Ethan's head

Ethan Manilow


I am a Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind on the Magenta Team, where my research centers on making AI systems that can listen to, understand, and generate musical audio with the express goal of making tools that can better assist artists. A musician myself, I believe in engaging deeply with artists to ensure my research is shaped by their needs. To that end, I have published numerous award-winning papers and delivered keynotes in top-tier signal processing and machine learning conferences including NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI, ICASSP, and ISMIR I finished my PhD in Computer Science working under Bryan Pardo in the Interactive Audio Lab at Northwestern University. During my PhD, I spent two years as a Student Researcher with Magenta and prior to that, I spent a year and half as Student Researcher at MERL on the Speech and Audio Team. I live in Chicago with my wife, dog, and acoustic guitar.

Email me at {first_name}{last_name} [at] gmail [dot] com.


News

Mar 2026
I participated in a panel about Creative Agency in AI at Northwestern.
Jan 2026
I delivered a keynote at the AAAI Music Workshop.
Sep 2025
Daito Manabe hosted Magenta in Tokyo for a lecture and DJ set featuring Risa Taniguchi and Lyria RT!
Apr 2025
New GDM Blogpost about the Music AI Sandbox and waitlist now open!
Apr 2025
I delivered a Guest Lecture at UIUC's Siebel School of Computing and Data Science.
Nov 2024
Promoted to Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind!
Oct 2024
New GDM blogpost covering my ongoing GenAI music projects.
Jul 2024
I spoke about Creativity & AI at the Flow Festival in Helsinki.
Apr 2024
I delivered a keynote speech at the XAI Workshop at ICASSP 2024.
Jun 2023
I was recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer at ICASSP 2023.
May 2023
I helped Dan Deacon use AI music tools for his Google I/O Pre-show.
Jan 2023
SingSong paper is now on arXiv.
Aug 2022
I joined Google Brain (now DeepMind) as a Research Scientist.
Jul 2022
I successfully defended my PhD! 👨‍🎓 Read my dissertation here.
May 2022
I will be presenting two papers to ICASSP '22.
Apr 2022
One Oral (MIDI-DDSP) and one Spotlight (MT3) at ICLR '22!
Mar 2022
I am speaking at the London Audio & Music AI Meetup.
Mar 2022
Dec 2021
MIDI-DDSP wins Outstanding Paper at NeurIPS CtrlGen Workshop!
Nov 2021
Hierarchical Instrument Recognition wins Best Paper at ISMIR 2021!
Nov 2021
I will be conducting a tutorial at ISMIR 2021!
Nov 2021
Two papers (1, 2) published at ISMIR 2021!