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

[VOODOO U]

Read the scripture.

I'd rather go to hell.

[enroe]

An A.I. prompt user is not a musician. Just someone who likes to lie to himself.

That brings us neatly back to the topic.

[Gamma-UT]

If a song takes a year or so until it's good enough then it's not good enough. It's a leech sucking on you with precious little tidbits and it needs to be burned alive. Get rid of it.

It's No Game, the song that bookends Scary Monsters, spent a decade or more in Bowie's notebooks. The melody began with one of his early songs and went through a bunch of revisions before it mutated into the two different versions on the album. The lyrics were also completely different: it was originally about suicide.

The idea that all end results come easily from an initial idea just doesn't match how much art really gets made. A lot of stuff comes from sketches that need to be reworked and refined to make them work. Sometimes it's the original idea that gets junked in the final product but if you're just burning everything that doesn't work instantly, you're just making things even more difficult for yourself. Not least because you're not learning how to differentiate from good and bad ideas. Or ideas that don't work for the particular song you're working on. There are plenty of other examples of ideas getting pulled from one song and dumped into a notebook to be used elsewhere because they just didn't work in the original.

This is why generative AI pretty much doesn't work: it doesn't support a way of working that lets you pull the bits apart. All you can do is write a different prompt and hope it keeps something you liked from the first prompt. The chances are the AI will do as you suggest and burn the original while copying elements from a different bunch of songs.

[GaryG]

An A.I. prompt user is not a musician. Just someone who likes to lie to himself.

That brings us neatly back to the topic.

let's spice things up a bit

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[cron]

I think we're already seeing AI affect the plugin industry, but it's not because people are making music with AI, it's because they're making plugins with it. A giant flood of mostly $10 - $50 efforts. I saw one first time dev debut with a multipack of 60 plugins the other day. How many developers in history have ever released 60 plugins? Maybe Waves, a handful who've been around for decades?

The budget/midrange market is getting absolutely saturated with plugins made by people who likely don't even know what version control is let alone how to fix a bug without breaking existing projects. I have no idea how new developers in this segment are supposed to punch through in 2026 and beyond. The developers who were previously afforded the trajectory to become Klanghelms or Valhallas because simply writing a great plugin was enough - now such developers need to release great plugins and spend time building trust that their codebase isn't a one-off dead end they barely understand.

[D-Fusion]

I think we're already seeing AI affect the plugin industry, but it's not because people are making music with AI, it's because they're making plugins with it. A giant flood of mostly $10 - $50 efforts. I saw one first time dev debut with a multipack of 60 plugins the other day. How many developers in history have ever released 60 plugins? Maybe Waves, a handful who've been around for decades?

The budget/midrange market is getting absolutely saturated with plugins made by people who likely don't even know what version control is let alone how to fix a bug without breaking existing projects. I have no idea how new developers in this segment are supposed to punch through in 2026 and beyond. The developers who were previously afforded the trajectory to become Klanghelms or Valhallas because simply writing a great plugin was enough - now such developers need to release great plugins and spend time building trust that their codebase isn't a one-off dead end they barely understand.

I stay away from those plugins just like i did in the Synthedit days.
I find them to be short lived cash grabs so i am only interested in the free ones.

[enroe]

An A.I. prompt user is not a musician. Just someone who likes to lie to himself.

That brings us neatly back to the topic.

let's spice things up a bit

648289746_1343343681153415_338620073333490347_n.jpg

Well, that’s one of those phenomena: whether or not AI takes over music
production entirely — thereby rendering all plugins obsolete, for instance
— isn't a matter for a vote here on KVR. Instead, it’s going to happen — one
way or the other!

[ghettosynth]

I’d assume about his adolescence (chords and melodies) and how supportive his fanbase are (hence the title “For You”)

I got absolutely none of that. Not a jot. It was so cheesy I couldn't even be sure it wasn't musical irony. But maybe adolescence makes sense, too, because it definitely screamed of immaturity.

Yeah, I don't think that story is in there. You've got to come correct with the clarity if you want people to hear your emotional message. Like this, although, full disclosure, I stole the inspiration for the idea. I did spend 2-3 full minutes making the video though, so there's that.

[Hipster Bales]

I’d assume about his adolescence (chords and melodies) and how supportive his fanbase are (hence the title “For You”)

I got absolutely none of that. Not a jot. It was so cheesy I couldn't even be sure it wasn't musical irony. But maybe adolescence makes sense, too, because it definitely screamed of immaturity.

Yeah, I don't think that story is in there. You've got to come correct with the clarity if you want people to hear your emotional message. Like this, although, full disclosure, I stole the inspiration for the idea. I did spend 2-3 full minutes making the video though, so there's that.

