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

[Zeisner]

With AI you miss the journey. The journey is all the fun, not the end result. Each to their own.

The journey is not fun for everyone. Just read Bones' comments about how tedious everything is, how everything is a chore to him. There's a lot of people out there like him who hate making music but want to be musicians - in short, posers. Generative AI is the perfect tool for them. Finally they can outsource all the work and enjoy being social parasites.

[npdc]

With AI you miss the journey. The journey is all the fun, not the end result. Each to their own.

The journey is not fun for everyone. Just read Bones' comments about how tedious everything is, how everything is a chore to him. There's a lot of people out there like him who hate making music but want to be musicians - in short, posers. Generative AI is the perfect tool for them. Finally they can outsource all the work and enjoy being social parasites.

It's not fun because most people are lazy by nature and want everything yesterday. After years of hard work it's very fun and rewarding. Competing with yourself is the best competition ever.

[VitaminD]

You're missing a key aspect -- live performance. That's big. Jazz clubs, bars with rock or country bands, concerts, church services, etc. There is still and likely will continue to be an aspect of live performance that will also have a large portion of non-AI song writing and musicianship. As such, interesting tools will likely still be out there. Probably just in smaller number.

I think the point on fading legacy artists and the manufactured pop machine applies just as well to live music, although that definitely doesn't encompass all of live music. As those legacy artists continue to disappear, that's less live music pulling large crowds. As the manufactured pop machine keeps churning out it's product, now with the help of AI to do it more efficiently, even the masses are going to eventually tire of the monotony, and at some point I think it won't pull large crowds. Aside from that, in the scheme of things not many people listen to jazz, outside of musician circles and the minority of music heads. And music at church services isn't driving anyone wild.

I suppose there will always be plugins around to some degree, but I do see AI having a big impact on that in the coming years. I mean, right now any hobbyist musician playing at home can run HeartMuLa on a local machine for free to generate tracks to play along with, just the same as the industry pop machine has already been doing for generating songs and parts with Suno and other AI services. That means that say, a guitar player, who wants to focus on just playing guitar, doesn't need a drum plugin, a piano plugin, etc., doesn't need the relevant audio plugins, and doesn't need to put in the time to create those tracks for unlearned instruments and mixing them while likely doing a worse job than what AI will generate. And hobbyists are a huge segment of the market for plugins.

Legacy artists only? There are lots of modern artists that play in bands and/or perform live. Tons. There are just tons more that are purely recording artists, due to the ease of producing specific types of music on a PC versus with a band.

And Church services/worship bands alone make up a third of instrument sales. It's a massive market.

But, yes, I'm sure the instrument market will shrink over time. There are too many physical instruments on the market for hands to play them as it is and music appeals shift over time. People still appreciate new though so sales will still exist.

But for plugins, they are in a short lived boom. A popular trend that will wane over time. Yet there will still be a need for new there too. Mostly due to Hardware and Operating System changes. Just look what happens when Apple releases an OS upgrade -- it tends to break a lot of 3rd party plugins compatibility. There will need to developers maintaining even if they aren't developing. But they will be developing too. Humans value new and fresh packaging. Even if the core is really old and known.

But everyone is putting wayyyy too much emphasis on AI. Humans always do that -- Anything new gets overdone, overused, and over considered. It spikes then it crashes back to Earth. After that is when we start to really see the low level adoption and use-cases. I just don't see any near term impending doom for plugin developers or use.

We'll probably see more AI 'helpers' in DAWs and VSTs first. A way to feed chord progressions or music clips and have the software generate accompany elements and ideas. Those type of 'helpers' will probably be widespread and everywhere in the next few years.

And, if computing shifts to Arm, then developers get to sell everyone the same products over yet again too....

[Zeisner]

After years of hard work it's very fun and rewarding. Competing with yourself is the best competition ever.

Absolutely. It's simply fascinating to push boundaries and discover new possibilities, resulting in a music and sound not heard before. I can't imagine how boring it must be to just slap a few presets, sample libraries and MIDI packs together - or in this case, let AI generate everything for you. There is no sense of achievement, no inspiration, no progress to be found. And no individuality and identity either.

[Mike777]

Like I've said before I don't care what tools you use to create music- acoustic, electric, electronic, analog, digital, live, studio, humans, computers or AI, etc

What I care about is 1. is it good music (to me)?
and equally critical: 2. be honest how you made the music, and with who- human or machine?

