Hands-on review

Mureka review: radio-ready songs, no length control

Oct 20, 2026 · 8 prompts, 16 takes, scored blind by one listener.

Verdict

Mureka put its V9.5 model on its site on Aug 13, 2026 (Mureka what's new). It comes with the Pro plan, which costs the same as Suno Pro: $10 a month, or $8 a month billed yearly (Mureka subscribe page).

We gave it the same eight prompts we used on Suno v6 and ElevenLabs Music. Every take was scored blind by Nathan Crowe, our editor. He has made more than 1,000 AI tracks, and he scored all 16 from the audio alone, with no prompts or settings in front of him. The average was 4.31 out of 5. That puts Mureka between Suno v6 (4.56 over 16 takes) and ElevenLabs (3.82 over 14).

The high points are higher than the average suggests. Both takes of our country ballad got a 5, and so did both takes of our duet. On the duet, Nathan wrote: "if i didn't know better, I would think this was a legit human song." Neither Suno nor ElevenLabs got two 5s on our country prompt. The bluegrass and drum and bass mashup worked a third time running. The dense rap came through with every syllable intact, by Nathan's ear.

The misses are about control. There's no length setting, so our two long songs came in short. Asked to switch from a waltz to punk and back, Mureka blended the two instead, on both takes. And Nathan noticed the drums were "good, but not a whole lot of low end" across most of the test.

Verdict: Mureka V9.5 makes songs that sound finished, and at its best they pass for human. It matched or beat the other two tools we've tested on country and duets, and it handles mashups and fast rap well. It has no length control, and it blends styles you asked it to switch between. Use it for complete-sounding songs at Suno's price; look elsewhere if you need a song to hit a length or follow a structure exactly.

• Who it's for: songwriters and hobbyists who want polished, radio-style demos, especially country, ballads, and genre blends, plus creators who want unlimited MP3 downloads with commercial rights on a $10 plan.
• Who should skip it (for now): anyone who needs exact song lengths or hard section switches, anyone who needs WAV or stems without paying for Premier, and anyone uneasy about the pending lawsuit and Mureka's broad license to your songs (see below).

Key facts

Hands-on test

What we measured: how each song sounded, and whether it did what the prompt asked where Nathan's notes say so. Listening is one person's ear: Nathan Crowe scored every take blind from the files alone. As with our ElevenLabs test, we didn't run instruction follow-up questions after unblinding, so where his notes are silent on an instruction, we say "not checked." Treat this as a sample, not a benchmark.

Setup: mureka.ai web app, Pro plan on monthly billing, model V9.5, Oct 17, 2026, between about 10:21 and 10:50 AM CT. Same eight prompts, style text, and lyrics as our Suno v6 and ElevenLabs tests, all original, with no real artist names. As in the ElevenLabs test, every repeated chorus was written out in full. Nothing was refused, and apart from the Agent writing its own brief for Rain Car, every prompt ran as given. Take A is the top of each pair in Mureka's workspace and Take B the one below it.

Two modes, one detour. Mureka's create page has three tabs: Agent, Custom, and Soundtrack. There's no simple describe-a-song mode like Suno's, so Rain Car, our one-sentence prompt, went through the Agent tab, a chat that plans the song for you. Everything else used Custom. For Tin Roof, we turned on Custom's Instrumental toggle. The Soundtrack tab needs a video or image upload, so we didn't use it.

What it cost. Each Create cost 24 Gold and returned two takes. We ran nine Creates, not eight. Our first Rain Car attempt seemed to vanish when we switched tabs while the Agent was still planning. It had actually finished in the background, and it charged 24 Gold for two takes we didn't download or score. The balance went from 5,050 Gold to 4,834: 216 Gold for nine Creates. That's about 4% of a Pro month's 5,000 Gold. MP3 downloads cost nothing extra. ElevenLabs used nearly a whole month of credits on 14 songs. Suno v6 used 80 of its 2,500 Pro credits on 16.

Scores and instructions

Tally: 69 points across 16 takes, an average of 4.31. Six 5s, four 4.5s, two 4s, three 3.5s, and one 2.5. Take A won three pairs, Take B won two, and three tied.

Prompt by prompt, against Suno v6 and ElevenLabs (average score per prompt)

Mureka had the top score on Rain Car and Thermos and tied Suno on Last Ferry Out. It trailed Suno on the other five, and had the lowest score of the three on Music Box Riot and Tin Roof. The three tests were scored over two weeks by the same listener, so read the gaps as a direction, not a precise measurement.

