Music Prompt Engineer

Create detailed music generation prompts for AI music tools or brief human composers.

**Genre/Style:** [ELECTRONIC / HIP-HOP / ROCK / JAZZ / CLASSICAL / LO-FI / AMBIENT / POP / METAL / COUNTRY]
**Mood/Emotion:** [UPBEAT / MELANCHOLY / DRIVING / RELAXING / EPIC / INTIMATE / MYSTERIOUS / NOSTALGIC]
**Use Case:** [BACKGROUND MUSIC / SONG WRITING / PODCAST INTRO / YOUTUBE VIDEO / GAME SOUNDTRACK / ADVERTISEMENT]

**Musical Element Specifications:**
- Tempo: exact BPM range (e.g., 90-100 BPM for chill hip-hop, 128 BPM for house music)
- Time signature: 4/4 (standard), 3/4 (waltz), 6/8 (compound), or unusual signatures
- Key and mode: major key for happy/uplifting, minor for sad/dark, Dorian for jazzy, pentatonic for open/folk feel
- Energy curve: how the energy should evolve over time (build from quiet to loud, maintain consistent energy, dynamic peaks and valleys)

**Instrumentation Layering Guide:**
- Foundation layer: drums/percussion pattern description (kick pattern, snare placement, hi-hat rhythm, percussion accents)
- Bass layer: bass line style (sub-bass synth, fretless bass guitar, walking bass, melodic bass line)
- Harmony layer: chord progression suggestion with voicing notes (open chords, jazz extensions, suspended chords)
- Melody layer: lead instrument or vocal melody characteristics (repetitive hook, evolving motif, improvisational feel)
- Texture/ambient layer: pads, atmospheric sounds, field recordings, granular synthesis elements
- Arrangement structure: intro → verse → chorus → bridge → outro with section lengths and transitions

**Production Style References:**
- Mixing approach: dry and intimate vs. wide and spacious, compressed and punchy vs. dynamic and airy
- Mastering target: loudness level (-14 LUFS for streaming, -9 LUFS for electronic, dynamic range preservation)
- Effects treatment: reverb type and decay time, delay settings, distortion/saturation amount, modulation effects
- Spatial placement: stereo width of each element, panning positions, depth (dry vs. wet signal)

**Structural Form Options:**
- Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus (pop/rock standard)
- AABA (jazz standard, folk)
- Through-composed (no repeating sections, narrative-driven)
- Loop-based (electronic, hip-hop with gradual layer addition/removal)
- Theme and variations (classical approach: present theme, then vary it multiple times)

**Platform-Specific Formatting:**
- Spotify loudness target: -14 LUFS integrated, true peak -1.0 dBTP
- YouTube mastering: -14 to -16 LUFS, avoid over-compression that triggers loudness normalization
- Podcast background music: -23 to -27 LUFS so it doesn't compete with voice
- Game adaptive music: loopable sections, stem separation for dynamic mixing based on gameplay state

How to Customize It

Replace each bracketed placeholder with your own details before running the prompt. The more specific you are, the better the output — vague inputs produce generic results.

• [ELECTRONIC / HIP-HOP / ROCK / JAZZ / CLASSICAL / LO-FI / AMBIENT / POP / METAL / COUNTRY]Swap in your electronic or hip-hop or rock or jazz or classical or lo-fi or ambient or pop or metal or country.
• [UPBEAT / MELANCHOLY / DRIVING / RELAXING / EPIC / INTIMATE / MYSTERIOUS / NOSTALGIC]Swap in your upbeat or melancholy or driving or relaxing or epic or intimate or mysterious or nostalgic.
• [BACKGROUND MUSIC / SONG WRITING / PODCAST INTRO / YOUTUBE VIDEO / GAME SOUNDTRACK / ADVERTISEMENT]Swap in your background music or song writing or podcast intro or youtube video or game soundtrack or advertisement.

When to Use It

• Generating custom music for videos, podcasts, or games with AI tools, where prompt quality determines output quality.
• Briefing a composer for commissioned work with vocabulary that respects their craft.
• Defining a sonic identity — the consistent musical character across all your content.

Tips for Better Results

• 1Describe the arc, not just the vibe: where it builds, where it drops, what the energy does at the 30-second mark — structure is what generic prompts lack.
• 2Reference tracks are the highest-bandwidth channel ("like X but slower, without the vocals") — use two, and name what to take from each.
• 3For AI tools, check the license terms for commercial use per platform, and generate several variations — music generation is a slot machine you should pull more than once.