AI music overtakes real band its modelled on

[Richard R]

This little piece of design fiction might be of interest.

The author's "janky time machine" lands in the future office of a human who, it appears, needs to prove the work he bills for is done by a human.

 

https://www.designfictiondaily.com/p/prove-youre-not-a-robot-and-pay-for

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Richard R
Grammar

[asingardenof]

18 hours ago, tegs07 said:

I would like to think people are becoming more aware that these ‘free’ services are anything but free. 

If it's free to use you aren't the customer, etc.

[asingardenof]

2 hours ago, SumOne said:

I could see AI music being good if it gets to be properly intelligent and did the job of good music by making you feel something and then enhances that experience by making it truely personalised. e.g. music to help you relax/sleep that is in-tune with your sleep patterns and heartrate, music that is just right for motivating you at the righ parts of a marathon, music that helps you concentrate on study/work within the timeframes you give it. In some ways, it takes the 'celebrity/pop icon' aspects out of it and just leaves you with the music and emotion it creates which is possibly a good thing?

 

But yeah, current AI music isn't any of that - it is just a middle of the road regurgitation of stuff humans have made. If it doesn't move on from that I'd expect that once it starts heavily referencing AI made music it will just get get increasingly bland. 

 

A quote from Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk when they split up "As much as I love this character, the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot". He went on to completely leave technology out of it and hand-wrote a Ballet score that was only played on traditional instruments. I expect there will be more of this sort of push-back, a young person today might grow up always accepting AI music for their gym workout or background ambient music but I expect (or hope) there will also be more enthusiasm to see humans playing instruments live.

 

This is a very relevant video on this subject: 

 

[prowla]

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Unfortunately IME Bandcamp is a muso/indie ghetto. Fine if all you want to do is reach other musicians and a few hardcore music fans, but nearly useless for reaching ordinary people. The sort of people you need to reach if you want to really grow your fan base.

I purchased and downloaded Peter Gabriel's "So" from there a couple of weeks ago.

There's also some Bill Nelson there.

[Supernaut]

21 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

https://www.loudersound.com/news/holding-absence-speak-out-ai-bleeding-verse-overtakes-spotify-listeners-2025

 

Rock band, Holding Absence have been overtaken in Spotify charts by an AI band who's music is modelled on theirs. 

This seems like a significant and very sad occurrence. The band works hard writing, recording and promoting their music and then someone uses their hard work to knock out an AI copy that makes more money at little to no cost.

Streaming is a cancer. If you stream music, you're part of the problem. 

[BigRedX]

21 minutes ago, prowla said:

I purchased and downloaded Peter Gabriel's "So" from there a couple of weeks ago.

There's also some Bill Nelson there.

 

Exactly. You're a musician so you bought from Bandcamp. There's loads of well-known and mainstream artists on there. However I can guarantee you that as a proportion of their overall sales, those from Bandcamp are minuscule.

 

My band's music is available there, but we sell more CDs at gigs than we do downloads from Bandcamp. There's a good chance that at the end of this year our income from Spotify will have overtaken that from Bandcamp. 

[BigRedX]

3 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Streaming is a cancer. If you stream music, you're part of the problem. 

 

So what are you doing to support bands - person whose avatar is an album cover from 1972?

 

I hope you are out at least once a fortnight going to see new bands and buying a T-shirt from their merch table.

Edited 8 hours ago by BigRedX

[Supernaut]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

 

So what are you doing to support bands - person whose avatar is an album cover from 1972?

 

I hope you are out at leat once a fortnight going to see new bands and buying a T-shirt from their merch table.

Touched a nerve have I? I'm a regular gig goer and always attend local unsigned acts. Bare in mind, I will never attend one of your gigs because you're only one gig from superstardom, right? 😁

[BigRedX]

1 minute ago, Supernaut said:

Touched a nerve have I? I'm a regular gig goer and always attend local unsigned acts. Bare in mind, I will never attend one of your gigs because you're only one gig from superstardom, right? 😁

 

No you haven't touched a nerve, it's just that IME most people who claim to boycott streaming also appear to have given up listening to anything made after 1976 and in that respect your avatar wasn't doing you any favours. So it's gratifying to hear that you're out supporting new bands. For me (and my band) streaming is essentially advertising that actually pays us, so I have no problem with it. I know that it pays a pittance, but it does pay and we actually get to see the money from it, unlike releasing records and CD in the 80s and 90s where unless you were massively successful the record company ended up with everything.

 

If you really want to cut out "The Man" from benefiting financially from music we'd probably need to go back to the DIY cassette days of the late 70s and early 80s. On the other hand instead of spending the best part of 6 months duplicating cassettes in real time to reach less than 200 people, I can put up a new song on Spotify and reach that number in less than a single day.

[SumOne]

3 hours ago, asingardenof said:

 

This is a very relevant video on this subject: 

 

 

Yeah, spot on.

 

I recently started an electronic music project with someone and after trying what Suno could do sort of scuppered our plans - we figured if we're just doing it to make music and not play live then what's the point? Suno can pretty much do it as well already with the right prompts. I've spent about 20 years learning music production but it now anything technical I know might as well be forgotten, it feels like learning to make photo-realistic drawings and then the camera being invented. I had toyed with the idea of being a sound engineer years ago, glad I didn't go down that road.