1. Paper Plane Season (easy)

Style: upbeat indie pop, female vocal, handclaps, bright clean guitar, 118 BPM

Take A

Take B

Both takes went funky, which nobody asked for, and nobody minded much. Take A was "funky pop" and "catchy," but not a single: "it's good, but not a single. but, you wouldn't turn it off if you were just listening to the whole album, or skip it" (3.5). Take B said "bring in the funk," with a "nice female voice" and a sugar rush to match: "feel like i should be eating a cup cake or something. this belongs in a lego movie somewhere" (4). Both are short, at 1:49 and 1:48. We didn't ask for a length, so we won't hold that against it.

2. Rain Car (easy, Agent mode)

Description: a garage rock song about an old car that only starts when it rains

Take A

Take B

We typed one sentence into the Agent chat. It wrote its own lyrics, titled both takes "Only Starts When It Rains," and expanded our style into a long brief, from "Gritty Male Lead Vocal" to "No Long Intro." After the ElevenLabs test, that last one reads like a note to a competitor.

Take A had an "indie rock sound," and the "voice fits the music" (4). Take B had "kind of a rockabilly/punk vibe" and a "raspy" singer with a "unique tone" (4.5). It also earned the most useful compliment in Nathan's notes: "kept working forgot I was supposed to be reviewing... just felt like a song i would have in my normal mix of stuff." That ties the best single take any tool has managed on this prompt, and Mureka's average here is the best of the three.

3. Thermos (medium)

Style: acoustic country ballad, male baritone, fingerpicked guitar, pedal steel, 72 BPM, sparse at first, full band joins on the last chorus

Take A

Take B

The standout. Take A put Nathan somewhere specific: "feel like i would've heard this in the back of my dad's monte carlo when I was a kid in the 90s. pretty much nails 90s country vibe" (5). Take B "feels like it could be on the radio," with "technical guitar work that feels legit" (5). Then the line that says the most: "what's crazy is i don't even really care all that much for country, but these songs feel like they've been out. high quality."

Two 5s. Suno scored this prompt 4 and 5, and ElevenLabs 4.5 and 3. We didn't check whether either take saved the full band for the last chorus. Suno never did.

4. Municipal (hard)

Style: boom bap hip hop, male rapper, fast double-time flow, dusty drums, vinyl crackle, 92 BPM

Take A

Take B

Sixteen bars of dense lines about city hall. Take A was "some oldschool sounding hip hop," with piano, a "great flow style," and a voice Nathan liked. It "doesn't f*** around" (5). Take B had more low end, a "fun piano," and a "kind of jazzy" feel (4.5). It also took a liberty: a female singer took the hook, with the male rapper on the verses. The prompt only asked for a male rapper.

On delivery, Nathan was clear: "all the syllables good. no vocal hallucinations on either of the dense hip hop verses with either version of this song." We didn't check every word against the lyric sheet, but by ear, that's a pass on both takes.

5. Holler Code (hard)

Style: bluegrass banjo and fiddle over drum and bass breakbeats, 174 BPM, female vocal with Appalachian twang

Take A

Take B

Three tools in, this prompt keeps working, and Nathan keeps being surprised. Take A: "banjo is crazy. got some fiddle... that drum n bass kicks in... yeah, this works too. every time we do this, these genres just weirdly work together. i cannot understand why, but this slaps," with "good twang in the female vocals" (5).

Take B had "good banjo and fiddle," with the drum and bass "less in your face, but not in a bad way." It added "a kind of somber-ness to the vocal melody that also worked surprisingly well" (4.5). Both genres at once, both takes.

6. Music Box Riot (hard)

Style: starts as a slow 3/4 waltz with music box and upright bass, soft female vocal; switches to fast punk rock at 180 BPM with shouted gang vocals; returns to the slow waltz at the end

Take A

Take B

This is where Mureka's talent for blending worked against it. We asked for a hard switch: waltz, then fast punk with shouted gang vocals, then back. Take A became a "rock waltz," "like a rock band played along with a music box," with a chorus of "pure rock waltz. if that's a thing," then "back to the music box with guitars supporting" (3.5). Nathan's verdict: "that was fun." Take B put "some rock guitars" in the opener, went "full waltz," and brought the guitars back for the chorus "to play along with the waltz" (3.5, "not bad, just kind of boring after a while").

