Has anyone invented an AI "uber-brain" plugin yet?

[AudioBabble]

Have been musing lately on various "AI" tools for DAW integration: sample library browsers, composer/helpers/chord suggesters, that sort of thing...

Just wondered if anyone's thought of a unified "uber plugin" that does it all?

Would be great if there was a tool that not only could catalogue and search all samples and midi files, but also pre-sets across various VST instruments, providing algorithm-driven suggestions for combining sounds, as well as keys, tempos and scales. Going one step further, a mix-building engine would be really cool too, where instruments as well as samples could be suggested according to sonic/frequency balance for different elements of a song/mix, e.g. Bass, drums, rhythm, synth, fx, etc.

The key to such a thing would be an ability to learn, it couldn't know everything about your system from the get-go, but if it had the ability to learn from info fed to it over time it could be amazing.

Might sound rather ambitious, but since I've thought of it, I imagine others have too?

[CinningBao]

These things will be invented and people will use them, but actual people looking to expand their creative skills want to use and understand the equipment (synthesisers, effects etc) and those people will be the ones producing music with feeling.

That's my hot take. Ultimately, people will use them for inspiration, direction, options, and probably teaching.. but actual good art has to come from a human hand.

Someone will invent a DAW (or will add capabilities to a current one) which will analyse your decisions, build up and idea of the things you tend to do, and will quite possibly be able to "quick fix those 20 vocal tracks using my usual hi-pass/light-comping technique, but don't put the hi-pass freq higher than a detected fundamental" which will speed up some mixing processes, but doesn't really bring any value to the world of creativity, in my humble opinion.

[osiris]

It sounds like your describing Alexa for DAWs. But it would be nice to just say: 'I need a good thumpy kick tuned to F Major' and not have to audition 500 kicks, then tune it.

[AudioBabble]

It sounds like your describing Alexa for DAWs. But it would be nice to just say: 'I need a good thumpy kick tuned to F Major' and not have to audition 500 kicks, then tune it.

That would be extremely cool! Don't know about other DAWs, but reaper's media browser has fields for comment, tags and description, BPM, key... of course they're very rarely filled in on a lot of sample sets, but if the info was there, or if you had a habit of filling it in as you go, then the Alexa-esque search would be quite feasible

[AudioBabble]

That's my hot take. Ultimately, people will use them for inspiration, direction, options, and probably teaching.. but actual good art has to come from a human hand.

Absolutely! AI really only boils down to "data in, data out"... the one thing it can't do is imagine.
(I suppose somebody will prove me wrong now... )

[mgw38]

but actual good art has to come from a human hand.

The problem with this statement is that it is more of a definition of art than anything else. What if, in the future, nobody cares about this type of art anymore? I teach in an art and design college and I currently see a lot of people trying to protect their identity as an artist that way. I think this is missing the point about how AI will drive our understanding of the creative process (as technological innovation has always done at any point of time in the past).

[AudioBabble]

but actual good art has to come from a human hand.

The problem with this statement is that it is more of a definition of art than anything else. What if, in the future, nobody cares about this type of art anymore? I teach in an art and design college and I currently see a lot of people trying to protect their identity as an artist that way. I think this is missing the point about how AI will drive our understanding of the creative process (as technological innovation has always done at any point of time in the past).

When you say about people trying to protect their identity... i'm not sure I know what you mean... do you mean like people saying, hey - I'm a real human being doing art, not a computer -- that's got to mean something!?
It's a bleak future where nobody cares about human art any more... somewhat dystopian I'd say, post-human even!
Can we "teach" AI to tap into the Jungian collective unconscious, I wonder... essentially that's what all artists of every kind are doing - expressing something beyond bits and bytes, the AI can fulfil the role of the canvass, the brushes, the paints, but can a system devoid of consciousness (or maybe I should say self-awareness) express the inexpressible?
Maybe I've gone a bit off-topic at this point

[Michael L]

The key to such a thing would be an ability to learn, it couldn't know everything about your system from the get-go, but if it had the ability to learn from info fed to it over time it could be amazing.

What would be amazing about applying machine learning to your own decisions?
It would be like applying targeted advertising algos to your creative process.
Making everything you did sound more and more alike.
People complain about music being too derivative, so now it would be "uber-derivative"
Its the natural devolution of sample-based and loop-based composition
Real innovation will be just as rare, and perhaps increase in value.

[AudioBabble]

The key to such a thing would be an ability to learn, it couldn't know everything about your system from the get-go, but if it had the ability to learn from info fed to it over time it could be amazing.

