ACE-Step Music Generation

Generate full songs with vocals using ACE-Step — open-source Suno alternative on <4GB VRAM

ACE-Step 1.5 is the open-source music generation breakthrough everyone was waiting for. It generates complete songs with vocals and instruments from text prompts, rivaling commercial services like Suno — but runs locally on your GPU with an MIT license. The killer feature? It needs less than 4GB VRAM, making it the most accessible AI music tool ever. Generate a full track in 2–8 seconds on an RTX 4090.

Key Features

• Full song generation: Vocals + instruments + effects in one pass

• < 4GB VRAM: Runs on even the cheapest GPUs (RTX 3060, even GTX 1060!)

• 2–8 seconds per track: Near-instant generation on modern GPUs

• MIT license: Full commercial use, no restrictions

• Lyrics support: Write your own lyrics with verse/chorus structure

• Style control: Genre tags, mood, tempo, instrumentation

• ComfyUI integration: Node-based workflow for complex music pipelines

Requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
GPU	Any with 4GB VRAM	RTX 3060 or better
VRAM	4GB	6GB+
RAM	8GB	16GB
Disk	10GB	15GB
Python	3.10+	3.11

Recommended Clore.ai GPU: RTX 3060 6GB (~$0.15–0.3/day) — yes, the cheapest GPU works!

Speed Reference

GPU	Generation Time (30s track)
GTX 1060 6GB	~15–20 sec
RTX 3060 12GB	~6–10 sec
RTX 3080 10GB	~4–6 sec
RTX 4090 24GB	~2–3 sec

Installation

Standalone

git clone https://github.com/ace-step/ACE-Step.git
cd ACE-Step
pip install -e .

# Or via pip (if available)
pip install ace-step

ComfyUI Integration

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/ace-step/ComfyUI-ACE-Step
pip install -r ComfyUI-ACE-Step/requirements.txt
# Restart ComfyUI — ACE-Step nodes will appear

Quick Start

Installation

ACE-Step is a Gradio web app — not a pip package. Install from Git:

# Clone and set up
git clone https://github.com/ACE-Step/ACE-Step-1.5.git
cd ACE-Step-1.5

# Option A: uv (recommended)
pip install uv
uv sync

# Option B: pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Launch Web UI

# Start Gradio interface
python app.py --port 7860 --share

# For low VRAM (< 6GB):
python app.py --port 7860 --half

Open http://localhost:7860 in your browser. The UI has:

1. Prompt field — describe the style: "upbeat electronic pop, 120 BPM"

2. Lyrics field — write verses with [Verse], [Chorus] tags

3. Duration slider — 15–120 seconds

4. Generate button — click and wait 2–8 seconds

Generate with Lyrics (Web UI)

Enter in the lyrics field:

[Verse 1]
I rent the GPUs late at night
The servers humming, screens so bright
Training models, chasing dreams
Nothing's ever what it seems

[Chorus]
We're building something new today
The future's just a prompt away
With every token, every line
The code and music intertwine

Set prompt to: indie rock ballad, acoustic guitar, emotional, male vocal

CLI / Pipeline Usage

# Generate from command line using the pipeline script directly
cd ACE-Step-1.5
python acestep/acestep_v15_pipeline.py \
  --prompt "lo-fi hip hop, chill, rainy day, piano, soft drums" \
  --lyrics "" \
  --duration 30 \
  --output output.wav

ComfyUI Integration (Batch Workflow)

# Install ComfyUI nodes for batch generation
cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/ACE-Step/ComfyUI-ACE-Step
pip install -r ComfyUI-ACE-Step/requirements.txt
# Restart ComfyUI — ACE-Step nodes appear in the node menu

ComfyUI nodes let you batch-generate multiple tracks with different prompts in a visual workflow.

Style Tags

Control generation with style tags:

# Genre tags
"pop", "rock", "electronic", "hip-hop", "jazz", "classical", "metal",
"lo-fi", "synthwave", "ambient", "folk", "R&B", "country"

# Mood tags
"happy", "sad", "energetic", "chill", "dark", "epic", "romantic"

# Instrument tags
"piano", "guitar", "drums", "bass", "synth", "strings", "violin"

# Vocal tags
"male vocal", "female vocal", "choir", "no vocals", "humming"

# Technical tags
"120 BPM", "minor key", "major key", "4/4 time"

Web UI

cd ACE-Step
python app.py --port 7860
# Open http://localhost:7860

The web UI provides:

• Text prompt input with style presets

• Lyrics editor with verse/chorus formatting

• Duration and quality sliders

• Real-time waveform preview

• Download as WAV or MP3

Use Cases on Clore.ai

Use Case	Setup	Cost
Background music for videos	RTX 3060, batch generate	~$0.15/day
Song prototyping / demos	RTX 3080, real-time	~$0.3/day
Music production pipeline	RTX 4090 + ComfyUI	~$1/day
Podcast intros/outros	Any GPU, one-shot	~$0.15/day

Tips for Clore.ai Users

• Cheapest AI workload possible: At $0.15/day for RTX 3060, generate hundreds of tracks for pennies

• Batch overnight: Rent a GPU for 8 hours ($0.05–0.1), generate 500+ tracks

• ComfyUI for pipelines: Chain with image generation for album art workflows

• Export quality: Generate at highest quality, then process in a DAW if needed

• Style mixing: Combine genres in prompts: "lo-fi jazz hip hop with vinyl crackle" works surprisingly well

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
CUDA not found	Ensure PyTorch is installed with CUDA: pip install torch --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu121
Model download slow	Set HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER=1 for faster downloads
Audio sounds distorted	Try lower temperature (0.7) or fewer inference steps
Out of memory on 4GB	Reduce duration to 15 seconds; upgrade to 6GB GPU
ComfyUI nodes missing	Restart ComfyUI after installing the custom nodes

ACE-Step vs Suno vs AudioCraft

Feature	ACE-Step 1.5	Suno v4	AudioCraft
Full songs	✅	✅	❌ (music only)
Vocals	✅	✅	❌
Local/self-hosted	✅	❌ (cloud)	✅
License	MIT	Proprietary	MIT
Min VRAM	4GB	N/A	16GB
Speed (30s)	2–8 sec	~30 sec	~60 sec
Cost	$0.15/day GPU	$10/mo sub	$0.3/day GPU

Further Reading

• GitHub Repository

• ComfyUI Nodes

• AudioCraft Guide — for instrumental-only music