Suno Prompt Guide: Style, Lyrics and Tags Step by Step

Suno v6 gives you three text fields and a handful of sliders. What you put in them determines whether you get a polished track or two minutes of confusion. This guide walks through every prompt element—style box, lyrics, tags, and controls—so you know exactly what to write and where.

If you want a head start, the free Suno prompt generator at SONIQ builds structured prompts for you, complete with style descriptions and properly formatted lyrics.

Custom Mode: Where Your Prompts Live

Go to suno.com/create and choose Custom. You'll see a Style of Music box and a Lyrics box. Simple mode (the default) combines everything into one description field, which works for quick experiments but gives you less control. Custom mode separates style from lyrics and unlocks Advanced Options.

Reported field limits: the style box holds 1,000 characters, lyrics hold 5,000. Those limits are measured from the live counters in the interface and subject to change. SONIQ keeps style prompts under about 800 characters because Suno weighs the beginning of the style prompt most heavily. If you bury your key genre or mood halfway through a 900-character paragraph, it often gets ignored.

How to Write the Style of Music Prompt

The style box defines genre, mood, tempo, instrumentation, and vocal delivery. Structure it front-to-back in order of importance:

Genre first: "90s West Coast hip hop" or "indie folk with fingerpicked guitar"
Tempo and energy: "mid-tempo," "uptempo," "slow ballad," "driving beat"
Instrumentation: "808 bass, sparse hi-hats, Rhodes piano" or "acoustic guitar, cello, light percussion"
Vocal style: "raspy male vocal," "smooth female harmonies," "whispered delivery"
Mood and production: "melancholic, reverb-heavy," "aggressive, dry mix," "warm, analog feel"

Example: "90s boom bap hip hop, mid-tempo, SP-1200 drums, jazz piano sample, warm vinyl crackle, confident male vocal, introspective mood"

Put negatives in the Exclude field under Advanced Options, not inline. If you write "no autotune" or "without synths" in the style box, Suno sometimes reads those words as instructions to add them. The Exclude field was built for this. Suno negative prompts explains the mechanics in detail.

If you're consistently getting results that drift from your prompt, why Suno ignores your prompt covers the most common causes and fixes.

Formatting Lyrics and Section Tags

Paste or write your lyrics in the Lyrics box. Suno's help docs don't officially document bracketed section tags, but community practice uses them extensively and they usually work. Put each tag on its own line:

[Intro]
[Verse]
[Pre-Chorus]
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
[Outro]
[Instrumental]
[Break]

Example lyric structure:

[Intro]

[Verse]
Walking through the city at 3 a.m.
Streetlights flicker, shadows blend

[Chorus]
I'm chasing echoes, chasing time
Every corner hides a sign

[Verse]
Empty storefronts, graffiti walls
Hear my footsteps, hear the calls

[Chorus]
I'm chasing echoes, chasing time
Every corner hides a sign

[Outro]

Day-one v6 tests reported that performance cues in brackets sometimes work per section—[Verse - whispered], [Chorus - belted]—but this isn't documented and results vary. Treat it as experimental.

If you need a solo or instrumental break mid-song, how to add a Suno instrumental break walks through the tag placement and timing.

You keep full rights to original lyrics you enter in Custom mode. If you're learning to write lyrics from scratch, how to write song lyrics for beginners covers structure, rhyme, and storytelling basics.

Advanced Options: The Controls That Shape Output

Click Advanced Options below the lyrics box. Here's what each slider and field does:

Exclude: List instruments, styles, or effects you don't want. "autotune, trap hi-hats, reverb" tells Suno to avoid those elements. This is where negatives belong.

Vocal Gender: Male or Female. In Simple mode, write "male vocals" or "female vocals" in the description instead.

Weirdness: Slider from Safe to Chaos. 50% is normal. Push it higher for experimental textures, lower for predictable results. v6-wild already leans unpredictable; adding high Weirdness on top often produces unusable takes.

Style Influence: Loose to Strong. Reported default is 50%. Higher values make Suno follow your style prompt more literally. Lower values let it interpret more freely. If your prompt is vague, high Style Influence won't save it.

Variety: Controls take-to-take difference. Set to 0 to lock in your style prompt exactly as written. Higher values let Suno vary interpretation between the two takes each generation produces.

Max Mode: Costs more credits. Suno recommends it for songs longer than two minutes, covers, and style transfers. It doesn't make short songs better; it gives the model more compute time for complex tasks.

Duration: All three v6 models (v6, v6-wild, v6-mini) support up to 8 minutes in one generation. Extend continues beyond that. If you need to extend a track, how to extend a song in Suno covers the workflow and common errors.

Audio Influence: Appears when you upload audio. Controls how much the uploaded file shapes the output.

Editing After Generation

Once you have a song, the triple-dot menu unlocks editing tools. Pro and Premier users get the full set; free users get basic tools.

Replace Section (Pro and Premier): Edit then Replace Section. Drag to highlight a section—its lyrics highlight automatically. Edit the lyrics, hit Recreate Section, and you get two versions. This changes the middle of a song without regenerating the whole track. Suno v6 section edit explains the mechanics and when to use it versus Extend or Crop.

Cover Song (beta, Pro and Premier): Create then Cover Song on a song you made. Keeps the melody, changes the style. Only works on your own songs, not tracks from other users.

Personas: Triple-dot, Create, Make Persona. Name it, add an avatar and description. A Persona saves a song's vocals and style for reuse in new songs. Public by default; you can set it private. Find your Personas at suno.com/me/personas. In Custom mode they appear above the lyrics field. Choosing one auto-fills the Style of Music box. Suno Persona covers creation, privacy settings, and use cases.

Other documented tools: Crop (trim start or end), Remaster, Add Vocals, Inspire, Song Editor, stem separation, Suno Sounds (custom samples), Voices (use your own voice), Custom Models (train on 6+ of your own tracks, reported 100 credits), Workspaces, My Taste.

If you want to change lyrics but keep the music, how to change lyrics in Suno and keep the music compares Replace Section, Extend with new lyrics, and full regeneration.

Which v6 Model to Choose

Suno released three v6 models on September 9, 2026, and retired everything before v6 the same day. Old songs still play.

v6 (Pro and Premier): The flagship. Reliable, precise, polished. Use this for most work.

v6-wild (Pro and Premier): Less predictable, more varied, textured. Early testers report many takes are unusable, but when it hits, it delivers textures v6 won't. Budget extra credits for re-rolls.

v6-mini (free, all plans): Fastest. The free model. Good for testing ideas before committing credits to v6 or v6-wild.

Each generation makes two songs for 10 credits total, unchanged from previous versions. Multi-image and video prompts cost more. Reported plan limits (subject to change): Pro gets 2,500 credits and 20 downloads a month; Premier gets 10,000 credits and 60 downloads. Extra downloads cost $2.99 each.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long can a Suno v6 style prompt be?

The style box holds up to 1,000 characters, measured from the live counter. SONIQ keeps prompts under 800 because Suno weighs the beginning most. If you write a 900-character paragraph, key details at the end often get ignored.

Do section tags like [Verse] and [Chorus] always work?

Suno's help docs don't officially document bracketed tags. Community practice uses them extensively and they usually work, but they're not guaranteed. Treat them as strong suggestions, not commands.

Should I use v6 or v6-wild for my first generation?

Start with v6. It's reliable and polished. Try v6-wild when you want experimental textures and can afford extra takes, because early testers report many outputs are unusable. v6-mini is fastest and free, good for testing before you commit credits.

Head to SONIQ's app to build prompts, flip samples, and edit sections with tools designed for Suno v6.