XD ok that was funny. but no my song's not about Chris Hemsworth, there's a town in the UK called Hemsworth, where I live.

time to shut up

[VOODOO U]

It's No Game, the song that bookends Scary Monsters, spent a decade or more in Bowie's notebooks.

So? The first is alright the second boring. Now what? Am I supposed to kowtow just because it took a decade to complete??
A song taking up more precious time to complete does not equal better.

A lot of stuff comes from sketches that need to be reworked and refined to make them work

.
Fair enough but when that judgemental mind takes over where it resists an idea holding it hostage, that's key to let go because ingrained beliefs are difficult to override. Trust the subconscious will guide you in that case because it knows you more than you know yourself. It knows what you like. Your conscious self is constantly in judgement mode so no art ever gets done with it in the driver's seat. A good idea relaxes it like a drug. That good idea is what should be utilized and not messed with too much. It can be teased and polished but keep it.

Sometimes it's the original idea that gets junked in the final product but if you're just burning everything that doesn't work instantly, you're just making things even more difficult for yourself

.
I guess that's all perspective and attitude. Genius works instantly and I honor that. Otherwise judgement takes over and it's too rigid. Too demanding. Alcohol and drugs shuts it the f**k up. Otherwise you're going to be at war for months at a time. Now you tell me which is more difficult? I'd rather honor my initial idea and tell that judgemental mind to shut the f**k up with a full bottle of JD. Welcome to earth.

Not least because you're not learning how to differentiate from good and bad ideas.

Judgement. Bruce Lee said it best.... Don't think......FEEEEEL.

This is why generative AI pretty much doesn't work: it doesn't support a way of working that lets you pull the bits apart.

Not yet. It'll get there sooner than later.

[Zeisner]

but no my song's not about Chris Hemsworth, there's a town in the UK called Hemsworth, where I live.

To me, the track sounds like it's referring to a very particular place at a very particular time. Having a good time with special people (but not many people, just the right ones) with sprinkles of melancholy (Maybe a family member or friend moving away or it turned out the love interest doesn't feel the same).

[Zeisner]

The budget/midrange market is getting absolutely saturated with plugins made by people who likely don't even know what version control is let alone how to fix a bug without breaking existing projects.

Or who know anything about music theory, DSP, audio production, psychoacoustics etc. And this always results in something that is completely useless to work with, even if it's free.

[BONES]

Well thank God for the punk approach because yeah, everything can always be better but who gives a f**k.... it's finished.

When? When you're bored with it? That's putting yourself before the music. I could never do that.

If "good as it could possibly be" means spending months on a song then more power to you if that is working out good. I'd sincerely go mad if I had to spend months on a song.

Then it probably doesn't mean as much to you as it does to me, which is fair enough but I feel a responsibility to make it as good as it can possibly be.

I do realize that there are changes that could always be made, I'm guilty of that as well, but there's a fine line where "let it go" sits good enough to let a song breathe with sincerity as opposed to with scientific polish. That's as best I can describe it.

Sounds like a cop-out to me.

If a song takes a year or so until it's good enough then it's not good enough.

Then it will never make it onto an album and we'll never play it live and that's fine, as long as I'm sure it can't get any better. But usually we'll know early on if something's worth spending time on or not and sometimes I/we will put something aside that we know has potential but is not happening for us at the time. Maybe we'll come back to it later or maybe it eventually gets forgotten. And that's the other thing, it's not just me, I have responsibilities to the collaboration. Most of the tings I work on come from my bandmate, not me, so I have a responsibility to do my best for him, too. And to the label. I'm a grown-up, not an indulgent child, I understand responsibility and take it seriously.

It's a leech sucking on you with precious little tidbits and it needs to be burned alive.

Or maybe it's drawing out my creativity?

What you think is "good enough" after it latched onto you for a year or so is more than likely just a bad B side.

Well, audiences and charts would tend to disagree. That's the thing - ultimately I am putting it out there for the world to judge so I'm not going to sell it short or give up on something I know is worthwhile, just because I'm happy with it as is.

As long as it's sincere it works.

I've not found that to be the case. I can't listen to a badly produced song, no matter how much potential I think it might have. I think that's why I had little or not interest in music growing up, production values of the time weren't able to have an emotional impact that I could connect with. That's even true of a lot of Punk music -decent songs ruined by poor production.

Yep - you got me beat according to your standards of keeping things simple - less tracks and effects. Doesn't mean your output is better than mine.

Who'd know, I've never heard any of your music.

Yeah Im aware Relax was a hit. When I said not a hit in my book I meant not a hit according to my standards.

I'd say the same about any Celene Dion or Whitney Houston hit but that doesn't make it so. Relax is a great song that I have found very hard to cover because it's all in the production, there's not actually much of a "song" there at all. It's not something I could ever imagine someone pulling off with an acoustic guitar.

Great! So where is your too f**king easy classical piece for us all to share in wonderment?

