Universal Music has inked a deal with artificial intelligence start-up SoundLabs to create “official ultra-high fidelity vocal models for artists using their own voice data for training while retaining control over ownership and giving them full artistic approval and control of the output”.

The deal means that singers on Universal’s roster can train AI models using their own voices and retain ownership of the results. They will also have full control over how they’re used. In theory, this could also mean they could record a new album without actually singing a single word themselves.

In a press release, Universal Music say: “It empowers artists and producers to explore bleeding-edge vocal transformations, including voice-to-voice, voice-to-instrument, speech-to-singing, language transposition, and a myriad of previously impossible vocal transformations. Together, UMG and SoundLabs are collaborating to allow UMG artists to create custom vocal models that will be available for their exclusive creative use cases, and not available to the general public.”

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