AI music prompts that actually work.
A prompt is a brief, not a wish. This is the structure Octa responds to, 36 ready-to-paste examples across twelve genres, and the five mistakes that quietly waste a credit.
01The anatomy of a prompt
Most weak results come from prompts that describe a feeling and nothing else. “A sad song” gives the engine no structure to build on. A prompt that works names five things — and you rarely need more than one line to do it.
- GenreThe single most load-bearing word. “Trap”, “neo-soul”, “drift phonk” each pull an entire arrangement with them.
- Subject or moodWhat the song is about, in plain words: “about selling your father’s truck” beats “emotional”.
- One or two instrumentsName the sound that should carry it — “pedal steel”, “felt piano”, “sliding 808”. Two is plenty; five fights for space.
- Tempo or feel“140 BPM”, “half-time drums”, “slow walk”. Skip it and the engine picks something that fits the mood.
- VocalMale, female, instrumental — or a delivery: “half-sung hook”, “raspy baritone”, “screamed verse”.
Genre, subject, instrument, tempo, voice. One line, five decisions.
Put together: “dark trap about a night drive, sliding 808 and muted guitar, half-time drums, male vocal”. That is one sentence, and it constrains every stage of the pipeline described in how AI music generators work.
02Prompts by genre
Paste any of these straight into the web studio, then change one word and run it again — the fastest way to learn what each term does. Each genre links to real tracks Octa creators made in it.
Trap
- night drive through a wet city, dark trap, sliding 808, muted guitar loop
- trap with a music-box melody, hard snare, half-time drums, 138 BPM
- triumphant trap, brass stabs, choir on the hook, aggressive delivery
Rap & Hip-Hop
- boom-bap about a first job, dusty drums, saxophone sample, laid-back flow
- modern rap with a warm guitar loop, deep sub, half-sung hook
- battle rap over a stripped beat — drums and bass only, no melody
Pop
- bright pop about moving to a new city, punchy drums, huge chorus
- moody synth-pop, 80s drum machine, male vocal, wide chorus reverb
- acoustic-driven pop with handclaps, group vocals on the last chorus
Rock
- post-punk with driving bass, angular guitars and a deadpan vocal
- classic rock about a long drive, slide guitar, hammond organ, live drums
- grunge, sludgy riff, quiet verse, screamed chorus, raw production
EDM & Electronic
- sunrise progressive house, long build, emotional female topline, 126 BPM
- dark techno, relentless kick, industrial percussion, no melody
- liquid drum and bass, rolling breaks, warm pads, 174 BPM
Lo-Fi
- late-night lo-fi with a felt piano, soft tape wobble, no drums for the first 20 seconds
- lo-fi study loop, muted guitar, rain, gentle swing, instrumental
- nostalgic lo-fi with a cassette-warped sample and dusty snare
R&B & Soul
- slow-burn R&B about waiting for a text back, sparse drums, deep sub
- 70s soul with live horns, tambourine and a raspy lead vocal
- neo-soul groove, Rhodes, fretless bass, hushed harmonies
Phonk
- drift phonk with a haunting cowbell riff and crushed drums, 152 BPM
- slow Memphis phonk, pitched-down chant, tape hiss, heavy distortion
- melodic phonk built on a lonely piano loop and blown-out 808
Country
- country song about the last day on a farm, pedal steel, warm baritone
- upbeat country rock about a small-town Friday night, telecaster, big drums
- country duet, male and female trading verses, fiddle and acoustic guitar
Jazz
- piano trio playing a minor blues at a slow walk, brushed drums
- bossa nova with nylon guitar, shaker and a soft breathy vocal
- big-band swing with punchy horn hits and a trumpet solo
Metal
- melodic metalcore, downtuned riff, screamed verse, soaring clean chorus
- stoner doom, fuzzed-out riff, slow tempo, cavernous drums, instrumental
- progressive metal with odd time signatures and a clean guitar interlude
Acoustic & Ballad
- acoustic ballad about a long goodbye, fingerpicked guitar, cello
- folk song with stomp, clap and group harmonies on the chorus
- piano and voice only, no drums, one long crescendo
03Writing your own lyrics
Leave the lyrics box empty and Octa writes the words for you. Paste your own and it performs them instead — which is where structure tags earn their keep. Tags are instructions, not lyrics: they are never sung.
- [Intro] — an opening without a full vocal, often just atmosphere or a single line.
- [Verse] — the storytelling section. Two or three per song is normal.
- [Chorus] / [Hook] — the part that repeats. Put your strongest line here.
- [Bridge] — the change of scenery before the final chorus.
- [Outro] — how it ends: fade, resolve, or one last line with no music.
- [Instrumental] — no vocal at all in that section.
04Five ways to waste a credit
- Naming a real artist. “Sounds like [famous singer]” trips the content filter and the run stops. Describe the voice instead: “raspy male baritone, 90s grunge phrasing”.
- Stacking ten instruments. Every extra name takes space from the ones that matter. Two or three carry a track.
- Contradicting yourself. “Aggressive ambient lullaby at 175 BPM” forces the engine to pick a side, and it may not pick yours.
- Writing a paragraph. Long prompts dilute rather than refine. One dense sentence outperforms five loose ones.
- Covering a protected recording. Cover mode fingerprints your source first; a released record is blocked before it renders — and the credit is returned automatically.
05Questions
One sentence, densely packed. Around 10–25 words that name genre, subject, one or two instruments, tempo and vocal type beats a paragraph of adjectives every time.
Yes, and you will get a different song — the engine composes rather than retrieves. Running a favourite prompt two or three times and keeping the best take is a normal workflow.
No. Leave it out and Octa picks a tempo that fits the style and mood you described. Name it when you need it to fit an existing video or set.
Yes — paste them into the lyrics box and mark sections with [Verse], [Chorus] and [Bridge]. Octa performs your words instead of writing new ones.
Almost always a real artist or brand name, or explicit content the model will not perform. Rephrase it as a description of the sound and it will run. Blocked runs return the credit automatically.
Try one now. Change one word. Try again.
Prompting is a feedback loop — the first song teaches you more than any guide.
Your first song is free · No card required