Suno released its V6 model earlier this month, and long-time subscribers are responding with sharp criticism over what they describe as muffled, compressed and lifeless audio output.
The company unveiled V6 as a new suite of music generation models developed in partnership with major labels following licensing deals with Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe. Suno says the V6 models are faster, more expressive and higher quality, with a more sophisticated comprehension of musical language.
Subscriber complaints focus on audio quality#
On Suno’s Reddit page, users described V6 output as “muffled, dull, and strangely lifeless.” One user said the vocals sound “buried, the high end feels almost completely gone, and the whole mix has that ‘blanket over the speakers’ feeling.”
Other descriptions included “generic and bland” and “overproduced, heavily compressed,” with tracks that “lack even a semblance of melody, grit, or soul.”
“I haven’t been able to generate a single track I like,” one user wrote. “It completely lacks soul and basic understanding of how to compose a track; everything feels so random.”
“I’ve published two albums made with V5.5, people tell me the songs, vocals, and instrumentation are virtually indistinguishable from ‘real’ music,” another user wrote. “I spent the two days of free usage trying all the same styles and prompts in V6 and found it produced muffled, generic, soulless garbage by comparison.”
Older models retired amid label pressure#
Some users are asking Suno to bring back older models, which have been permanently retired due to increasing pressure from major record labels. Suno settled with Warner Music Group and signed deals with it and other labels, but it still faces legal disputes with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
The full spectrum of V6’s training data has not been publicly disclosed, but it is much smaller and far less diverse than the dataset used to train Suno’s previous models. Suno’s shift to using only licensed training data follows concerns from the music industry over the company’s training practices and those of its rivals.
If the negative response to V6 continues, Suno may find it increasingly difficult to drive engagement.
