Should I buy a DAW or use AI to make my music?

[BONES]

Yep, that's exactly what it's going to do and it's going to be good enough to replace us all much sooner than anyone realises.

My daily existence is being immersed in high end audio and music. We are going to be ok as AI has no mystery. All that vagueness, chance, emotion, being unorganized in some areas that musicians and creatives have will be what saves them. That often spoken of as negatives are in fact positives.

Unless you're on a deadline or have a reputation for being difficult to work with or any of a dozen other things that might make it preferable to deal with AI. You're thinking that people, record companies and whoever want the most creative stuff but one look at the charts will tell you that's not the case. They want a sure-fire hit and AI is going to be as capable as any human of delivering that.

[Michael L]

I think some parts of AI will become excellent, vocals for example and unrecognizable from human performance. A harsh reality is that it is already pretty close.

This past week an AI song trained on a Grammy winner's voice went viral with millions of streams by his fans before being identified and taken down, and his voice and a new verse were added to another artist's song.

AI images were recently entered in two photo contests specifically to fool the judges, they won (!) and were then revealed as non-photos.

This is good news, because it's showing the conflict of AI vs. Artist to artists and audiences. It's like the early days of sampling and digital photography, but more sophisticated.

I believe all the predictions will come true-- some producers will use AI cuz its easier, some will not cuz its boring, and some will use it to enhance their work. Like everything.

[Synthman2000]

Visual art I cannot speak about. I thought that was 100's of thousands of streams. I heard something, I think we are speaking about the same thing, you mean that thing that ducked the entire mix by 4-5dB when each over driven trap style 808 came in ?

Music is extremely broad, very deep, actually infinite. Some areas and genres may be more greatly impacted than others.

The problem with AI is it does not do details. And details is everything for those in the know.

Anyone who knows anything about music and sound be it engineering, composition or creativity knows details is the difference. The Je ne sais quoi, that magic, the enigma, intricacy. There is good and bad music, complex and simple (can be both good and bad) , how does AI know good from bad from each ? There are real lives behind some of the best music.

Don't hate on chart or pop music. It is much more difficult than you think.

There is an immense amount that needs to be brought together, that is not going to be easy. Today I am saving someone from great embarrassment, literally saving their album. AI is failing to replace me, AI is not doing a better job than I am. It has had a fair crack of the whip yet here I am earning a living. I am still here saving people's albums and making their music sound great.

There is a lot of hype right now. The hype is no where near making good music with superb fidelity. It will improve for sure, in some areas more so than others.

[Synthman2000]

Just consider the depths and realms that had to exist for this to be created. It took 5 billion years. The most complex maths is not as complex as one of Robert Plant's strands of hair never mind anything else.



You can break subjective reality down into numbers, but numbers are no more real than any other concept, just an abstract set of rules, ( a very useful and good set of rules) Yet even taking into account infinity and most complexity you cannot create our reality with numbers.

It is only for splitting up and breaking down and actually killing reality. The description is not the described. (Jiddu Krishnamurthi)

What is creation and can you get better at that in your own way ? That is a good question for every musician.

[Fle81]

Creation is subjective and that is a wonderful thing. Being creative for real you bring to the world something never existed before with your own signature. Maybe re adapted, heard or seen somewhere else but this is yours, it passes through your sense and your perception of the world.for example: We can see love two different ways and sing about it two different ways. Creation is just another language that must be learned and owned. It is for all the ones that want to pick this flower up, it is just out there to be cultivated.

[BONES]

Honestly, who gives a f**k? Creativity is the easiest thing in the world. I spend 12-14 hours every day being creative. For some of it I am paid well, so I think I am probably pretty good at it, but it's not something I rate at all. All you need if you want to be creative is to do. It's not hard, there is no magic to it, it's almost intrinsic in our make up.

This is good news, because it's showing the conflict of AI vs. Artist to artists and audiences.

Is it? I don't think that's how your average Joe will see it. Most people won't give a shit how it's made.

The problem with AI is it does not do details. And details is everything for those in the know.

Of course it does details and it does them incredibly well. Look at the detail in this AI generated image, for example -

DETAIL.jpg

Anyone who knows anything about music and sound be it engineering, composition or creativity knows details is the difference.

That's not how I see. I find the details largely irrelevant in music. That doesn't stop me agonising over them, of course, but it's become completely obvious to me over the years that simpler songs are more accessible, and therefore tend to be more popular, than songs with a lot of fine detail.

how does AI know good from bad from each ? There are real lives behind some of the best music.

It knows because you train it to know, to understand in a clinical way most humans will never master. Go to any AI site and you'll discover that everything it generates gives you an option to provide feedback, so it learns over time what people like, what works for them. And it learns quickly.

Don't hate on chart or pop music. It is much more difficult than you think.

It might be hard to actually get into the charts, because that's about a lot of things unrelated to music, but to make chart-ready songs is hardly a challenge if you like that kind of stuff.

Today I am saving someone from great embarrassment, literally saving their album.

Full of yourself, much?

AI is failing to replace me, AI is not doing a better job than I am.

Maybe not today, although I'd suggest you're wrong anyway, but this time next year it won't just be twice as good, it will be 10 times as good, or more. A year after that, 100 times and by the end of 2026, 1,000 times better than it is today. Are you so full of yourself that you think you are 1,000 times better than AI at the moment?

[kelvyn]

Damn! I’ve run out of popcorn!

