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

[Zeisner]

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

Ever had a friend who fell for MLM? Same thing. They think that they can finally make big money without putting in much work. Then you tell them it's not going to work (and why it's not going to work) and they get pissed because they think you want to keep them from getting rich. It shares a lot with cult/religious thinking. Logic doesn't matter, facts don't matter, it's all just feelings.

Another aspect: Those people simply can't hear any musical or sound qualities. They can't differentiate between a real guitar, a 4 MB SF2 guitar or an AI guitar, it all sounds the same to them. They also can't hear any musical quality difference between Prince's Sign O’ The Times or The Shaggs' Philosophy Of The World. It's all "just music". You can point out the differences over and over again, they won't understand. Just listen to the non-AI music those people make. Anyone with a sense for quality would be too embarrassed to release any of that.

[Grizzellda]

Well, I am going to attempt to use AI for whatever it is "good at" and attempt to blend it with "whatever I am good at"...

and see where we go!!!

Like writing a rock song would be cool, for starters...

[guitarzan]

…Neither can it use or employ analogue. Analogue is not matched yet…

Some of the AI music apps use midi (input and output) for their collaborative composing tools, so these apps could then run analog synths and effects (or your choice of virtual analog plugins, etc).

These are the AI tools that interest me because they allow for unrestricted editing. Not much different in concept than the algorithm based composing tools that have been around for 30+ years but they seem to be much more capable.

[DCrown]

AI, AI, AI!
What do we need musicians and plugins for today? The question is not if AI replaces musicians and plugins, the question is how could anyone still use or buy plugins in 2026 knowing that in 5 years every plugin dev will...

The most stupid thing one could do is to still buy more plugins if he already has some plugins let''s say 25 third party plugins.

I know you will not believe me, but I would sometimes buy up to 10 plugins in one year in the past ( before covid). Imagine in one year only!!! Last year I bought 2 and I can't even tell why, should really completely stop buying.

Mr Wagtunes, maybe you should try to understand or accept that someone who has a different view than you is not automatically your enemy. And using swear words might not be good for your karma.
The most important thing as far as music is concerned should be whether you enjoy making music, whatever tool you use, whatever someone says about your music.
I never cared at all if someone disliked my music, it was just music.
I had an overdose of music consumption and creation, jams and live performances in my very young years, so actually I shouldn't complain about oversaturated market today, there are more important things than music like laundry, cooking a good meal and daily tasks. My goal was never to become a famous or successful musician, so I might have a completely different approach to music than most of you.

[Grizzellda]

I am slowly putting together a new system...around a Ryzen chip that prolly would have been impressive a couple of years ago.

Like planning to assemble a machine...yeah my heart was pure about it, but too much alcohol abuse and I will admit...cannot get anything done.

Not building very many computers around here...vomiting alot, actually ...

I think this machine should probably run Linux, and Zebra 3.

Perhaps then, and only then! will my drunkeness and poor behavior...be vindicated!

[DCrown]

My cpu has issues with Zebra 3 beta, as well, it is a great synth, but not having it won't start me drinking haha If it ran on my system without issues, I would probably make the mistake to buy it, even though I already have 3 main softsynths.

[Grizzellda]

Well, I did buy it and plan to really gel well with it. Totally rearranging my stupid life here, must be done. Also looking forward to MuLab 10.

Looks like he has been seriously working on it (MuLab) and making progress, tech gains here with this program, but I have somehow not been paying attention...

Been going to McDonald's alot, right next door to our apartment..."The Founder"...been watching the movie....posting about it!

Yep, gett'n those egg burgers...oh, I will say I LUV those egg McMuffins. And so does my mom!

Juicy...

Oh yeah, speaking of "The Founder"...

Franchise the damn thing...already!!!

[wagtunes]

AI, AI, AI!
What do we need musicians and plugins for today? The question is not if AI replaces musicians and plugins, the question is how could anyone still use or buy plugins in 2026 knowing that in 5 years every plugin dev will...

The most stupid thing one could do is to still buy more plugins if he already has some plugins let''s say 25 third party plugins.

I know you will not believe me, but I would sometimes buy up to 10 plugins in one year in the past ( before covid). Imagine in one year only!!! Last year I bought 2 and I can't even tell why, should really completely stop buying.

Mr Wagtunes, maybe you should try to understand or accept that someone who has a different view than you is not automatically your enemy. And using swear words might not be good for your karma.
The most important thing as far as music is concerned should be whether you enjoy making music, whatever tool you use, whatever someone says about your music.
I never cared at all if someone disliked my music, it was just music.
I had an overdose of music consumption and creation, jams and live performances in my very young years, so actually I shouldn't complain about oversaturated market today, there are more important things than music like laundry, cooking a good meal and daily tasks. My goal was never to become a famous or successful musician, so I might have a completely different approach to music than most of you.

