How These Tracks Are Created
Ngô Minh Trí created the songs and provided lead sheets with detailed chords, notes, and Vietnamese lyrics. These are entered into Sibelius 2022.
Rudimentary finger-style guitar (8th-note arpeggio) and on-beat guitar accompaniment tracks are generated in Sibelius using Realize Chord Symbols.
An audio “comp” track (melody plus accompaniment) is exported from Sibelius.
A rudimentary a cappella (voice-only) performance is recorded using Voice Memo while listening to the comp track in headphones.
Voice and comp tracks are mixed using Audacity, with amplitudes normalized to -16 dB (voice) and -9 dB (comp). NB: The voice amplitude is much lower than the comp.
The lyrics are exported from Sibelius and edited to add [Vietnamese] at the top and remove miscellaneous lines.
A style file is composed describing tempo (BPM), key signature, time signature, voice type (male, female, or duet), rhythm and genre (e.g., Bossa Nova, Big Band, Rumba, Light Swing). Per-bar chord specifications from NMT’s composition are included. The text is constrained to 1000 characters and must be carefully edited.
A SUNO Premier account is required (~$16/month).
Custom Voice training is used in SUNO V5.5 or later. In the V5.5 dropdown, select “Custom Voice” and upload at least 24 a cappella recordings. Training takes about 2 minutes. This ensures accurate Vietnamese (Hà Nội) pronunciation instead of generic English synthesis.
SUNO interface consists of four panels:
Panel 1: Main workspace for creation
Panel 2: Library of uploads and generated tracks
Panel 3: Timeline Editor for advanced editing
Panel 4: AI-extracted metadata (lyrics, style, titles)
In Panel 1:
(a) Click on V5.5 and replace it with the name of your custom model (icon should replace default model label).
(b) Upload the voice+comp recording using “+ Audio”. The waveform is shown and a pop describes what it sees. Another pop up lets you select, choose whole song.
(c) Name the track at the bottom of the panel.
(d) Paste prepared lyrics (Step 6).
(e) Paste style information (Step 7).
(f) When prompted, choose “Keep” (retain original lyrics and styles).
(h) Set influence sliders: Weirdness = 0, Styles = 100, Audio = 100.
(i) Click “Create” to generate covers.
SUNO generates two cover versions in about 2 minutes. They appear in Panel 2 for playback. If satisfactory, move to a workspace for archiving. Otherwise adjust styles and regenerate. Limited tuning is used to preserve fidelity to the original composition.