[DCrown]

@VitaminD

"We'll probably see more AI 'helpers' in DAWs and VSTs first. A way to feed chord progressions or music clips and have the software generate accompany elements and ideas. Those type of 'helpers' will probably be widespread and everywhere in the next few years."

Don't wake sleeping dogs haha
No kidding if Reaper started integrating AI, I simply wouldn't upgrade any more, but I think Reaper would be one of the last daws to embrace AI, I hope so

[wagtunes]

A surprisingly smart choice to delete the attempt of lecturing an audio engineer about hearing aids. Who had that topic in class. Too bad it won't take long until you snap back to your usual routine, wagtunes...

You couldn't let this just stay dead and buried.

Okay, I can't hear. So what do you suggest I do? Give up music? My royalty checks suggest that may not be the wisest decision.

So what exactly is it that I'm supposed to do now that you've made your point?

[Zeisner]

Okay, I can't hear. So what do you suggest I do? Give up music?

Get help from someone with good ears and who can mix and edit those artifacts out. Even if you had golden ears and good mixing skills I would recommend to at least work in tandem with somebody. Two pairs of ears hear more than one no matter how good they are on their own. This applies to me as well, I'm no exception.

[guitarzan]

A surprisingly smart choice to delete the attempt of lecturing an audio engineer about hearing aids. Who had that topic in class. Too bad it won't take long until you snap back to your usual routine, wagtunes...

What a pompous ass. It looks like a mod deleted a bunch of stuff.

[BBFG#]

Jan Hammer has on occasional used arpegiators, and wave-sequencers a bit more. But many of those times people think are arpegiators are actually before their popular implementation and actually played live.

Such as:


And there are many more examples before the "Vice" days.

[wagtunes]

Okay, I can't hear. So what do you suggest I do? Give up music?

Get help from someone with good ears and who can mix and edit those artifacts out. Even if you had golden ears and good mixing skills I would recommend to at least work in tandem with somebody. Two pairs of ears hear more than one no matter how good they are on their own. This applies to me as well, I'm no exception.

Excellent advice. Here's the problem. Finding somebody who is skilled enough to make a difference (another me certainly won't do any good) is not easy to find. Then, they'd have to be willing to work with me. Then, they'd have to have the time to work with me. Then they'd have to be willing to do it for a piece of the royalties because as I am now drowning in medical bills after my accident, I have no money to pay anybody.

So while it's great advice, easier said than done. You certainly wouldn't work with me for nothing and according to you, you have great ears.

Believe me, I'd love to be another Max Martin and have a whole team of people working with me. Hell, I'll do the writing and let them do anything else because I'm sure as hell no performer or producer. I do the best I can with the tools and personnel I have.

[guitarzan]

Happy to say that I found a mirror of Tim's Atari MIDI World site — So the generative software that Jan Hammer used quite extensively for a time was called Algorithmic Composer, running on a Commodore 64. This software then evolved into Tunesmith for Atari (which is now freeware and will run on the Steem Atari emulator!):

Just a little background on Tunesmith. It came out at the time when algorithmic programs were the "big thing"..late 80's. Actually Dr T kicked it off with the "Algorithmic Composer" package for the Commadore 64. A Certain Jan Hammer found out about it and had to purchase a Commadore 64 system to put next to his $30,000 Fairlite just to run Algorithmic Composer! He used it on his Miami Vice scores. Then Jim Johnson, the Author, decided to upgrade his ideas and the result was Tunesmith for the Atari.

[BBFG#]

I've owned and played synthesizers for 56 years. I've also used (and sold) that C64 program mentioned. It didn't do what you think it did. And was no replacement for learned and practice techniques. The "arpeggiator" is the player. He used them, and s&h patches as well as later incorporating wave-sequences. But the majority of arpeggios and scales he played and regularly did so live. Again, he did this before his "Vice" days, and there are more of his fans that hope he returns to them.
I found fairly quick that there's always been a problem with digitally recording arpeggiators via MIDI. And that got me to practice more and never depend on them.
And again, I'm not against them or AI.

And here I thought I was being blocked on a foe list...

[guitarzan]

You are… doesn’t seem to be functioning now.

The point is that Jan Hammer was not opposed to algorithmic composition and was in fact a very early adapter.

I mostly knew of Jan Hammer from the 1977 album Jeff Beck With The Jan Hammer Group ‎– Live, which is still one of my favorite albums.

[BBFG#]

All pre-vice.