You're actually speaking civilly to me? Wow, miracles can happen. Or maybe YOU'VE been taken over by AI.

[DCrown]

I even dedicate my new piece of noise to you,
cuz it was inspired mainly by you.
It took me 2.5 hours, in two and a half hours I could cook 3 great meals, so AI could really make me finish faster in future.
Now that I expect to get famous and rich with this track, my life will completely change, peace will be replaced by fame.

https://soundcloud.com/user-216327424/i ... e-yoda-cry

[wagtunes]

I even dedicate my new piece of noise to you,
cuz it was inspired mainly by you.
It took me 2.5 hours, in two and a half hours I could cook 3 great meals, so AI could really make me finish faster in future.
Now that I expect to get famous and rich with this track, my life will completely change, peace will be replaced by fame.

https://soundcloud.com/user-216327424/i ... e-yoda-cry

Out of curiosity, I had to listen to this. It actually made me laugh. This is very good as a parody. Have you ever thought of doing parodies on today's music? You're actually very talented to do something so ridiculous and still make it sound good.

Tell me, how did you do the different voices?

Anyway, the whole thing, the production, everything, is really good.

Thanks for sharing this. I got a kick out of it.

[DCrown]

Great, I could make you laugh.
That's what Parliament Funkadelic did, just watched an interview with George Clinton - parody!

The idea started with that crazy synth bass sound from some Cherry Audio synth, a lot of synths from my Yamaha S90 synth.
I listened a lot to Parliament Funkadelic and even more to Sly Stone and Prince, so a funky voice that often sounds like parody is something I am used to. A good example is Prince's Illusion, coma, pimp & circumstance (absolute masterpiece!), maybe his funkiest modern funk track - the whole song is parody or Love or Money.
It is all my voice, only somewhere at the beginning I pitched one word "cry" to a Mickey Mouse sound once.
8 or 9 tracks of vocals some parallel tracks, one with some of the vocals with a guitar amp to make them sound a bit distorted. Panning is important. Some vocals dry, some with some Lexicon plate.This time I hade to use compressor LA3a (usually I avoid compressor on vocals, prefer manual volume automation and some dip at 200 hz with Pultec, that's all. I have several mics, I used a mic this time I usually prefer for percussion and other instruments, Rode whatever (forgot the model).
I don't know if it's a trick, but it works better for me to keep vocals dry and whenever I use reverb I don't send all vocals to a reverb.
Most fun on funky tracks is always bass for me.

[DCrown]

Prince also didn't need any effect on vocals live to have that Mickey Mouse sound, you just have to sing funky.

Another famous song with a super funky voice,
even the way he was dressed is a kind of parody to me, listen when he sings "smile" at the beginning 1st verse and then also "while" he automatically adds that Mickey Mouse timbre, Mickey Mouse obviously was funky haha

[wagtunes]

Great, I could make you laugh.
That's what Parliament Funkadelic did, just watched an interview with George Clinton - parody!

The idea started with that crazy synth bass sound from some Cherry Audio synth, a lot of synths from my Yamaha S90 synth.
I listened a lot to Parliament Funkadelic and even more to Sly Stone and Prince, so a funky voice that often sounds like parody is something I am used to. A good example is Prince's Illusion, coma, pimp & circumstance (absolute masterpiece!), maybe his funkiest modern funk track - the whole song is parody or Love or Money.
It is all my voice, only somewhere at the beginning I pitched one word "cry" to a Mickey Mouse sound once.
8 or 9 tracks of vocals some parallel tracks, one with some of the vocals with a guitar amp to make them sound a bit distorted. Panning is important. Some vocals dry, some with some Lexicon plate.This time I hade to use compressor LA3a (usually I avoid compressor on vocals, prefer manual volume automation and some dip at 200 hz with Pultec, that's all. I have several mics, I used a mic this time I usually prefer for percussion and other instruments, Rode whatever (forgot the model).
I don't know if it's a trick, but it works better for me to keep vocals dry and whenever I use reverb I don't send all vocals to a reverb.
Most fun on funky tracks is always bass for me.

You obviously put a lot of work into this. Sounds to me that you've got quite a few tools in your studio. Hardware and software? What DAW do you use?

