  Generative models in vision have seen rapid progress due to algorithmic
improvements and the availability of high-quality image datasets. In this
paper, we offer contributions in both these areas to enable similar progress in
audio modeling. First, we detail a powerful new WaveNet-style autoencoder model
that conditions an autoregressive decoder on temporal codes learned from the
raw audio waveform. Second, we introduce NSynth, a large-scale and high-quality
dataset of musical notes that is an order of magnitude larger than comparable
public datasets. Using NSynth, we demonstrate improved qualitative and
quantitative performance of the WaveNet autoencoder over a well-tuned spectral
autoencoder baseline. Finally, we show that the model learns a manifold of
embeddings that allows for morphing between instruments, meaningfully
interpolating in timbre to create new types of sounds that are realistic and
expressive.