[Michael L]

This is good news, because it's showing the conflict of AI vs. Artist to artists and audiences.

Is it? I don't think that's how your average Joe will see it. Most people won't give a shit how it's made.

No, they will care. Misanthropy is not "average."

Fans of a real artist have a relationship with them as humans because they both want to connect at a musical-feeling level. "Swifties" are the most extreme example now, but the way hip hop artists reference their influences through sampling is another. Even songs written by a cast of thousands (eg Kanye) are curated by one artist. Music has meaning.

You mentioned that you look forward to performing AI-written songs. You should tell your audience whenever a melody or lyric is written by AI, and see if they respond differently.

If they don't care, you might as well be a DJ or compost yourself

[Synthman2000]

I saw something about 'who cares', then I thought have I got time for an angry rant, so I passed.

[BONES]

You can stick your hands in your ears and scream "la-la-la" 'til the cows come home, it doesn't change the facts. Or are you just a bit embarrassed about how full of yourself you were sounding? I pity the artist that needs you to save them.
.

No, they will care. Misanthropy is not "average."

Ask 100 people who Max Martin is and see how many have the slightest idea.

Fans of a real artist have a relationship with them as humans because they both want to connect at a musical-feeling level.

No they don't, unless they are pathetic. How much connection do you think that idiot Sia has with her fans? Doesn't stop her from selling millions. And its all bullshit because everyone knows who she is anyway.

Music has meaning.

Not that shit.

You mentioned that you look forward to performing AI-written songs. You should tell your audience whenever a melody or lyric is written by AI, and see if they respond differently.

Why? It's not like I write more than a tiny handful anyway and nobody is going to hear me prattle on about who did what. We'll make it very plain in the next round of interviews, because we're very excited about it all, but it won't change anything.

[Michael L]

nobody is going to hear me prattle on

I really like that word, "prattle."
The Oxford dictionary defines it as "talk at length in a foolish or inconsequential way."
Almost no one uses it anymore.
Nice that you are keeping it alive!

[BONES]

You have to look up a lot of words, don't you? You should read more.

[Michael L]

You have to look up a lot of words, don't you? You should read more.

I peruse the dictionary, but I will scrutinise it more.
I am a lexophile who appreciates an accurate choice of word, such as prattle.

That feat is not feasible with AI, as I elaborated in a previous post.

For example, AI could not correctly answer the simple question,
"Is Cartman or Squidward Tentacles the cartoon character that Bones most resembles?"

[vurt]

as for your hopes, you only think like that, because you see the shit and no beauty in the world...

Quite the opposite, I see the destruction of all the beauty in the world at an ever increasing rate, trampled to death by over-population like a f**king plague. Let me give you an example. It is estimated that a feral cat kills five animals a day, mostly native animals who never evolved to deal with this invasive predator. Five animals a day doesn't sound like much, until you discover that there are an estimated 20 million feral cats loose in the wild in Australia. So that means cats are killing 100 million native animals a day. That's 36.5 billion native animals gone every year, at the hands of a single invasive species. How long until they are all gone? Of course, no-one will do anything about it because little girls love cats and don't want to see them hurt. And you want to suggest the world of people is worth saving? I'm not seeing it, I'm afraid.

try listening to something less grrrr for a month or two

Interestingly, I'm listening to the most recent Opposition album at the moment, which is no "grrrr" element to it at all, and I've been getting quite into Agnes Obel's music lately. I find her vocals intriguing and I love the strings she uses.

right, i agree to the problem, i just find your hopes (wiping out humanity) to be unhelpful as a solution.
the cats need culling, simple.
how we approach this, given you worry about upsetting young girls, you don't send michael in hungry, (wtf? pretty sure we're not supposed to eat cats for health reasons rather than ethical but hey ...) here, we sent vets in to cut balls off and remove wombs.
it takes time admittedly and money, but it's doable, if people push for it.

surprised me the reason for your hopes tbh, never had you down as a quitter

i shall check the album out on youtube. cheers.

[bookofthoth]

What I don't understand, is why everyone is calling it A.I. , clever algorithms and massive datasets don't equal intelligence. It's hype. There's no dystopian nightmare coming, unless of course those with the power decide to use these emergent techniques for anything. Make no mistake though, for intelligence, you'd have to have mapped and understood the brain, and you know what they say.. if the brain was so simple we could understand it, we'd be so simple we couldn't. So, in my mind ! we're nowhere near replicating intelligence. It just looks intelligent because it can do things previously unseen or heard. We can't even get a grip on what consciousness is, let alone have it replicated into "intelligence".

Now I got that off my chest, I can understand why a lot of musicians hate the idea of this, in the same way the graphic designers hate graphic AI. They've spent so much time perfecting skills, then something comes along and could be doing them out of work. Worse still, there's accusations of artists work being used to train these datasets. It's a legal and complex minefield. To me, music is any kind of series of sounds that the listener enjoys. If the new tools create that, then what does it matter? Will they put musicians out of business? Potentially, in the same way media would use a generated graphic rather than pay an artist. Will that stop people making it, I don't think it will. It'll just exist alongside existing methods.

I like the idea of these tools being used not so much to generate tracks, but as tools to help the composition. I haven't got the time to learn all the technical complexities , I have to split time between an unrelated range of interests and research, so I need all the help I can get, and I'm not getting any younger, so remembering it all is the other part.

Good thread..