I see that Prince, Sly and probably other funk and soul artists are your main inspiration. So I think it's safe to say our musical tastes are quite different, even if I do listen to Prince, Sly, Funkadelics and others. They're just not at the top of my list. Though I love "Manic Monday" by the Bangles (written by Prince)

We may have our differences, and I suspect we always will, but as an artist, you're alright. Looking forward to hearing more of your stuff over at the music cafe.

[DCrown]

I use Reaper and as a pupil of Prince I work extremely fast, I don't mess around with too many options or choices
Compressor ? ReaComp or LA3a emu sometimes even on master bus.
Mastering comp The Glue
EQ? ReaEq or Pultec emu
Delay? ReaDelay or Vallhala

Microphones are very important. You have to find out what Microphone works best for your voice and recording environment. A Neumann U47 or 67 would be a bad choice for me, cuz my room is not treated perfectly for recording, but I know what mics to use in such an environment, Neumanns are too sensitive optimized for perfect environment and you would record your mess together with your voice. I tested about 25 mics in my life.

If you want to learn how to improve background vocals, listen to Prince's song "7" and "Adore", all vocals by Prince and these songs are rather Gospel, Prince covered a lot of different genres.
One more recommendation is not to waste too much time on trying to find instruments that are masking, I hope that's the correct term, I saw Sonible offering an option to find overlaping frequencies of Instruments - waste of time.
It is natural that frequencies overlap, panning is the better solution. That's why I often repeated that today's mixes sound over-polished, well, I don't like that, there must be some natural dirt imo.
I am a lover of Yamaha instruments and I was never tempted to play a different guitar than my Fender Strat and Fender Precision bass, I love Nylon string guitar so much and the funkiest albums for me are Fresh by Sly Stone and NPG Exodus (Prince). Fav guitar player Prince and Paco de Lucia, fav drummer Mitch Mitchell and Andy Newmark on Sly's Fresh album, fav singers Prince, Sly and Al Green, fav bassist Prince and fav pianists or on keys hmmm difficult I like Prince's Monk style, Stevie is great and Arthur Rubinstein"s Chopin interpretations and Glenn Gould's Bach. Miles Davis is great! That's all about me.

What daw are you using?

Maybe one more reply, cuz this thread is about whether AI will replace musicians and plugins.
Well, I guess the next generations will decide.
I would like to give you an advice how you could make your vocals even better and I am sure some like it the way it is, but I have no clue about ai, so maybe listen to these two Prince songs I recommended, I learned a very lot from them. I couldn't tell my fav Prince songs, but if I had to, probably The beautiful ones (what he did in 2nd part with his voice is pure passion and omg the synths) and Adore.

[wagtunes]

I use Reaper and as a pupil of Prince I work extremely fast, I don't mess around with too many options or choices
Compressor ? ReaComp or LA3a emu.
EQ? ReaEq or Pultec emu
Delay? ReaDelay or Vallhala

If you want to learn how to improve background vocals, listen to Prince's song "7" and "Adore", all vocals by Prince and these songs are rather Gospel, Prince covered a lot of different genres.
One more recommendation is not to waste too much time on trying to find instruments that are masking, I hope that's the correct term, I saw Sonible offering an option to find overlaping frequencies of Instruments - waste of time.
It is natural that frequencies overlap, panning is the better solution. That's why I often repeated that today's mixes sound over-polished, well, I don't like that, there must be some natural dirt imo.
I am a lover of Yamaha instruments and I was never tempted to play a different guitar than my Fender Strat and Fender Precision bass, I love Nylon string guitar so much and the funkiest albums for me are Fresh by Sly Stone and NPG Exodus (Prince). Fav guitar player Prince and Paco de Lucia, fav drummer Mitch Mitchell and Andy Newmark on Sly's Fresh album, fav singers Prince, Sly and Al Green, fav bassist Prince and fav pianists or on keys hmmm difficult I like Prince's Monk style, Stevie is great and Arthur Rubinstein"s Chopin interpretations and Glenn Gould's Bach. Miles Davis is great! That's all about me.

What daw are you using?

Maybe one more reply, cuz this thread is about whether AI will replace musicians and plugins.
Well, I guess the next generations will decide.
I would like to give you an advice how you could make your vocals even better and I am sure some like it the way it is, but I have no clue about ai, so maybe listen to these two Prince songs I recommended, I learned a very lot from them. I couldn't tell my fav Prince songs, but if I had to, probably The beautiful ones (what he did in 2nd part with his voice is pure passion and omg the synths) and Adore.

Maybe we should take this to our own private thread in the Off Topic Forum. I'll set it up and send you the link. And of course others can join in if they want to contribute to the topic. This should be fun.