AI in music

[SteveXFR]

Should AI have any place in music? Musicians are quite rightly against AI being used to create music but some of the same people seem fine with using it for artwork or videos so happy with replacing other artists who support the music industry. 

Considering that its replacing real artists plus uses enormous amounts of energy plus it keeps any information you put in (nothing is ever free), is it right in your opinion to use AI as part of your art or any art?

[Rich]

 

[neepheid]

Generative AI can get in the bin as far as I'm concerned.  It makes an absolute mockery of the years I've spent learning an instrument.  It's a disgustingly insulting short cut.

 

Get gud or eff off.

 

*mic drop*

[80Hz]

In terms of generative AI, it's basically an inevitability in my industry (music adjacent) at this point, so I'm resigned to it. We've been using trained neural nets in specific applications for years now anyway (i.e. noise reduction) and they tend to perform very well - but the lines are starting to blur as to where generative AI fits into that.

 

Ethically, I view gen AI in its present and growing form as a pure expression of rentier capitalism. So whether it belongs in music is down to your attitudes as to whom value in creative work should accrue (I feel this will inevitably slide into politics, sorry mods, so that's all I'll say).

 

I think we're very quickly moving towards a world where AI generated = low value and low effort advertising, memes, misinformation, and propaganda. So in my more optimistic moments I believe there will always be a place for us meatbags.

[Cato]

It's going to become increasingly unavoidable unfortunately.

 

I don't want any part of it, to the point where I block anyone on social media who posts unlabelled AI content, even if it's just a description of an image.

 

Although  the torrent is such that I think eventually it will just be easier to leave social media.

 

I've even seen it creeping into Basschat where people have cut and pasted responses from Chat GPT or some such,omwtime containing glaring errors, without crediting their source, in response to questions posted by other members.

 

At the moment such things are still identifiable, but give it another 12 months and none of us will know whether what we are seeing, hearing or reading online has been authored by a human or a machine.

 

Interesting times.

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Cato

[gjones]

It depends on whether the consumer will accept, AI music, AI films, AI books, AI online content, AI whatever.

 

If people are made aware that music, films, books, online content, is AI created, then they may reject it. If creative output of all genes can be show to be guaranteed human, then I can see people choosing the human option rather than the AI one.

 

At this stage people don't know if it's AI ,or if it's human, and they don't yet have the option to choose.

[EBS_freak]

Of course it should - but at the moment its largely misunderstood and not regulated properly.

 

For all those against AI, I would wager a lot of them were also eager to watch the Beatles Get Back documentary and listen to "Now and Then", both of which would not be a thing without AI.

[Hellzero]

Did anyone see Sarah Connor in the matrix these days?

[EBS_freak]

2 minutes ago, gjones said:

It depends on whether the consumer will accept, AI music, AI films, AI books, AI online content, AI whatever.

 

If people are made aware that music, films, books, online content, is AI created, then they may reject it. If creative output of all genes can be show to be guaranteed human, then I can see people choosing the human option rather than the AI one.

 

At this stage people don't know if it's AI ,or if it's human, and they don't yet have the option to choose.

 

 

It will be interesting if older films will become seen as more precious because they are pre-AI.

 

I dont think it as easy as saying "if the consumer will accept" - if you give people no other option, the decision is made for them. If it's all driven by cost, the cheapest will always win.

Are people really impacting the sales of Coca-Cola because they cheaped out and went AI for the last two years on their Christmas advertisements?

 

[wateroftyne]

As a tool, it's useful.

As a means to generate creative content, it can get in the sea.

[EBS_freak]

Just now, wateroftyne said:

As a means to generate creative content, it can get in the sea.

Its funny isn't it. As AI adoption comes into the place - the industry is quickly learning that AI is rubbish at doing the jobs that people hate.

[SteveXFR]

Im currently at a point where I will avoid knowingly listening to bands who I know use AI.

[neepheid]

7 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Of course it should - but at the moment its largely misunderstood and not regulated properly.

 

For all those against AI, I would wager a lot of them were also eager to watch the Beatles Get Back documentary and listen to "Now and Then", both of which would not be a thing without AI.

 

You need to be careful not to turn this conversation into a binary choice and an "us vs. them" type situation.  I was careful to use the term "Generative AI".  I'm all for AI automating humdrum tasks, or doing things which are impossible for humans (like the software which turns a full recording back into multitracks to allow remixing which I believe you are alluding to).  But using it to create "art" that the user could never hope to do under their own steam, that can fork right off.