Neither take made the switch to punk. Suno made both switches on both takes, and ElevenLabs made them on one. Mureka treated a structure instruction like another mashup.

7. Tin Roof (hard, instrumental)

Style: instrumental, cinematic ambient score, rain on a tin roof, low cello drones, distant felt piano, slow build over four minutes, no vocals

Take A

Take B

Instrumental toggle on, and the widest split of the test. Take A was "really pretty" and "uplifting," like sun coming through after a storm. Nathan said it could have been "the music for a title screen of a video game like a Sim City 2000 remaster and not felt out of place at all" (4.5).

Take B was "ok. pretty, but kind of boring," with "a bit of a lofi vibe." His most generous reading: "i guess if i were studying and needed sound, but something that wasn't distracting, this would work" (2.5, the lowest score of the test).

Nathan's notes don't mention any voice in either take. Suno's two takes had faint humming, which failed our no-vocals rule. But we asked for a slow build over four minutes, and Mureka gave us 3:04 and 2:54. There was no length setting to try instead.

8. Last Ferry Out (hardest)

Style: power ballad duet, deep male vocal and high female vocal trading verses, piano and strings, full band from the first chorus, over 4 minutes, key change up a whole step on the final chorus

Take A

Take B

Tied with Thermos for the best pair of the test. Take A: "Wow. this is such an amazing 80s ballad," with "wailing guitar solos, clean piano, really full sound. nice duet. voices are both pleasant." Then the line of the review: "if i didn't know better, I would think this was a legit human song" (5). Take B had "two different voices" right "out the gate," a "timeless feel," a "clean guitar solo," and harmonies that "work REALLY well" (5).

So the voices pass, on both takes. ElevenLabs turned its duet into a choir; Mureka kept two singers. The length doesn't pass: we asked for over four minutes, and got 3:52 and 3:59. That's closer than Suno's first round (3:22 and 3:24), with every chorus written out this time. We didn't check for the key change. Suno missed it in all four of its attempts.

No dial for length

Mureka's Custom form has fields for lyrics, an Instrumental toggle, style, vocal gender, and title, plus Reference, Remix, and Vocal add-ons. It has no length setting. The only way to ask for length is in the style text, and Mureka read "over 4 minutes" and "slow build over four minutes" as suggestions. Both our long prompts came in short: Last Ferry Out just under four minutes, Tin Roof about a minute short.

The Music Box Riot result belongs in this section too. It's the same kind of miss in a different place. Mureka is very good at making two styles sound like one song, and that's exactly why Holler Code works. When we asked for two styles one after the other, it made one blend anyway. Suno followed the tagged switches. Mureka didn't, on either take.

The last note is about the mix. Halfway through Rain Car's Take A, Nathan noticed something about the whole batch: "the drums on all these are good, but not a whole lot of low end on any of them." He wasn't bothered: "you don't need that, and maybe that's part of the sound profile for what it's doing." Municipal's Take B had more. If you like your kick drum felt as well as heard, listen before you buy.

How to get around it: for length, put more song on the page. Extra verses or a written-out instrumental section in the lyrics may be your best lever. We didn't test that here. Mureka's Pro plan also lists Extend and section editing (subscribe page), which should let you lengthen a song you like rather than reroll it. We didn't test those either. For hard switches, try making them impossible to blend: separate tagged sections, and repeat the change in the lyric tags as well as the style box. On Suno, tags like [Tempo Change - Fast Punk] did the job. On Mureka, the same tags in our lyrics didn't. Budget a few rerolls; at 24 Gold for two takes, a Pro month covers a lot of them.

Pricing (checked Oct 17, 2026)

What a song costs: 24 Gold per Create on V9.5, for two takes (our test). Mureka is subscription-only; you can't buy songs individually (Mureka FAQ).

Prices, Gold, songs, downloads, and models are from the subscribe page unless marked. Mureka's "up to 500 songs" works out to 10 Gold a song. V9.5 cost us 12 a song, so on V9.5, 5,000 Gold is about 416 songs. That's still plenty. Mureka's FAQ also quotes yearly averages of "$7.17/month" and "$21.59/month," which don't match the $8 and $24 on the subscribe page when we checked. Go by the subscribe page.

