Recipe: an AI-assisted demo in an afternoon that you still own and can edit

What you get: a demo session in your DAW where the parts are yours to move, replace and mix, with a short log of what a machine made and what you made.

What it costs: about four hours, and $0 to $24 depending on the plan you need. On Suno's pricing page, Free gives 50 credits a day but "no commercial rights"; Pro is listed at $8 a month and Premier at $24 a month, both with commercial use rights (Suno). For a private demo, Free is enough. If the demo might be released or pitched, pay for the month you use it.

The one rule: the generator gives you a sketch, not a session. Anything you want to keep has to end up as your own audio or MIDI in the DAW.

The steps

1. Write the brief before the prompt (15 minutes, free). Tempo, key, the feel, one reference, and which parts you will play yourself. Deciding this first stops you from generating for an hour.

2. Generate and pick one (30 to 45 minutes, free to $24). Make a handful of takes and choose the one with the best idea, not the best sound. You are going to replace the sound anyway.

3. Download the most usable files (10 minutes). Suno offers MP3 on all plans, WAV to Pro and Premier, and MIDI only to Premier for songs made in Suno Studio; stems can be downloaded where a song has them (Suno). Take WAV and stems if your plan has them, because the next step works much better on clean audio.

4. Set up the DAW session (15 minutes, free). Set the tempo, drop every file at bar 1, and check that the parts line up. Fix the tempo grid now, not after you have recorded over it.

5. Turn the parts you want into MIDI (30 minutes, free in Live). Ableton Live has Convert Harmony, Convert Melody and Convert Drums to New MIDI Track. The manual says to use isolated instruments, clear attacks and uncompressed WAV or AIFF, and warns MP3 can give unpredictable results (Ableton). This is why stems and WAV in step 3 matter. Expect to clean up wrong notes by hand.

6. Replace and perform (90 minutes, free). Put the converted MIDI on your own instruments, rewrite the chords or melody where you hear something better, and record at least one real part: a vocal, a guitar, a bass line. Mute the generated audio as each part is replaced.

7. Rough mix (30 minutes, free). Levels, panning and a little reverb. It is a demo; stop when it plays the idea clearly.

8. Log who made what (10 minutes, free). A text file in the project folder: the prompt, the plan you were on, the date, and for each track whether it is generated, converted then edited, or played by you. The US Copyright Office's 2025 report on copyrightability addresses works made with generative AI (US Copyright Office); a log is the simplest way to show your own contribution later.

9. Save and back up (5 minutes, free). Collect all files into the project, export a bounce, and copy the folder somewhere off your computer.

Total: about four hours. For the longer version of the same idea, see use AI for the idea, keep the DAW for the record.

What we think

The useful question is not "can AI make my demo" but "what will I be able to change tomorrow". A rendered MP3 can't be edited in any real sense; a session with MIDI and your own takes can. That is why we would spend the $24 for one month of Premier if MIDI out saves you an hour of conversion, and stay on Free otherwise.

We would also make step 6 non-negotiable. A demo where you played or rewrote the hook is one you can defend, pitch and keep working on; a demo that is only a generated file is someone else's sketch with your name on it.