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Writer's pictureThomas Guillaud

Detecting AI-Generated Vocals: Overcoming the Shortcomings of Traditional Audio Fingerprinting Methods

With the rise of AI-generated vocals, identifying and confirming the authenticity of a voice has become more complex. Advanced models can now synthesize highly realistic vocals, mimicking famous voices or creating entirely new ones – all of which are equal in astounding quality. 


This reality presents new challenges in audio detection and protection against misuse. Traditional audio fingerprinting techniques, which have long been used to track and identify sound, are not fully equipped to handle the nuances of AI-generated content. Below, we’ll explore the key challenges in detecting AI-generated vocals and how these challenges differ from traditional audio fingerprinting methods.


A detective finding an AI-generated piece of music

The Intricacies of AI-Generated Vocals

AI-generated vocals are typically produced using deep learning models, which analyze large datasets of voice samples to recreate similar or entirely synthetic voices. These vocals can be indistinguishable from human ones due to their ability to capture subtleties like pitch, timbre, and emotion. This blurs the line between authentic human speech and synthetic audio, making detection incredibly challenging.


Lack of Stable Patterns in AI Vocals

Traditional audio fingerprinting works by identifying unique, stable patterns in a piece of audio, such as spectral content, harmonics, or specific time-frequency markers. Audio platforms like Shazam, for example, rely on these "fingerprints" to match short audio clips to their database of songs. However, AI-generated vocals do not follow the same deterministic patterns as natural human voices.


AI vocals can vary in unpredictable ways, as the synthesis process often involves randomization in the data generation phase, creating subtle inconsistencies that are difficult to track. This makes the fingerprints of AI vocals less reliable or even unidentifiable by traditional systems.


The Role of Audio Artifacts

One of the ways to detect synthesized vocals is by identifying audio artifacts or inconsistencies in the production. Early voice synthesizers often generated sounds that contained unnatural glitches or distortions. However, modern AI models have become so advanced that they minimize such artifacts to a point where they are nearly imperceptible to human ears or traditional detection methods. As AI-generated vocals become cleaner, artifact-based detection becomes less effective.


Real-Time Adaptation and Manipulation

Another major challenge lies in the adaptability of AI-generated vocals. With traditional audio recordings, any manipulation (e.g., changing pitch, speed, or other elements) typically introduces detectable changes in the audio's fingerprint. But with AI-generated content, these changes can be seamlessly integrated without noticeable degradation in quality or pattern disruption. This allows for real-time voice adaptation, making it even harder to differentiate between genuine and synthesized vocals, especially when used in contexts like live performances or voice-based authentication systems.


The Evolution of Deepfake Detection

Deepfake detection in audio requires a new and innovative approach, harnessing AI in a productive capacity to detect such copyright infringements seamlessly. This is exactly what CoverNet by MatchTune offers. Sporting a dual-interface setup, the platform allows rights holders to track uses of their copyright with unrivaled efficiency, detecting even the most subtle infringements like deep fakes and modified audio with ease.


Whether you’re an artist, label, publisher or more, CoverNet can help you maximize your revenue. Learn more about the platform here.

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