Beethoven's 5th is hardly difficult - da-da-da-daaaaa!

As I said, if we were only doing music, not songs, we could pump out two albums a year and they could play them in lifts and lobbies throughout the free world. It's too f**king easy these days, any idiot can do it.

Any idiot can write music? Agreed. Any idiot can write music that gets played in lifts and lobbies because it's too f**king easy? Good luck.

Clearly you have no understanding of performance.

I'm all ears and willing to understand performance if you're willing to share.

Whatever happened to "If we expect people to buy our music, it needs to be as good as it can possibly be"??

You can't second-guess what other people will like, you can only know what you like and have confidence others will, too. If you're Justin Biber, you can be confident that millions will like it. If you're me, you have to be satisfied that dozens might.

Don't kid yourself, you write for other people hence why it takes you months to finish a song.

Is it really so hard to get your head around the concept that music might matter in and of itself?

I have one style that I can tolerate and listen to over and over again. It's me being loose, not giving a f**k. Everything else is boring nonsense that belongs to artists that embarrassingly take themselves too serious.

I find that everything has its place. I can do covers in a different style and be OK with it, because that's what the song needs. Again, it's about serving the song, not yourself or the audience.

[Touch The Universe]

No, that's what the secular world believes to justify living as they would like and not according to wisdom/righteousness and what fools believe if they think they know everything, as though there is not mystery in being

There is no mystery in being, just chemistry. When the chemistry becomes sufficiently complex, we call it biology. It's all well understood.

We are made in the image of God

Really? Then what sort of c**t must God be if the likes of Jeffrey Dharmer were made in his image? Remember, too, that yours is the same God that Jihadist Muslims use to justify the shit they do. THE SAME GOD.

even a child can grasp life is good and has meaning.

I child doesn't know any better, they believe whatever you tell them and we protect them from uncomfortable truths until we think they are old enough to deal with them..

Humans can't invent prophecies or miracles or resurrections.

Of course they can, unless you think the Bible was written by monkeys. They've been inventing that bullshit all over the world for millennia. If you were brought up in India, you'd believe in 3,000 Hindu gods, if you were born in Asia you'd follow the teachings of Buddha. Everybody's got their own god and they are all bullshit.

I'd seriously study scripture.

Oh, I have a good grounding in it but even as an 11 year-old going to Sunday School I could see that it made no sense, long before I'd ever heard of Occam's Razor. I would commend you search for an study "the skeptic's annotated bible" for a more realistic appraisal of the Good Book.

The universe had a beginning. Logically, If you knew enough about this subject, that means only one thing, something outside of creation, outside of causality (cause and effect) created it.

The problem then becomes who created that thing? And this is where my 11 year-old brain unwittingly applied Occam's Razor and realised that it is far more likely that the Universe was created by the Big Bang than that it was created by some infinitely more complex individual, who would have to have come from somewhere else. That said, it's always possible that some being created the Universe by accident during some chemistry experiment at school and quickly threw it into a rubbish bin before the teacher found out what he'd done. I kind of like the idea that our Universe might be running inside some cosmic school room bin.

it has a beginning, you cannot escape this fact.

Well, you can. We are creatures of the arrow of time so we think of things within that timeframe but Einstein worked out that time is not the rock-solid consistent measurement we think it is and we have been able to measure that and see the truth of it. So it is quite possible that time wasn't running before the Big Bang, which means that the Universe didn't have a beginning and the Big Bang was instead the beginning of time.

There is so much we still don't know about the origins of the Universe but I think it's safe to say that we know more than enough to dismiss any rational thought of a creator. And if the Multiverse is real and exists, as the maths suggest it must, then you have to ask yourself a question - if "god" created our universe, who created all the others. And if you want to suggest that your god created them all, then you have to ask yourself where that leaves us as his chosen people. He's probably telling all the other universes the same thing but we can't all be his favourites, can we?

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

But probably not to the Africans, for they be slaves.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

You say just, I say willfully ignorant.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

So priests buggering choir boys should have been "struck down" but weren't. Serial killers were allowed to commit murder with impunity for decades. The "word" doesn't really seem to hold much water, does it?

Anyway, I could go on all night but you'd only get upset. Suffice to say I find your "faith" appalling and if you don't, it's because you refuse to see it for what it is - an excuse for people to do unspeakable things and not feel bad about it.

II won’t be going tit for tat with you as I know that often doesn’t bear fruit. Everyone of those objections you gave I also had as well until I did research. Ask them to gtp, what would a christian say to this,, etc. You WILL find satisfactory answers to them ALL.

