, and swap the default sounds for your own orchestral sample library. The default AIVA renderer sounds like a decent GM library; the DAW result can sound like Hans Zimmer.
Upgrade based on volume and commercial needs. Standard at ~11 EUR/month covers hobby and small YouTube use with attribution. Pro at ~33 EUR/month is where working composers sit for full commercial rights and Style Designer.
If you are shipping a film or game, compare against a human composer for the key cues. AIVA is excellent for temp tracks and background underscore; the emotional peaks of a real score still benefit from human composition. Use AIVA where it earns its keep and hire humans where they earn theirs.
Is AIVA better than Suno or Udio? For orchestral, cinematic, and classical music, yes — the compositional structure and MIDI export are not in the same conversation. For pop songs with vocals, no — AIVA does not sing. Pick based on the job.
Does AIVA generate vocals or lyrics? No. AIVA is instrumental-only. If you need a vocal track, use Suno or Udio and combine with AIVA-generated instrumental if the workflow demands it.
Can I use AIVA music commercially? Yes, on Standard (with attribution to AIVA) and Pro (full ownership, no attribution). Free is personal use only. Commercial rights on Pro are clean enough that the music can be used in films, games, ads, and monetized YouTube content.
Can I edit the compositions after generation? Yes. AIVA's built-in piano-roll editor lets you change notes, adjust duration, and modify structure in the browser. For deeper edits, download the MIDI and open in your DAW.
Is AIVA-generated music copyrighted? On Pro, you own full copyright to compositions you generate — AIVA is recognized by SACEM as an authorship-neutral tool. On Standard, you have commercial rights with attribution. On Free, personal use only.
What DAWs does AIVA work with? Any DAW that opens MIDI files — Logic, Ableton, Cubase, Pro Tools, Studio One, FL Studio, Reaper, GarageBand, MuseScore. This is the whole point of MIDI export.
Can AIVA compose in a specific composer's style? Not by name — you cannot ask for "a Hans Zimmer piece" directly. You can select cinematic and orchestral presets that produce music in adjacent territory, and on Pro you can train a Style Designer style from reference tracks you own.
AIVA Pro at ~33 EUR/month is the AI composition tool for filmmakers, game composers, and orchestral producers — a genuinely different product from the pop-song generators dominating AI music headlines. MIDI export, the piano-roll editor, 250+ style presets weighted toward cinematic and classical genres, and Style Designer for custom style training are features no full-song generator offers at any price. For anyone whose job is scoring picture, writing underscore, or composing instrumental music, AIVA earns its subscription in a single project.
Where AIVA stops being the right answer: pop, rock, hip-hop, or any genre with vocals (Suno and Udio do that job at $8/month); short-form social soundtrack music where the extra composition depth is invisible on phone speakers; and creators who cannot or will not open a DAW to finish MIDI output. But for composers of any level who want a real compositional collaborator, AIVA is the tool.
The honest recommendation: try the free tier at aiva.ai with a real cinematic or orchestral brief. Generate three compositions, download the best as MIDI, and open it in your DAW of choice. If the result is a starting point you can build on, subscribe at Standard or Pro. If your project needs vocals or pop songs, use Suno or Udio instead — different tool, different job.