BandLab buys Aiode, the AI studio built on licensed session players. Now publish the payout

BandLab Technologies, the Singapore company behind BandLab, Cakewalk, ReverbNation and Airbit, where musicians sell their beats, announced on 15 July that it has acquired Aiode, an AI music studio founded in 2022. Neither the announcement nor MusicTech's report gives a price or any other deal terms. Aiode stays a standalone product, with co-founders Idan Dobrecki and Blue Dobrecky staying on as CEO and COO.

The interesting part isn't the deal. It's how Aiode treats the musicians whose playing its product is built on.

What does Aiode actually do?

Aiode doesn't write songs from a text prompt. You start a project or import your own audio, then pick a model to play a part. According to its product page, the models listen to your track and return a take that fits its key, tempo and feel. You can direct each model section by section, generate alternate takes of one part without touching the rest, and export stems or a full mix. Some models are "Layers", curated groups of players aimed at a texture such as orchestral or percussion.

The individual models are named after real session players. The product page lists, among others, a trumpet player, an electric bassist, a pianist, a guitarist and a drummer, each by name. BandLab's announcement says each musician model is built with that musician and under their artistic direction.

The pricing page lists a free tier without a commercial licence, and Basic and Pro plans shown at $9.99 and $19.99 a month (struck through from $15 and $30) that do include one. Plans come with "Muse Tokens", which you spend when you use a model. BandLab says native audio recording and more DAW features are planned, with no date.

How are the musicians paid?

Here is where Aiode differs from the best-known AI music generators. BandLab's announcement says that 100% of the audio used to train Aiode's own models is licensed and traceable to its source, and that existing musician partnerships and licensing agreements continue after the sale. Drew Silverstein, BandLab Technologies' senior adviser on AI, says in it that the musicians "share in the value their work helps create".

Aiode's pricing page is more specific about how: musicians receive a revenue share from the paid subscription tokens spent on their models. These are company claims; we have no independent check of the licences or the payments.

What none of the pages we could open says is the size of that share. There's no percentage, no minimum, and nothing on whether free-tier usage pays the musician anything. There's also nothing public on what happens if a musician wants their model withdrawn, or whether the agreements carry over unchanged if the product is folded deeper into BandLab later. Aiode's help centre has an article titled "Are the artists compensated?", but it blocked our requests, so we couldn't read it. If it answers any of this, we'll update this post.

Why does this matter to session players right now?

Session musicians are already fighting over exactly this question elsewhere. The American Federation of Musicians, the US and Canadian union, is suing Warner Records, Atlantic and Universal Music Group in New York federal court. Its amended complaint, filed on 24 July, says the labels licensed recordings that union musicians worked on to two AI companies without paying or crediting those musicians. It argues that AI training is a "new use" under Article 21 of the union's Sound Recording Labor Agreement, which requires labels to notify the union and pay musicians for new uses. Music Business Worldwide names the two companies as Suno and Udio, and reports that both labels are seeking dismissal.

Set side by side, the contrast is plain. In the label deals the union describes, the player's past session work was licensed without pay or credit, and the union says the labels won't even say which recordings were involved. In Aiode's model, the player is named on the product page, helped shape the model, and earns when it's used. On paper that is the arrangement the union is trying to force through the courts.

We looked for independent reaction from musicians to the acquisition and found very little. The most visible discussion we could find sits on Aiode's own subreddit, which is a vendor space, and Reddit blocks our tools, so we couldn't read it. We aren't going to claim a groundswell either way.

What we think

Licensed, named, paid musician models are the right direction, and better than anything built on scraped catalogues. But "musicians share in the value" is a slogan, not a term. Until Aiode and BandLab publish the share, the opt-out terms and what happens to the models if the product changes hands again, players are being asked to trust a company that has just been sold.

The second-order effect is the one to watch. Token revenue shares look generous when a model is new. They look different when the platform sets the token price, the user base grows, and a cheap tier carries most of the usage. Paying a share of tokens spent ties the player's income to pricing decisions they don't control. That was already true at an independent startup. It is more pressing inside a group that runs a social music-creation platform, a beat marketplace and an artist-services business, where one pricing or bundling change can shift how a musician's model gets used.

Who wins? Producers who want a real-sounding bass or trumpet part without booking a session, and a small set of named players who now have a passive income line. Who loses? Probably the session players who aren't on the roster, competing with a model of a colleague that anyone on a paid plan can call up for a handful of tokens. Aiode didn't create that pressure, but it is about to scale it.

Tools that add a player you direct, rather than generating the whole song, are a sensible part of AI in music. Veena works in a similar direction with its AI co-producer in the browser. The test for all of them should be the same: name the people, publish the split, and let players leave.

So our ask is simple. BandLab and Aiode: publish the revenue-share percentage, the minimum (if there is one), the opt-out and withdrawal terms, and whether existing agreements are protected if the product is merged into BandLab. If the deal is as good for musicians as you say, the number will help you.