In short, I find a hand wavy reference to a higher power seems to be where your trust lies. But why would you want to trust in science. It gave you the entire covid fiasco. Invoking multi-universes to explain the cause of this one is bad logic. You are just pushing the origin back another layer. What created the mult-universes? If each had a beginning you are still lacking the ultimate cause. It’s a dream. A dream within a dream that can never be proved or unproven. You have to believe in on faith. I’m sorry, but it seems you aren’t up to speed on these issues. It’s important to me so I do a lot of studying in these areas and quite frankly, I can see you have only scratched the surface on the issues and NONE from a logical christian worldview perspective. CASE in point, you made the claim that molecules going from non life to life is well understood. I’m afraid that is another dream the secular world tells itself so it can live as it want, with no God judging them hanging over there shoulder. Whether you believe or not, will not change the reality of things. The word of God has an uncanny track record of coming true. It prophesied the birth of Jesus 1500 years beforehand. In fact, all of its saying have come true, or correspond to reality, with more and more evidence that is uncovered that supports it. The remaining prophecies will likewise come about, even the resurrection of all people, believer or not, then judgement. I would NEVER bet against that book, to your peril, and woe indeed.

When I said mystery of being, that was poor wording. I meant as if there is no mystery at all in this world we are apart of, of being, or existence. If you think there is no mystery or wonder and all things are known and therefore no need for faith, then, sadly, I feel this is another dream you are in.

I’m glad I was able to have bible time with you, so you would read even these lines.
Other gods, india, evil people, innocent buddhist monks who won’t harm a fly, you mean they will go to hell to? I’ve asked even tougher questions and my faith remains intact and stronger. There is simply too much to get into here. Hindu, one of there sacred scripture states the moon is made of cheese and wine. They don’t have proven prophecies the way the bible does. Jesus Christ is the singularity. Not buddha, you don’t hear the world curse his name do you. This isn’t the year 2500 ad after his birth, etc.

You bring up occam’s razor - indeed. That there is one almighty God who made the universe is more simple than invoking an infinite number of multiverses. That is laughably complicating things - in mathematics, invoking infinities MEANS your theory is busted somewhere. One almighty being who comes from somewhere else, (heaven), outside space and time is more simple than infinite branches multiverse in there own pocket spacetimes.

These are dreams and fables man tells themselves, because for some reason, above all, whatever is the cause, it cannot be a God who judges who threatens hell. Anything else but that! Once you see the logic of the bible, it’s worldview, you wouldn’t have it anyother way. You only get purpose with judgement. No judgement, then that means dahmer gets away with it, so all fades to black, for no reason. Yet, we know life is good, a child does not need to be taught this, come now. The source of that goodness is God himself. If life ever seemed good to your, it seems the bible verses I shared with you indicate your spirit and soul knows there is a God, but one suppresses that truth because of unrighteousness. Away with a God who would have me turn from the things I DEEM are good, which usually mean, it feels good so do it. This is the mentality I find.

The world is broken, bad people do bad things. That priest doing those wicked things, that same heart is in us all to different degrees. It comes down to selfishness, having things be quick and easy. That's why the bible says don’t judge anyone. We are all fallen in the curse, hence our need of a savior.

The math says there is a beginning. Math itself points to a transcendental source outside of creation. As Einstein said, it’s a wonder we can explain and understand anything. The very reasoning you are using to reason away God is actually to prove God is real, for all reasoning comes from him. If brains are the result of unguided random processes, would you trust it? I wouldn’t? But if God, a higher power, gave us reasoning to understand a universe He ordered and we can understand things because we are made in His image, like Him, which means capable of knowing Him, then that is more coherent, indeed.

He is holy, we sin, so being made in His image does not mean in all the same excommunicable attributes he shares. That is the mistake of mortal, fallible man, to imagine God is altogether like them, but couldn’t be further from the truth. His ways are higher than our, His thoughts are higher than ours.

The word of God frees you from unrighteous things that harm others and yourself. It does not lead to harming others. That is religion, or false converts, God will judge if they don’t repent. He said it is better to have a grinding stone around ones neck and cast it in the sea than to cause a little one to stumble. God has a soft spot for them, make no mistake.

The bible is actually the means which helped end slavery and gave more rights to women and education, not less. Biblically slavery only lasted 7 years, then they were let go. They went in slavery to pay off debt, like you have to work mcdonalds for 7 years to pay back student loans or something. The slavery of the amerca’s and africa were not alike at all.

Nearly every single thing you said was false, misguided, and rather superficially invoking science and math, yada yada.

500 people say christ rise from the dead and they was not enough for people to believe and trust in the God that made them - because - they love something more than Him, this world and their sin. Sucks, all we can do is cry out to God. May He make these truths uncomfortable and give a holy fear of himself. Anything is worthy it if it means you are brought to this place of seeing.

[Touch The Universe]

unless, god is the ai, creating itself, to go back in time to create the whole universe!!!

That is the course of this world. Noah hafari or what not says God does not exist, yet, until we create him

Utterly foolish illogical incoherent madness. That statement would literally fail logic if taking a semester in it.