Fucking AI in music...
AI music is infecting the world, and it is getting well and truly scary how good it is. Here's a player demonstrating how to "write" a song with AI, and how terrifying this is for flesh and blood musicians.
In the past, I have written about my dismay in how AI generated music is becoming endemic:
Geoff Anderson
and
Geoff Anderson
Alas, with services like Suno, with a few keywords in prompts, and bam, in about a minute you get a quite passable tune.
I showed it to my wife, who does some freelance video work for non-profits, and in the course of doing this, she would buy background music (by paying the royalties), that over the years is probably more than $10K (total guess, but rights to use other people's music are not cheap, even for throwaway filler for corporate dreck) on this.
Hell, one of her former colleagues when she was at NASA went on to compose just this schlock. In his golden years (he's in his late 50's) it has been a comfortable "gig" that just rolls on, with royalty checks coming in.
Alas, these AI generators are good enough to do that work, and to create unique items (an exclusive license to a piece of music, so that nobody else can use it, is mega bux).
All for $20 a month.
My last drop in on this was a few months ago, and even then, they had improved meaningfully over where they were when I wrote those two items above.
Then, I clicked on the video below (it is rather long), but it is a player who creates presets, that is settings for a amp or effect modeller that allows you to plug in and sound like your favorite player or band.
Anyway, since he then creates videos that demonstrate the sound, often playing a, say Metallica riff, his videos would trigger the automated DMCA takedown system.
His theory behind making this video was to create a new tune in the genre, something original (and therefore not likely to be struck down).
He turned to Suno, his DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and wanted to create a tune. He would then learn the guitar part, strip that out of the song, and he would record his learned part over it.
The process is fascinating, but it is also chilling. It is very very convincing in the genre he chooses, 1980's thrash metal.
Give it a watch, and if you are a player, be horrified that this is becoming not only possible, but almost trivial. How the hell are us mere mortals supposed to be able to discern when what we hear is real or AI?[1]
1 - I make so many mistakes, nobody will ever confuse me and my playing with AI...
