What It Is
A turnkey music factory. Give it three keywords — "dean machine techno" — and it produces a finished song with lyrics, cover art, metadata, and a YouTube-ready video. 75+ songs and counting, mostly for my kids.
The Pipeline
1. Songwriting (Claude)
A custom Claude skill (suno-songwriter) drives the creative process. It doesn’t just generate lyrics — it researches reference tracks for BPM, key, section structure, and hook mechanics specifically (spelling bridges, call-and-response, mantra loops, stop-time breaks). Then it outputs three blocks:
- Style description (~700–850 chars) — genre, tempo, instrumentation, production notes
- Lyrics — structured with
[Verse]/[Chorus]/[Bridge]tags for Suno - Three title options
The approach is mechanics-first: build around the hook structure, not the vibe.
2. Music Generation (Suno API)
The style guide and lyrics hit the Suno API (via gcui-art/suno-api). The factory polls for completion and downloads the 320kbps MP3.
3. Cover Art (DALL-E 3 / Flux)
A parallel API call generates 9:16 portrait cover art (1080x1920) based on a visual prompt derived from the song’s theme.
4. Post-Processing (FFmpeg + eyed3)
- Audio normalized to -14 LUFS
- Metadata embedded: title, artist, album, cover art, scrolling lyrics (USLT)
- FFmpeg combines MP3 + cover art into an MP4 video for YouTube
5. Upload (YouTube Data API)
A Python script uploads to YouTube with proper metadata, organized into playlists by theme. Max 6 uploads/day (API quota). A manifest prevents duplicate uploads.
The Catalog
Family songs: Classroom anthems for Dean’s school, getting-dressed French house bangers, bedtime reggae for Ruby, birthday tracks for friends’ kids in styles from Jackson 5 to Uptown Funk.
Reference studies: Recreating the mechanics of Ofra Haza’s electro-traditional sound, Adriano Celentano’s gibberish funk, Daft Punk filter sweeps adapted into “Waffle Time.”
Distribution: MP3s go to Yoto audio cards for the kids. Videos go to YouTube playlists. The mastered collection lives in a versioned local archive.
Why It Matters
Dean and Ruby will have a soundtrack for every phase of their childhood, made by their dad, before they’re old enough to be embarrassed by it.