[Cato]

There's a huge backlash against AI in the gaming community at the moment, especially where it's being used as a substitute for human creativity.

 

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out given that gaming studios are a natural fit to use AI to cut staff and speed up production.

 

I suspect in the end the big studios will carry on down the AI road regardless but it will create a niche for independent companies making 100% human authored content.

[Ben Jamin]

Yeah it's terrifyingly powerful with music! IMO we should cast it into the fires of Mount Doom 😅

A producer I work with is really into this stuff, and has used AI software to learn the voice patterns of singers he regularly works with and has a lot of content from, to the effect that he can now 'sing' into an SM57 in the mix room, and an uncannily familiar female pop vocalist generates back through the monitors.

He hasn't used it on any published work but it's scarily good, and a lot easier and cheaper than hiring said vocalist. She is amazing, but the AI model does everything quicker, with plenty of variation. So far he will only use it for group backing vocals and choir parts in the mix.

In much the same way that generative AI has taken over a lot of voiceover work (Artlist etc), I wonder if we'll see generative models of vocalists and session players becoming common. We could have suite of virtual session players to prompt - you could try a track with models based on Marcus Miller, Leland Sklar, Chris Wolstenholme?

Not even touching generating whole pieces of 'music', or re-orchestrating songs you feed it.

Cool that we could, really not sure if we should!

[velvetkevorkian]

[SteveXFR]

It does cut costs for the businesses using AI but does that saving get passed on to the consumer? I seriously doubt it. 

[velvetkevorkian]

All the worst people in the world are all in on it which is a bit of a red flag for me.

[fiatcoupe432]

43 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 (like the software which turns a full recording back into multitracks to allow remixing which I believe you are alluding to). You can also do this without the help of AI ! Producers have Been splitting tracks for donkeys years 

 

[Cato]

6 minutes ago, velvetkevorkian said:

All the worst people in the world are all in on it which is a bit of a red flag for me.

 

Some of the richest people and companies in the world too.

 

And the UK government wants to give them the rights to use all UK owned intellectual property to train their AIs for free. (on an opt out basis).

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/virginieberger/2025/02/28/how-the-uks-ai-copyright-exception-hands-creators-work-to-big-tech-for-free/

Edited 1 hour ago by Cato

[Cliff Edge]

AI at the moment is a bit like the early days of the internet. Far too many idiots were allowed to use it for fun at no, or very little, cost to them. Problem with the internet is they still have access. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Cliff Edge

[neepheid]

6 minutes ago, fiatcoupe432 said:

You can also do this without the help of AI ! Producers have Been splitting tracks for donkeys years 

 

Taking a fully mixed single track and magically recreating the multitracks from that single source alone?  Since when?

[fiatcoupe432]

11 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Taking a fully mixed single track and magically recreating the multitracks from that single source alone?  Since when?

Sorry my bad !!!! I just went to see how ai can split it and it's mental...  It actually separated each instrument amazingly .I was still in eq and phase and using audacity to surgically remove bass tracks , no wonder all my videos sounds s.it mIm so naive and stupid  didn't know you can actually split even a mp3 nowadays 

[Al Krow]

Scarily easy as I've just figured out! https://suno.com/s/jhB0dYxxVH2FlFhW

 

Another nail in the coffin for aspiring originals artists hoping to "make it", just as streaming has already proved to be?

 

I suspect that where the industry is heading could well be similar to where classical music has ended up with performers, in our case covers and tribute bands, being custodians of a vast library of music that is already much loved; with occasional new material to sit alongside the great songwriters and composers of the past: read ABBA to Zeppelin for Bach to Stravinsky.

 

The Times They Are A-Changin'...

[TimR]

As humans we get bored very quickly and thrive on new and exciting things.

 

While AI just copies stuff that is already there, it'll get boring really quickly.

 

Part of the attraction of any 'latest hit', is the anticipation of the next release and how will it be better than the last one.

 

Scrolling through Facebook is losing attraction very quickly as it seems like huge AI farms, scraping posts and reposting as original content, have taken over.

 

The cheaper the tech becomes, the harder it will become to find quality original content, we are already seeing this with every angst ridden teenager with access to garageband releasing an Album.

 

It's a spiral to attract the Lowest Common Denominator, TV went down that route and YouTube is slowly following.