 

I suppose telling Suno what to make is like being a music producer in the non-technical sense 'add some quiet guitars here'..'make it more upbeat for the chorus' etc. which does have some artistic merit. And like the video says - this might lead to very personal music being made by non-musicians which could be a good thing. 

 

Playing an instrument or playing with a band is a different matter though. AI isn't going to replace that achievement, fun, camaraderie or live event. It's partly why I've mostly moved from electronic music production into playing Bass with a pub band, and when I do produce my own music (spending a lot of time with an MPC Key 37 at the moment) I'm doing it becuase it's fun to do - not because I'm aiming to make any groundbreaking music that I'll make £ from.

 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by SumOne

[BigRedX]

3 minutes ago, SumOne said:

Yeah, spot on soo far (I'm halfway through it).

 

Really? I've dipped in and out of this because IMO it's way too boring to watch all 45 minutes in one sitting, but the overall impression I get is that maybe instead of making videos worrying about AI, he should just knuckle down and make some more music of his own.

 

And rather than watch the whole video that's what I'm going to do.

[prowla]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Exactly. You're a musician so you bought from Bandcamp. There's loads of well-known and mainstream artists on there. However I can guarantee you that as a proportion of their overall sales, those from Bandcamp are minuscule.

 

My band's music is available there, but we sell more CDs at gigs than we do downloads from Bandcamp. There's a good chance that at the end of this year our income from Spotify will have overtaken that from Bandcamp. 

Well, I was wearing my Hi-Fi hat rather than as a musician and went there because I did a seach for hi-res Peter Gabriel, rather than because I was on bandcamp.

[SumOne]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Really? I've dipped in and out of this because IMO it's way too boring to watch all 45 minutes in one sitting, but the overall impression I get is that maybe instead of making videos worrying about AI, he should just knuckle down and make some more music of his own.

 

And rather than watch the whole video that's what I'm going to do.

... Or pick fights on a Bass forum? 🫣

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, Supernaut said:

Touched a nerve have I? I'm a regular gig goer and always attend local unsigned acts. Bare in mind, I will never attend one of your gigs because you're only one gig from superstardom, right? 😁

 

 

Im a regular gig goer, merch buyer and physical record buyer as well. Streaming is where I often discover bands who I then support through gigs and purchases. Streaming isn't necessarily bad but it also isn't good. It's just a part of modern reality so why not try to use it in s positive way?

[Al Krow]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

I'm a regular gig goer, merch buyer and physical record buyer as well. Streaming is where I often discover bands who I then support through gigs and purchases. Streaming isn't necessarily bad but it also isn't good. It's just a part of modern reality so why not try to use it in s positive way?

 

This ^^

 

4 hours ago, SumOne said:

Playing an instrument or playing with a band is a different matter though. AI isn't going to replace that achievement, fun, camaraderie or live event. It's partly why I've mostly moved from electronic music production into playing Bass with a pub band, and when I do produce my own music (spending a lot of time with an MPC Key 37 at the moment) I'm doing it because it's fun to do - not because I'm aiming to make any ground breaking music that I'll make £ from.

 

And this too! ^^

[Supernaut]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

 

Im a regular gig goer, merch buyer and physical record buyer as well. Streaming is where I often discover bands who I then support through gigs and purchases. Streaming isn't necessarily bad but it also isn't good. It's just a part of modern reality so why not try to use it in s positive way?

Just because it's there we should try to use it? 
 

Woof - no thanks. 

[SteveXFR]

27 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Just because it's there we should try to use it? 
 

Woof - no thanks. 

 

Its a good way to discover bands you might never have heard of. Today I found an excellent post metal band called Humanfly who were listed as a related artist under a band called Dimscua who I discovered as a related artist under Cult Of Luna. So thats two bands who will sell me gig tickets and a t shirt next time they play Bristol because I found them through streaming. 

You don't have to use it if you dont want but its there for those who do and its not going to disappear. 

[Beedster]

4 hours ago, SumOne said:

Playing an instrument or playing with a band is a different matter though. AI isn't going to replace that achievement, fun, camaraderie or live event.

 

That's the truth of it. AI is simply another tech tool that will provide some people with new opportunities, allow others to continue as they are, and no doubt piss off a few people. I wasn't around when Dylan and The Band caused uproar with electric instruments in folk, but I was around when synths appeared and people described it as the end of music, when digital recording appeared and people described it as the end of music, when sampling appeared an people described it as the end of music, and when pitch correction appeared and, well, you get the idea. I've no doubt there were similar emotions when recording technology, amplification, electric instruments etc were introduced  To me the problem with this thread is the idea that something in the artistic/performance space 'overtaking' something else is in any way meaningful. It's simply change.      

[tegs07]

14 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Its a good way to discover bands you might never have heard of. Today I found an excellent post metal band called Humanfly who were listed as a related artist under a band called Dimscua who I discovered as a related artist under Cult Of Luna. So thats two bands who will sell me gig tickets and a t shirt next time they play Bristol because I found them through streaming. 

You don't have to use it if you dont want but its there for those who do and its not going to disappear. 

This is me as well. I would also add I bought physical copies of the albums from the artists I like for years. I have them already. Any new bands I discover are via Spotify pretty much exclusively. I try and see as many live as possible and really does it matter if I buy a CD or a TShirt at their gig? It would only be one or the other in any case so T Shirt it is.