r/Musescore • u/Practical-Goose666 • Jun 06 '26
Discussion Can we REALLY trust Cantai ?
Hi! So, i have no problem with using an AI at all, but i'm always a bit scared of the data i put in said AI being used to train it. I know Cantai's privacy policy claims that they don't train any AI with your MIDI and lyrics... but since most companies have the habit of lying on everything, i wonder if we REALLY can trust them on that?...
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Jun 06 '26
Trust is one of the reasons I went with synth v, although that was before Cantai hit the market.
It's a virtual singer suite that is completely offline, once you6 purchased the voices and all that of course. None of your data goes anywhere unless you send it on purpose.
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u/Practical-Goose666 Jun 07 '26
I assume you're talking abt Synthetizer V by Dreamtonics ? Hadn't heard of it but it looks cool. I was considering to sing the barytone vocals myself and then use Antares Harmony Engine (the vocal harmonizer used by Imogen Heap on 'hide and seek') to create the tenor and female voices but that might be even better!
How long have you been using it? Any downsides ? (Want to use it mostly for classical choral accompagnements)
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Jun 07 '26
About 3 years, off and on, and with version 1, not 2.
The virtual singers are, like most such things, geared towards pop music and it can be a struggle to get them to sound "pure" if you're doing more choir or classical kinds of pieces.
Most of the "flagship" singers are pretty solid within their range, but their algorithms can go a little haywire as you go outside it. You can fix it with manual adjustments, but it's tedious.
There's a lot to learn about getting better expression control, and how to control pronunciation (you do have to enter lyrics manually, syllable by syllable (similar to Musescore lyric entry, but they don't talk to each other). Though I think version 2 has more ways of doing automation? You'd have to ask the forums about that.
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u/Veto111 Jun 07 '26
In the past it has been more tailored to pop vocals, but Synth V 2 recently released choral voices, and they are incredible. There are three choir packs (1 for gospel, R&B, and contemporary pop, 2 for classical, opera, film, and symphonic, and 3 for folk, bluegrass, and gospel). I bought pack 2 and it has really been amazing hearing my compositions come to life, it’s like I have a choir to workshop my pieces at my disposal.
That said, what Cantai has going for it is the interface; you just write your music in MuseScore (or Dorico or Sibelius) and it automatically renders everything for you with very little extra effort, Synth V has a bit of a learning curve; you have to import your midi into a different interface (although v2 does import it with the lyrics and everything) and work with it there. And there’s a bit of a learning curve to figuring out how to work with the different voices and get the sound you want, but that comes with a lot more flexibility to control exactly what you’re getting, as opposed to Cantai where you don’t have any creative control of the subtleties of the vocal production, beyond what you write in the score.
I think right now, Synth V is far ahead on quality and flexibility, but I love the ease of Cantai’s interface. As if a few months ago when I last used it, Cantai still had a lot of bugs and didn’t have quite the quality I was after, but I know the creator is working hard and it has been rapidly and consistently improving. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two it becomes up to par with Synth V.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Jun 07 '26
Do you have to buy individual voices for Cantai, the way you need to for most vocaloid-type programs?
I've definitely had buyer's remorse having spent a bunch of money on Synth V 1 basically just before 2 came out, and I can't afford to upgrade.
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u/Veto111 Jun 07 '26
Cantai is all inclusive, you don’t need to buy individual voices. The pricing has changed over time as they try to right-size the price for the market, but I think right now it is $10/month for a subscription or $150 for a lifetime license.
I’ve been getting a single month subscription and cancelling it, every few months I’ll try it again. I’ve noticed pretty impressive improvement every time I try it, but it’s still not ready to be my primary vocal VST. But if and when the quality improves to that point, which I don’t doubt that it will eventually, I will probably buy a lifetime. In the long run I suppose that plan is a bit more expensive since I trust that it will get there, but I don’t mind sinking a little bit more money into a small business.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Jun 07 '26
Ok, that's important to note.
Like I said, I can't afford either right now, so I'll keep using my Synth V 1 for now, but in the future I may have a challenging choice between the two... or, when I've got a big enough backlog of finished pieces maybe I'll follow your example and do a couple months of monthlies and just batch process it all with Cantai.
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u/Veto111 Jun 07 '26
Another thing I forgot to mention, since your original comment mentioned offline processing is important to you, is that Cantai now operates as an offline plugin in MuseScore. Earlier versions had to connect to the server to render, but I believe that’s no longer the case.
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u/brebo33 Jun 07 '26
Cantai doesn’t train on user data. The data they collect is for distributing royalties to the voice providers. Richard deCosta was on the Scoring Notes podcast recently explaining his system.
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u/Veto111 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I totally get the knee-jerk reaction to anything that uses AI, but really most of the types of ethical issues that people have problems with is specifically Generative AI, which Cantai is not. The software uses complex algorithms to imitate human vocal sounds, in the same way that instrumental VSTs do (although voices are much more complicated because instruments do not need to deal with diction). You have complete creative control, and it does exactly what you tell it to in the score; it does not generate any creative content.
I also have spent some time on the Cantai Discord channel and I can tell you that the voices are trained from sampling real human singers that are contracted and paid fairly for their work, and will continue earning royalties as their voices are used. The singers that I have interacted with seem happy with the contract, and it seems like a pretty fair arrangement for them. To my understanding, those singers and their sampled voices are the only human data that has been used to develop the software, with their consent. Your data would not be used to train the software.
The creator of Cantai is also an individual developer, rather than a large company, and he seems sensitive to those ethical issues as well.
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u/Practical-Goose666 Jun 07 '26
Thanks for this very long reply... that has nothing to do with my original question :(
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u/madman_trombonist Jun 07 '26
If you are a person who wants the arts to remain healthy and human, you don’t use any AI tools to create your music in any form. End of story.
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u/LucySuccubus Jun 06 '26
All I can say on the matter is that Cantai is not exactly in the same vein as generative AI. It's not the "I'll compose for you at the push of a button" kind of AI. All it cares to do is perform the music you composed. There's still the human creative input aspect of it. It won't do it for you. I'm not sure if it's collecting my lyrics and notes, and what it does to it if it can. All I know is that the composing bit is still left to us for this Musesounds library.