D'Addario Admits It Used AI Music Tool Suno in Guitar String Demo, After Weeks of Denial
The guitar string maker spent nearly two weeks insisting the track was real. It wasn't. Here's what happened and what the company says it will do differently.
Key points
- D'Addario confirmed on or around 3 August 2025 that Suno Studio, an AI music-generation tool, was used to recreate audio in a promotional video for its new guitar strings.
- The company denied the AI use for nearly two weeks, deleting critical comments and blocking users who raised concerns.
- Rather than publishing a new statement, D'Addario quietly edited its original 29 July denial post to include the admission.
- D'Addario says it will now require employees and creative partners to disclose any use of generative AI in their work.
- Guitarist and YouTuber Rhett Shull obtained the original Logic recording files from the company, and those files helped confirm the AI involvement.
D'Addario has finally admitted it, and the admission is worse than the original mistake.
The guitar accessories company, best known for selling strings to bedroom strummers and touring professionals alike, has confirmed that Suno Studio was used in a promotional video for a new set of strings built for low-tuned, extended-range guitars. Suno Studio generates music from a text prompt or an existing recording: describe what you want, and the software produces a finished-sounding track. The company used it to regenerate an original recording, meaning the audio in the ad was not the genuine guitar performance viewers assumed they were hearing.
Why did it take two weeks to admit this?
D'Addario spent roughly twelve days pushing back before changing its story. The company offered several alternative explanations: low-quality audio exports, digital noise from plugins such as Autotune, AI-assisted mastering tools from LANDR and Apple Logic. None held up.
Things got worse when D'Addario posted what it claimed were the Logic session files behind the demo. Logic is a professional recording application made by Apple. Listeners immediately spotted clear melodic and rhythmic differences between those files and the finished video.
Guitar YouTuber Rhett Shull then obtained the original Logic project files directly from D'Addario. Even in a review he described as generous, Shull concluded Suno was most likely used at some point to recreate the recording. The company also deleted comments from critics and blocked those users during the dispute, something it has since apologised for.
Suno has itself been under scrutiny lately. We reported on 6 August that the platform began adding hidden audio watermarks to its output as legal pressure from major labels mounts, which makes the D'Addario episode a useful illustration of exactly why that pressure exists.
What does the company say now?
D'Addario's admission is direct: "We got this wrong." Its full update reads: "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 company says it does not support AI-generated music and will require disclosure of any generative AI use from employees and creative partners. It also promises closer review of content before publication.
The delivery of that admission is its own story. D'Addario edited the original 29 July denial post five days after the reversal, ten days after the first denial. Readers who saw the original will not receive a notification unless they were actively tracking the post. A company that had genuinely reckoned with what it did would have posted something new.
What should ordinary fans and musicians make of this?
AI audio tools are now good enough to fool a casual listener, and sometimes an experienced one. The technology is cheap and accessible. That puts real pressure on brands to be honest about what their promotional content actually contains.
Trust your ear. If a piece of music in an ad sounds slightly off, that instinct is worth acting on. And if you create music professionally, documenting your real recording process matters more than ever when authenticity is your main selling point.
This story sits uncomfortably close to our 2 August report on Fender's CEO comparing bandmates to "analog AI", where the backlash from players was swift. Two controversies in two weeks suggests the guitar industry has a transparency problem that isn't going away.
