If AI replaces musicians, does the entire plugin industry die with them?

[DCrown]

Okay, here you go. This is just a small snippet from a song I'm working on. Two versions. No processing at all on either version. Dry as a bone.

Tell me which version you think sounds better. One is my voice and one is the AI voice. No, I'm not telling you which is which. And to make it harder, there is no pitch correction on either one yet. So you won't be able to tell from that.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... est-vocals

Well, nowadays we can not trust any post any more. is the post by a real human or just AI generated? It kinda scares me.
And your task obviously tries making it hard to guess, that's the main intention and thus this intention, task and post could only have been sent by AI. There's not even some typo and even if there was it could be an ai trick to distract from the truth
I am not going to listen to AI and especially not have a conversation with AI about music.
AI robot, you have been exposed!

[Grizzellda]

Alright, do not know what the Superbowl has to do with this. Will AI replace football players?

Or musicians...artists??? NO I say.

[Bunny_boy]

Okay, here you go. This is just a small snippet from a song I'm working on. Two versions. No processing at all on either version. Dry as a bone.

Tell me which version you think sounds better. One is my voice and one is the AI voice. No, I'm not telling you which is which. And to make it harder, there is no pitch correction on either one yet. So you won't be able to tell from that.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... est-vocals

Well, nowadays we can not trust any post any more. is the post by a real human or just AI generated? It kinda scares me.
And your task obviously tries making it hard to guess, that's the main intention and thus this intention, task and post could only have been sent by AI. There's not even some typo and even if there was it could be an ai trick to distract from the truth
I am not going to listen to AI and especially not have a conversation with AI about music.
AI robot, you have been exposed!

I am not accusing Wagtunes of doing this in the slightest, but it reminds me of some story from when the first recorded music players were being sold.
One of the marketing gimmicks was to take a recording of an opera singer, and the actual opera singer around the department stores to demonstrate how alike the recording was to the singer singing live.
The thing being, the singer had modulated her voice so it sounded like the record, rather than singing how she would in concert.

[wagtunes]

Okay, here you go. This is just a small snippet from a song I'm working on. Two versions. No processing at all on either version. Dry as a bone.

Tell me which version you think sounds better. One is my voice and one is the AI voice. No, I'm not telling you which is which. And to make it harder, there is no pitch correction on either one yet. So you won't be able to tell from that.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... est-vocals

Well, nowadays we can not trust any post any more. is the post by a real human or just AI generated? It kinda scares me.
And your task obviously tries making it hard to guess, that's the main intention and thus this intention, task and post could only have been sent by AI. There's not even some typo and even if there was it could be an ai trick to distract from the truth
I am not going to listen to AI and especially not have a conversation with AI about music.
AI robot, you have been exposed!

Wow, I don't even know how to respond to this. So now I'm not even a real person (even though I have been a member of this forum since 2014 and long before AI).

If I offered to send you a plane ticket to come to my home and hear which one is the AI and which one is me (I'll sing it for you in person) would you take me up on my offer?

To everyone else who knows me for over 12 years now, I assure you that one is me and the other is AI. And I can prove it.

Here's one of my old songs from 6 years ago. 2020. It's a punk rock tune. Listen to this and then listen to the 2 songs I posted here. You can clearly then tell which is my voice and which is the AI voice.

The point is, he couldn't tell. That's how good AI is now.

So all this AI hatred is just sour grapes and nothing to do with the quality of the recording.

My friend, I am done arguing with you. You're a lost cause and I've already wasted way too much time on you already.

Believe what you want. Do what you want. As Clark Gable so eloquently put it, "Frankly, I don't give a damn."

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... -of-an-eye

[mi-os]

Why do some people defend this AI crap so vehemently? Why do you seem to take it personally when others reject it?

[wagtunes]

Why do some people defend this AI crap so vehemently? Why do you seem to take it personally when others reject it?

They can reject anything they like, but when they call me a liar, that's where I draw the line.

But the bigger point is, my example proves you can't tell "good" AI from a real singer.

[Saukar30]

Ive been on this forum for 20 years, making music longer, I have multiple releases, produced a few people and I use AI.

Ain’t no way AI can ever replace the performance of humans… recorded or live. It’s not a question. The only reason AI is as big as it is is because it’s easy and corporately designed as a product. It can never be an expression. What I will say that the environmental impact slows me down from using it as I’ve learned more about it.

Sometimes I think people who worry about this kind of stuff should check in for counseling for depression as you can’t see the forest for the trees. A computer program can’t replace your human intuition… only mimic it.

