Artificial Intelligence is here. Everything will change soon. We too.

Google's MusicLM: Text Generated Music & It's Absurdly Good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CUKU2iAzAs

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But it's absurdly bad for you.

It's like consuming sugar products, some taste good but they are addictive and you just get fat and lazy. So then you sit in front of a screen all day consuming whatever they give you. Driverless cars, shopping delivered by drones, AI music -- everything done for you as you become a compliant slave to Google and its soon-to-be subsidiaries, Amazon, Apple, Ebay....

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The thing that really worries me about these AI applications is not so much that they produce something artificial but more that the people who use them believe that they are the creative ones and claim ownership of whatever output AI generates.

I`d be perfectly fine with lyrics if it`s clearly stated that they were created by Google (or whatever). But the tendency to start believing in your own "fakes" is something I see all too often.

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I like FX and generative vst. It is fun to put down
a cut, and muck about with it if it’s not passing grade.
Stretch time, delay, and granular processing are fun
ways to make music interesting for those who aren’t
the greatest (or most prolific) jammers, but engage
music ‘enuff to be interested in sites like wikiloops.

The problem is the massive amount of factory presets
available for the musician mucking about with vst. Drum presets and, to a certain degree, synths that require no sculpting exist at very low cost and are easy to procure. Jamming along to factory made drum rhythms and generative apps can be interesting practice, but they lack humanity and
using them sparsely in creative efforts feels sort of okay, but not okay. Certainly not posting the source of such things in templates feels ‘iffy’ at best. I always try to let it be known if the source is not my own (be it corporate in origin or perhaps a found sound from an open source site).

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I think wikiloops should split its model into two entities:
1.- Real music made by musicians with real instruments.
2.- Music generated by computer programs.

We cannot claim to create music using these computer tools...
These are assemblies of loops created by others or by machines.

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I was a fan of hip hop when it first came out. I didn't know at the time that they were pinching rhythms, beats and whole sections of songs. And when I did find out i still enjoyed the creativity to piece those elements together in such musical ways.

There's a big difference between that and having a computer do it for you. I love a lot of acid house loops also, but, as with hip hop, when computers play too much of a part, I think it kills the spirit and I think most people can hear it.

There will always be room for great musicians to use computers and create great music, but I think all of us, not just musicians but audiences in general, soon get to know when someone's faking it. Long live live music!

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Interesting posts. So I gave it a try and asked AI what is wikiloops.:)

What is wikiloops

Wikiloops is an online platform that brings musicians from all over the world together to play, play and share. The platform offers an extensive library of music tracks and various tools to facilitate musical collaboration.

Wikiloops began as a small project in 2011 and has since grown to a large community of musicians who are committed to making high-quality music, combining different music genres and instruments.

On Wikiloops, musicians can upload their own tracks and ask other musicians to share their numbers. This can lead to collaborations between musicians from all over the world and can result in beautiful musical pieces that otherwise would not have been possible.

The platform also offers various functions such as online jam-sessions, which allow musicians to play and communicate live with each other. Wikiloops is a great place for musicians to improve their skills, make new connections and enjoy the pleasure of musical collaboration.

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... and here you see the limits of "artificial intelligence". We never offered live jam sessions except, well, live (like all people together in a cloister in Eifel/Germany). The reason for that are delays/latencies just because of distance - if one participant would be in, say, Arizona, another one in Germany, then that's roughly 9000km or 9000000 meters, and even at the speed of light which is around 300000000 meters/second that would be 30ms in an *optimized* scenario which will probably never happen. Much too much to play together "live", an AI should be "intelligent" enough to know such simple facts...

In practical use, you often have 30ms even to neighbour cities, and much less only in local networks, even WLANs (or Bluetooth) make "live" music pretty much impossible. Believe me, our daughter's piano teacher often tried to play "live" with her via 4G/LTE (mobile phones) during/because of Corona. Drove me crazy... :|

So if someone would take that AI-generated info about Wikiloops, it would simply be wrong.

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Thank you Wolfgang, I will definetly try out what this platforms are capable of. :)

When it comes to AI I think of it more as an additional resource to make great music rather than a threat for musicians.

First, like every other human musician the AI will never be able to create the exact same music as you are able to come up with and when people like you're style they will come back to listen to your music.

Second, the quality of the AI results might be good sometimes but not constantly I guess. So the AI will not replace professionals but it will be used by them (e.g. mastering engineers didn't become unemployed after the invention of the ozone mastering suite but they use the plugin to speed up their workflow)..

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Fun fact: Due to the complicated process to clear copyright isuess nearly all modern hip hop productions are original composed. The sampling of older music have become very unpopular. For that reason I think major labels will also avoid AI composed music.

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I looked at some of these AI generated music sites, and bet that they are just algorithimic constructions based on large databases filled with patterns and sequences, and logic information. An ipad app I listen to sometimes, Polyphase, uses this same logic, but in a pleasing baroque music mode.

When I think 'AI', I am referring to some of my thoughts that want to use script and logic to control clip-daw compositions. Future DAWS may allow script integration allowing YOU to manage clip repetition, order, and logic. Like code, DO 'A 2B 2A 2C D' referring to parts stored in clips replacing mixdown phase. Programing dub delays and special reverb events using graph overlays and random logic. You could avoid alot of mixing.

An interesting place that I've pulled back from for now. I've run into this robotic conundrum recording synths that don't record velocity. So, with some features in clip based daws, you can edit volume envelopes for these synths, or do what I did. Use lfo's to create sine wave based volume controlling events. The lfo acts like a timer, adjusting volume back and forth over a set number of bars.

This is a scary place in my mind, where robotic thinking can temporarily invade my thoughts, convincing me I can sit at my computer and do nothing but write, or buy, code and integrate robots into musical areas. Eventually, perhaps places like kitchens and bathrooms.

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https://www.musicradar.com/news/deadmau5-ai-music-production


Producer thinks we should “unleash the beast” in order to create a “niche market for actual musicianship”


Could be a good thing...

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Nor does the authenticity of the music make the difference in my opinion. The noticeable credibility of the statement and the conviction cannot be represented by the AI at the moment.

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If you like AI and work with midi, then looking at https://magenta.tensorflow.org/studio/ will be surprising. The stand-alone version can be downloaded free of charge. Enjoy yourself:)

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I remember some article talking about how the industrial revolution influenced music to sound more like machinery. Since everything became digital, this seems all the more true. With AI? Machines making "music" for other machines to "listen" to?

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I was curious so I tried out an AI lyrics generator today with some keyword phrases. It generated some pretty terrible lyrics LOL. But like any computer program, it's only as good as the programmer. :)

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It all comes down to the human element. If you allow a computer to do all the "creative" work then it becomes stale and soulless. Anything involving human creativity though such as sampling sounds or utilizing computers in music isn't inherently bad until it starts to generate the momentum to do the work for you. Then it becomes pointless. Just my personal view on AI.

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How about a little case study of hybrid AI/human composition?

AI (human poem to melody): #283504
(human) reinterpretation: #283672

In this case the AI generated a starting point, but of course in the (near?) future it might generate the final piece instead... photorealistic painting didn't disappear when photo cameras were invented, but it's diminished in importance to say the least. I do not really look forward to a future in which all the fun (despite sometimes being hard and frustrating work!) stuff has been automated. At the same time, photo cameras have sparked entirely new forms of art, so it's not 100% black/white thinking.

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Just thinking out loud, but will we at some future date see a checkbox on Wikiloops uploads a la "AI generated, Yes/No"? I have this vague feeling that I might then ignore those tracks...though I have not thought this through. Especially as I have used #283504.

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