Stable Audio Open
Open-weight text-to-audio — 47-second sound effects and music.
OPEN SOURCE6–8 GB VRAM
VRAM fit6–8 GB
DATASHEET // AUDIOCRAFT
AudioCraft (MusicGen)
Meta's text-to-music & sound-effect model family.
OPEN SOURCE8–16 GB VRAMRuns locally
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-FreeHobbyist-OK
Visit AudioCraft (MusicGen)UPDATED 2024-07-19 · DIRECT LINK
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS //
Runs locally · Entry GPU (6–8 GB)
Min VRAM
8 GB
Rec. VRAM
16 GB
Min RAM
16 GB
Rec. RAM
32 GB
Disk
15 GB
GPU class
Entry GPU
11.8+Apple Silicon ✓GPU RequiredQuant: FP16
MusicGen small/medium fits in 8 GB; large needs 16 GB.
[ EDITORIAL PICK ]
Why we recommend AudioCraft (MusicGen)
- Open source
Source is public — you can audit it, fork it, and you'll never lose access to your workflows if AudioCraft (MusicGen) the company changes direction.
- Runs on 8 GB
Comfortable on a mid-range consumer card — no need to remortgage for an A100.
- Apple Silicon
Native Metal / MPS support — runs on M-series Macs without CUDA gymnastics.
- Beginner-friendly
You don't need to read a paper before getting your first result — sensible defaults and a quick install.
[ EVIDENCE NOTE ]
Documentation-led datasheet
This page summarizes upstream documentation, release information, and editorially reviewed catalogue fields. It is not presented as a hands-on benchmark. Verify changing requirements at the official project; report stale data through our corrections channel.
AT-A-GLANCE SIGNALS //
DERIVED FROM THIS PAGE'S DATA- Install difficultyStandard
A standard local install — download, install dependencies, point at your GPU.
- Hardware comfortMainstream
Needs 8 GB minimum — RTX 3060 12GB or 4070 territory.
- EcosystemOpen source
Source is public — auditable and forkable, no vendor lock.
- VerificationStale
727 days since the last refresh — treat hardware numbers as a floor, not a ceiling.
[ MORE IN THIS NICHE ]
Other audio & speech generation tools we rate
Three picks across different tradeoffs — so you don't end up with three near-clones of AudioCraft (MusicGen).
What is AudioCraft (MusicGen)?
AudioCraft bundles MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec from Meta FAIR. MusicGen produces 30-second music clips from a text prompt or a melody reference; AudioGen does ambient sound effects. The benchmark OSS baseline for music generation before Stable Audio Open.
Pros & cons
✓ PROS
- Highest-quality OSS music generation for a long time
- Melody conditioning lets you guide the harmony
- EnCodec audio codec included — useful as a building block
– CONS
- Weights are non-commercial — research/personal only
- 30-second cap; longer outputs need stitching
- Slower iteration than Stable Audio Open at similar quality
What's actually free?
MIT-licensed code; CC-BY-NC weights (non-commercial).
✓ Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free