If you take audio + midi stems from an ai song, you are free to interpret that any way you like to rearrange and distort it to your will. Your choices as a human to see past how it was created to make your own thing is what can separate it from being just mere slop. Especially if you collab with other people. It’s no different from taking a loop that is in a Omnisphere and manipulating it. It’s no different than taking a sample from a record. It also would be no different than a re-interpretation of Mozart or Beethoven. How you see it defines what it is. As of now, people just prompt and then release. That’s how you know it’s not real art. But if you, you creative masterminded KVR forum home prpducer were to use the same thing you would view it differently. What do yall think that things like the One Synth challenge is for?

Don’t ever think that anything other humans made can’t be surpassed.

[billinder33]

If you take audio + midi stems from an ai song, you are free to interpret that any way you like to rearrange and distort it to your will. ... It’s no different from taking a loop that is in a Omnisphere and manipulating it. It’s no different than taking a sample from a record. How you see it defines what it is.

This is how I see it. I don't have a bank of vocalists to work with, so for me it's a nice acapella generator.

As of now, people just prompt and then release. That’s how you know it’s not real art.

The unfortunate aspect of it being so easy is the flood and drowning out of people who using it (or not) to create actual art.

[Zeisner]

Tell me which version you think sounds better.

Both sound bad. If I had to decide which one is the real voice I would choose the first example. Pro tip: If your performance and expression sucks - and it does - you need to either mess up the tremolo of the AI voice (Too perfect, considering that the rest of the performance is so bad), or, well... you need to get better at performing. And that artificial accent mess also gives away which one is AI "enhanced". No human being has four different british and two american accents. Accents are also never evenly distributed, one is always very dominant, a second much weaker and a possible third one can barely be heard (which also requires a lot of material). Stick to american accents because most of the training material feature american singers. This reduces artifacts.

Your voice isn't such a problem. With the right microphone, EQ and some saturation you could make it sound much more defined. The biggest problems are your performance and expression. There is no feeling, no passion, no message, no urgency. No AI or singing lessions can give you any of that, it must come from within.

[Stokely]

For those saying "AI will never replace musicians", well...I hope you are right. My own cynical take is: never underestimate the apathy of the public. Look how tracks and even lip-syncing is very commonplace these days, even down at very local levels. I would never have thought I'd see that accepted (other than for little noodly sequences and background sounds) back when Milli Vanalli caused that huge scandal. Now that wouldn't even make the news.

(Not to get into any argument about tracks, they are here to stay regardless of how I feel about them...the war's over, the bums/purists lost. Just using them as example of changing norms.)

[Mike777]

If John Doe listens to AI music (not that he would even know or care) and likes it, that's ALL that matters.

Trying to roll the musical world up in a ball that you call "good or bad" is irrelevant and pointless.

You will not change what people want to and ENJOY listening to.

Maybe once you accept that, MAYBE you might find some happiness in this world.

But maybe you have to reach my age to understand that.

That's the main point. Most people listening to music don't care how it's produced. They don't know if auto tune was used etc. A song may be completely AI and they like it. I heard a country song made completely by AI and I liked it a lot. It was better imo then most of the currently produced country music by the industry.

The current state of commercially produced music is not very good. A few good songs are made each year but not many. Independent artists are making better music more often imo. Thankfully we can hear them online.

As argued a lot here, AI is a new production tool that can be used or not to create music. What matters to me the most is not what tools you use, it's what you make with those tools. AND most important being honest of what AI tools you used to create your music.

[mi-os]

Have you guys ever heard of artistic integrity? To me, it looks like you're all just trying to justify the AI cheating to yourselves.

[Zeisner]

Have you guys ever heard of artistic integrity?

Not just integrity or decency or dignity. It can be summed up in excellence.

[VitaminD]

Artistic integrity?

Are there others at kvr who genuinely consider their music as art or even an artistic outlet? Over the years, I've seen tons of synth noodling, plugin hoarders, shopping therapy, and technology arguments. It seem more of a (mostly) lighthearted entertainment focus at kvr than those that have a focus on honing and crafting art.

For decades I've wished there was a forum more focused on helping and advancing music artists towards better artwork, but I don't think it exists. I'm not necessarily referring to academic geekitry or deep dives into music theory, but simply people more serious about what they are writing in their studios. I don't see that here.

[DCrown]

Why do some people defend this AI crap so vehemently? Why do you seem to take it personally when others reject it?

They can reject anything they like, but when they call me a liar, that's where I draw the line.

But the bigger point is, my example proves you can't tell "good" AI from a real singer.

As someone else already wrote, both songs have bad vocals, so it is not worth the time to start a discussion whether ai or not. I never said only ai produces bad results.