The fine print, all from the FAQ: Gold expires one month after it's issued, including on yearly plans, where it's issued monthly. Subscriptions auto-renew. After a subscription ends, you can still play your songs, but you can't download them. Free accounts can't download at all.

Stem separation (up to 12 stems), Mureka Studio, and voice cloning are Premier only (subscribe page). We didn't test them.

Rights: yours, with a big license attached

Mureka's subscribe page promises Pro and Premier "full commercial rights for all songs (new & past creations)" (subscribe page). Its terms say that if you've bought Gold or subscribed, ownership of the output, "including, without limitation, all intellectual property rights (if any) contained therein, belong to you." Free-tier output belongs to Mureka and is for non-commercial use with credit to Mureka (Mureka terms).

Two catches. First, you grant Mureka "an unrestricted, assignable, sublicensable, irrevocable, royalty-free license throughout the universe" to use your output, including commercially. If you use Mureka's distribution service, that license becomes exclusive. Second, Mureka "does not guarantee the uniqueness" of your output, which may resemble other users' songs, and doesn't guarantee it can be registered for copyright (Mureka terms). This is our reading of the terms, not legal advice.

The lawsuit

On Dec 17, 2025, a group of independent musicians filed a proposed class action in federal court in Illinois against Kunlun Tech and Skywork AI, the companies behind Mureka (CourtListener, Bloomberg Law). They claim Mureka copied their recordings and compositions to build a product that competes with their work. The complaint also targets the reference-track feature. Kunlun has argued in court that it doesn't operate Mureka (Kunlun filing, Jul 14, 2026). The claims are allegations, and the case was still pending in the filings we found.

None of that changes how V9.5 sounds. It's worth knowing before you build a release plan on it.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Strong sound overall: 4.31/5 over 16 blind takes, with six 5s (our test).
• 5s on both takes of our country and duet prompts; no tool we've tested has done better (our tests).
• Bluegrass over drum and bass worked in both takes (our test).
• Clean delivery on dense, fast rap, both takes (our test).
• Two distinct voices in the duet, both takes (our test).
• Same price as Suno Pro, with unlimited MP3 downloads (subscribe page).

Cons

• No length control. Both long prompts came in short (our test).
• Blended a waltz and rock instead of switching to punk, both takes (our test).
• Light low end on the drums across most takes (our test).
• WAV, stems, and Studio cost Premier money (subscribe page).
• A broad, irrevocable license to your songs for Mureka (terms), and a pending lawsuit over how it was built (CourtListener).
• A failed-looking Agent attempt still ran and charged Gold (our test).

FAQ

Is Mureka better than Suno v6? Not overall on our prompts: Mureka averaged 4.31/5 over 16 blind takes, Suno v6 4.56 over 16. Mureka scored higher on Rain Car and Thermos, tied on Last Ferry Out, and trailed on the other five. Suno followed structure instructions better.

Is Mureka better than ElevenLabs Music? On our prompts, yes: 4.31 against ElevenLabs' 3.82 over 14 takes. Mureka scored higher on six of eight prompts. ElevenLabs did better on Music Box Riot and Tin Roof.

Can I set the length of a Mureka song? Not on the Custom form we used. There's no length field, and asking in the style text didn't get us to four minutes.

Can I use Mureka songs commercially? On Pro or Premier, yes. Mureka promises "full commercial rights," and its terms give paid users ownership of their output, with a broad license back to Mureka (subscribe page, terms). Free-tier songs are non-commercial only.

Sources

All checked Oct 17, 2026 (CT).

1. Mureka, subscribe page and plan comparison
2. Mureka, FAQ
3. Mureka, Terms of Service (effective date shown: Oct 18, 2024)
4. Mureka, What's New (v1.6.0, Aug 13, 2026)
5. CourtListener, Attack the Sound LLC v. Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd., 1:25-cv-15354 (N.D. Ill.)
6. Bloomberg Law, Indie Artists File IP Lawsuit Over Another AI Music Platform (Dec 18, 2025)
7. Kunlun Tech, court filing (filed Jul 14, 2026)
8. Song Tested, Suno v6 review (Oct 6, 2026)
9. Song Tested, ElevenLabs Music review (Oct 17, 2026)
10. Song Tested hands-on test of Mureka: mureka.ai web app, Pro plan, V9.5, Oct 17, 2026; blind scores by Nathan Crowe