What would be amazing about applying machine learning to your own decisions?
It would be like applying targeted advertising algos to your creative process.
Making everything you did sound more and more alike.
People complain about music being too derivative, so now it would be "uber-derivative"
Its the natural devolution of sample-based and loop-based composition
Real innovation will be just as rare, and perhaps increase in value.

Yikes! I'm in danger of being misunderstood here... I probably shouldn't have put AI in the title!
The "amazing" I'm referring to is more to do with cataloguing and navigating my increasingly huge palette of samples, midi files, VST instruments and effects... getting "intelligent" suggestions that speed up and actually enhance my own creative process, I certainly don't want to put my own creativity to bed in favour of AI ! I've messed about with AI composers / chord suggesters and the like -- it's fun, but only for inspiration

[Trancit]

nevermind!

[jules99]

Native AI sample cataloging will come to DAWs in a generation or two, with XO or Atlas 2 showing the way. This makes more sense as a built-in feature rather than a plugin.

Tone-matching is also slowly coming up with a service like Jamahook (very hit-or-miss results) providing a sample matching service, and plugins like DDSP or Mawf offering tone-matching. But it's still quite a way to find a solution that is intuitive and creates natural-sounding results.

The plugin you describe does not exist and probably will never, as creating so many features as a single third-party plugin is not economically feasible. A dedicated DAW with all of these features might actually come up soon.

As for protecting artists' identities, you misunderstood mgw38. Their post is about the fact that models like Midjourney, DallE-2, and ChatGPT are trained on an enormous amount of text or images, many of which are from artists who are still alive and working. And who never gave consent that their works could be used to train the AI model. This is happening with music AIs as well.

There is a growing movement (many under the umbrella of Spawning.ai) of artists who publically opt out of AI companies using their works to train. Because if you train an AI with twenty of your tracks and that AI then does it better, faster, and cheaper than you, where does that leave you artistically and financially?

[osiris]

I don't think AI will replace creativity. All you have to do is ask ChatGPT to write a fiction story and I'll bet good money it will be generic and kind of lame. I know because I did this. But as a helper in finding a specific sound or even as a teaching tool it would be great. I asked it to code software, which it did. It wasn't complete, but I learned more about coding in 20 minutes than I ever learned reading tutorials on the internet.

[AudioBabble]

There is a growing movement (many under the umbrella of Spawning.ai) of artists who publically opt out of AI companies using their works to train. Because if you train an AI with twenty of your tracks and that AI then does it better, faster, and cheaper than you, where does that leave you artistically and financially?

Ah, the penny drops! spawning.ai is very interesting as a concept... definitely needs to be considered, especially with pace at which things are moving.
I've often considered that protection of intellectual property is in many ways a high stakes bluffing game... there's the threat of litigation for transgressing the rules, but no actual punitive measures can be taken without civil action. Digitized platforms can circumvent this old-school situation (such as how Youtube automatically identifies and blocks copyright infringement, albeit in a rather haphazard manner -- and their AI often gets wrong - I once uploaded an audiobook recording which was mistaken for a piece of jazz music!).
Interesting to see how it all pans out.

[mgw38]

but actual good art has to come from a human hand.

The problem with this statement is that it is more of a definition of art than anything else. What if, in the future, nobody cares about this type of art anymore? I teach in an art and design college and I currently see a lot of people trying to protect their identity as an artist that way. I think this is missing the point about how AI will drive our understanding of the creative process (as technological innovation has always done at any point of time in the past).

When you say about people trying to protect their identity... i'm not sure I know what you mean... do you mean like people saying, hey - I'm a real human being doing art, not a computer -- that's got to mean something!?

Yes, that is pretty much it. As an artist the question is how much you are willing to incorporate technology into the creation of art. Just ignoring or opposing it is a valid approach, it's just not helpful. This is not a new discussion either. For example, consider the art fabrication approach by somebody like Jeff Koons. If the artist is not involved in the actual construction of the art piece, is this still his art? He just told his staff how to build the thing. Just like you will tell the AI on how to build it. Some might think of this development as dystopian, but in reality it is just an evolution of our cultural value system.

[vurt]

I don't think AI will replace creativity. All you have to do is ask ChatGPT to write a fiction story and I'll bet good money it will be generic and kind of lame. I know because I did this. But as a helper in finding a specific sound or even as a teaching tool it would be great. I asked it to code software, which it did. It wasn't complete, but I learned more about coding in 20 minutes than I ever learned reading tutorials on the internet.

chatgp is not ai, it's machine learning.

ml to ai is like slug to octopus.
similar but very different.

ai is like data (star trek), ml is like a radio controlled car.