MiniMax-Music3

MiniMax-Music3 is MiniMax's third-generation music generation model, released in August 2026 with open weights on Hugging Face and an API model named music-3.0. It generates complete songs from a text prompt and optional lyrics, with a major leap in sound quality, better creative-intent understanding, and a new vocal engine that eliminates the "digital hiss" common in AI vocals. The model jumped straight to the top of r/LocalLLaMA's feed with hundreds of upvotes, and official ComfyUI support makes it the first frontier-class open music model many local users can actually run.

Core Features

• Text-to-music with full control: Describe style, mood, and scenario in a prompt, optionally add lyrics with structure tags ([Verse], [Chorus], [Bridge]), and generate a complete arranged song.
• Studio-grade sound quality: No more cramped or muddy mixes; supports specific instruments and real playing techniques like slides and legato.
• Natural vocal synthesis: New vocal engine removes high-frequency digital hiss and gives control over melody, pronunciation, breathing, and layered harmonies.
• Instrumental and cover modes: is_instrumental for pure instrumental tracks; music-cover reinterprets an existing song with a different style, with a two-step workflow that extracts and lets you edit lyrics.
• Lyrics optimizer: Auto-generates lyrics from a prompt when you do not provide them.

Model Specifications

Pricing

MiniMax-Music3 is available through the MiniMax API on Token Plans and for paid users (RPM of 120). A free tier (music-3.0-free) is available to all API users with a rate limit of 3 requests per minute.

Use Cases

• Theme songs for videos and games: Generate unique, commercial-recording-grade tracks from a short creative brief.
• Music production ideation: Explore styles, moods, and arrangements before committing studio time.
• Local ComfyUI pipelines: Run the open weights locally with the official ComfyUI pack, including low-VRAM workflows.
• Covers and re-imaginings: Restyle existing songs while keeping or modifying the original lyrics.

Advantages

1. Open weights: One of the strongest open music models, with the license and format suitable for local and commercial use.
2. Vocal quality leap: The new vocal engine is the standout improvement over earlier generations, removing the telltale AI hiss.
3. Ecosystem-ready: Official ComfyUI support plus a clean API make it practical for both local artists and product teams.

Tips

1. Structure your lyrics: Use section tags to control song form; the model arranges the track around them.
2. Start with the free tier: music-3.0-free is enough to validate quality before committing to a paid token plan.
3. Download URLs fast: API audio URLs expire after 24 hours, so persist files promptly.

Conclusion

MiniMax-Music3 brings frontier-class music generation to the open-weight world, with studio-grade audio, natural vocals, and official ComfyUI support. For developers and creators who want to generate complete songs locally or via API, it is currently the strongest open option.

Alternatives

• MiniMax M2.1: MiniMax's open-weight MoE for coding and agentic tasks.
• Suno: Closed music generation service for consumer use cases.

Related: Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku. Hub: models.