commit 6fb0181b084dba89cdaf9c74ce42dd5832005536
Author: John Lightner <jlightner@a.xpltd.co>
Date:   Sat Apr 11 01:14:30 2026 -0500

    docs: initialize project

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+# MusicGen Melody Conditioning Debug & Voice-to-Instrument Pipeline
+
+## What This Is
+
+A systematic investigation into why MusicGen melody-large's melody conditioning appears non-functional, followed by either fixing it or identifying and integrating the best alternative model. The end goal is a working voice-to-instrument pipeline: hum a melody, specify an instrument via text prompt, and get high-quality audio output that faithfully follows the input melody's pitch contour and rhythm.
+
+## Core Value
+
+A hummed melody input must produce instrument-specific output that audibly follows the melody's contour — if the conditioning doesn't shape the output, nothing else matters.
+
+## Requirements
+
+### Validated
+
+(None yet — ship to validate)
+
+### Active
+
+- [ ] Diagnose why MusicGen melody-large conditioning produces near-identical output regardless of input melody
+- [ ] Determine whether MusicGen melody-large can faithfully condition on melody input as documented
+- [ ] If MusicGen works: produce a working demo with voice input → instrument output
+- [ ] If MusicGen doesn't work: research and identify the best alternative melody-conditioned generation model
+- [ ] If alternative chosen: integrate it into a working voice → instrument demo
+- [ ] Demo must support instrument selection via text prompt (guitar, piano, saxophone, etc.)
+- [ ] Output must audibly follow input melody's pitch contour and rhythm
+- [ ] Output quality should be high — not toy/lo-fi
+
+### Out of Scope
+
+- Full end-to-end pipeline integration with ACE-Step and Basic Pitch — that's a separate milestone
+- Training or fine-tuning models — using pretrained checkpoints only
+- Real-time / streaming generation — batch inference is fine
+- Mobile or web deployment — local CLI/script execution
+
+## Context
+
+### What We Know So Far
+
+1. **Seed bug found and fixed**: `torch.manual_seed()` before model loading caused identical RNG state at generation time. Fixed by moving seed to after model load. Outputs now numerically different but perceptually near-identical.
+
+2. **Text conditioning works weakly**: Different prompts ("piano" vs "drums") produce measurably different outputs (max_diff ~0.48), but differences are subtle — not the dramatic instrument change expected.
+
+3. **Melody conditioning appears to have zero effect**: With vs without `input_features`, outputs are perceptually the same. Chromagram data looks correct (86 timesteps, one-hot-ish across 12 bins).
+
+4. **Architecture**: No cross-attention in decoder (`layer.encoder_attn` is None). Conditioning via prefix concatenation: `inputs_embeds = torch.cat([encoder_hidden_states, inputs_embeds], dim=1)`. Chromagram projected from 12 dims to hidden_size via `audio_enc_to_dec_proj`, padded/repeated to `chroma_length=235`, concatenated with text encoder output.
+
+5. **Generation params**: `guidance_scale=3.0, do_sample=True, temperature=1.0, top_k=250, top_p=None`
+
+### Open Hypotheses
+
+- CFG math may be canceling out conditioning (unconditional path uses null audio + zeroed text)
+- Chromagram extraction from processor may not be working correctly
+- `audio_enc_to_dec_proj` weights may be near-zero or broken
+- Prefix signal may wash out as self-attention context grows during generation
+- Temperature/top_k too high — sampling may drown out conditioning
+- HuggingFace transformers port may differ from original Meta implementation
+
+### Previous Session Concern
+
+The prior debugging session may have operated within too narrow a frame — focusing on whether the plumbing was connected rather than whether the approach fundamentally works or whether there are preprocessing/configuration steps being missed.
+
+### Existing Code
+
+- `musicgen_melody.py` — generation script
+- `midi_to_audio.py` — MIDI to sine-wave synth
+- `output/comparison/` — test outputs from prior session
+- Venv: `ace-step/.venv/` (transformers, torch, torchaudio, mido)
+- Test audio: `input/humming_step_down_jl [2026-04-11 004915].wav`
+
+## Constraints
+
+- **Environment**: Windows 11, native Python via existing venv at `ace-step/.venv/`
+- **Hardware**: Local GPU inference (whatever the user's machine has)
+- **Models**: Pretrained only — no training/fine-tuning budget
+- **Quality**: Highest quality output preferred — this feeds into a creative music workflow
+
+## Key Decisions
+
+| Decision | Rationale | Outcome |
+|----------|-----------|---------|
+| Investigate before replacing | MusicGen may work correctly with right configuration; previous session may have missed something | — Pending |
+| Model-agnostic if MusicGen fails | Quality and melody fidelity matter more than staying in one ecosystem | — Pending |
+| Debug + working demo scope | Full pipeline integration is a separate milestone | — Pending |
+
+---
+*Last updated: 2026-04-11 after initialization*