D'Addario used Suno AI for guitar demo, then lied about it for 10 days

D’Addario spent nearly two weeks denying what now seems obvious: the promotional track for its new extended-range guitar strings was generated using Suno Studio. The company finally admitted as much in an edit to its original July 29th Instagram post, writing, “We got this wrong. We’ve completed a full review and confirmed that Suno Studio was used to regenerate the original track. We shared inaccurate information, and we’re truly sorry.”

The saga started when viewers immediately flagged the demo recording as suspicious. D’Addario’s initial defenses ranged from blaming low-quality exports to pointing fingers at Autotune plugins introducing digital noise. When the company posted what it claimed were Logic Pro session files for the track, things backfired spectacularly. The sessions showed noticeable melodic and rhythmic discrepancies from the finished audio. Guitarist and YouTuber Rhett Shull obtained the original Logic files directly from the company and concluded Suno was likely used to regenerate an original recording.

D’Addario also apologized for its comment moderation approach, which included deleting critical posts and blocking users who raised questions. The company has committed to requiring employees and creative partners to disclose any generative AI use in future projects, stating plainly, “We do not support AI-generated music.”

The optics here are brutal for a company whose entire brand rests on authenticity and craftsmanship. Musicians are notoriously protective of human-made sound, and the guitar community in particular has been on edge about AI — Fender’s CEO recently compared bandmates to “analog AI,” a comment that didn’t exactly land well either. When a strings manufacturer gets caught using AI to fake a demo of its own product’s sound, the irony cuts deep. The real question now is whether D’Addario’s belated transparency repairs trust or simply confirms what the community already knew.