DeepComposer, AWS' strange AI-powered keyboard experiment, has been discontinued.
The company announced in a blog post today that it is ending its fifth year of offering DeepComposer, a physical MIDI piano and AWS service that lets users compose songs with the help of generative AI.
“After careful consideration, we have decided to end support for AWS DeepComposer,” wrote Kanchan Jagannathan, program manager for AWS AI devices. “If you have data stored in the AWS DeepComposer console, you can continue to use AWS DeepComposer as usual until September 17, 2025, when support for the service ends.”
Announced in 2019 at AWS' annual re:Invent conference, DeepComposer is a 32-key, two-octave MIDI keyboard and a collection of AI-powered music generation tools that AWS is hyping as “the world's first machine learning-enabled musical keyboard for developers.”
The AWS DeepComposer service allows users to record a melody with a physical keyboard or on-screen keys, select a genre-specific music generation model, and create a full-length song in DeepComposer. The finished track can be played back in the AWS console or exported and shared on SoundCloud.
Part of the DeepComposer interface for AWS, showing the optional virtual keyboard. Image credit: DeepComposer
DeepComposer was initially a developer-only product, but was released to all AWS customers in 2020, with the MIDI keyboard priced at $99.
Opinions are divided on DeepComposer's ease of use and musicality, with many MIDI keyboard reviewers complaining that the keys don't work properly and that the AI instrumentation leaves room for improvement.
My colleague Frederic Lardinois was similarly disappointed when he tried DeepComposer in 2019. But as he noted in his article, DeepComposer was always intended as a learning tool, rather than a tool for writing the next Top 40 song. This is similar to other AWS AI devices, such as the DeepLens camera and DeepRacer AI car, both of which AWS shut down in recent years (though DeepRacer remains in effect).