How to Make a Tiny Desk AI Video

What you need before you start

Three things: an account (sign-in is required), a one-time credit pack, and one clear photo of the person who will front the band. The photo is the whole show, so give it a fair chance: one face per photo, facing the camera, sharp and well lit, no sunglasses, shoulders-up framing. Skip group shots, cartoons and heavy filters — each seat takes a single person. And one rule covers every seat on the stage: photos of yourself, or of an adult who has agreed to appear. That is the whole list.

Step 1: Meet your five-piece band

Tiny Desk AI ships exactly one format, and it is fixed: a five-piece band on a desk-sized stage — a lead singer up front, a keyboardist, two backing singers and a sax player behind. You only ever have to fill one seat: the lead singer's. The other four are performed by the site's house characters until you swap in photos of your own people, one face per photo. How the five seats are arranged explains the staging and the swap rules in detail.

Step 2: Add your photos, pick a tier, create

Drop the lead singer's photo into the first slot, swap in any band members you want to replace, and choose a quality tier — Draft at 480p for 1,000 credits, Standard at 720p for 1,500, or Ultra at 1080p for 3,000. The finished video is the same 18-second, 9:16 vertical, sound-on concert at every tier; quality changes the sharpness and the credit cost, nothing else. Tick the permission box, check the summary line, and hit create.

Step 3: Watch, download, share

A finished render waits in My Creations: play it with its soundtrack, download the MP4, and post it wherever you share — tag it as AI-made when you do. Nothing about the video is watermarked, and it is yours to keep and repost. If a run is confirmed as failed, its credits return to your account automatically, without you asking.

What it costs

Credit packs are one-time purchases: $9.90 for 1,000 credits, $19.90 for 2,000, and $29.90 for 3,000. Credits never expire and there is no subscription to cancel. A single 18-second concert spends 1,000 to 3,000 credits depending on the tier, so the opening pack covers a first show with room to spare — and failed runs do not eat the budget.

When will it be ready?

Generation is coming soon on this site: the create button signs you in and holds your place until rendering opens. We do not quote delivery windows before the pipeline is live — no "it will be done by tonight" promises, because we do not make promises we cannot keep. What we can promise now: your photos are deleted automatically 7 days after upload, and finished videos 7 days after they are generated, so the only thing that lingers is whatever you have downloaded.

Where to go next

Want the backstory first? Read what the Tiny Desk meme actually is, or meet the singer whose 2023 finale started it all. Ready to cast your own band? The homepage walkthrough repeats these three steps, and the generator on that page is waiting for your lead singer.