Being one of those bedroom dipheads who knows only basic theory (and has bad ears haha) but doesn't use presets (hey, I love my sounds, not someone else's even if it's a some basic wave), AI is a can of bees for a lot of reasons, from copyright to cognitive ones. Not sure if someone will be interested in elaboration though

 

There is no line.
I just seen a french politician pretending "creating and composing music".
After some questions ... he just copy pasted some poem into AI song generator with a prompt.

That's what you get : ppl spending countless time mastering something on one side, and others mastering nothing.

At the end ... i just don't care.
Because "the industry" will die soon, but music never die.

May be i will just listen to music i already know, being made by real humans.

 

First, most musicians aren't unionized at all. While my country does have a social security fund for artists with reduced contributions, enabling cultural workers to practice their profession, it's not enough.

Second, there are of course some cultural centers and youth centers that look after musicians regionally. They sometimes provide rehearsal spaces, offer workshops, and help small bands find performance opportunities.

Third, music venues like operas or state orchestras are financed by the state through taxpayers because the upper class enjoys going to the opera, and if the venue doesn't generate enough revenue, it receives subsidies, just like theaters do, to keep it afloat. This applies more to classical music; everything else isn't considered worthy of support. Our society doesn't see punk, rock and roll, metal, folk, or pop as essential and therefore doesn't require funding.

Furthermore, all of this is controlled by major labels, television stations, and large radio stations. We have a self-founded private radio station, FSK (Freies Sendekombinat), which relies on supporting memberships and small donations. There's an alternative radio and cultural program there that's outside the mainstream.

If we don't learn to band together and start our own projects or actively support promising initiatives, the current situation won't change; in fact, given the current state of affairs and AI, it will likely worsen.

We also have self-managed, formerly squatted buildings, now with leases, that offer performance spaces and meeting places. The entrance fees and food prices are very reasonable and only cover the actual costs, like electricity and gas, but it's culture. There are also self-managed or cultural associations in other parts of the city.

As you can see, you can wait a long time—nothing will come from above.
That's how it's always been and always will be. Remember, money flows from poor to rich.

Spoiler: Free radio forever! 25 years of full frequency Since 1997/98 – 25 years of multiplication of amusement

Free radio forever! 25 years of full frequency Since 1997/98 – 25 years of multiplication of amusement

– 20 years of new music from China FSK Benefit Party – Friday, March 20, 2026 From 10:00 PM, Fabrique – Gängeviertel, with music from and for FSK: Martha's Record Box – STILL (C)RAVING – Sensory Overload – Moontwoer – douyoulikechinesemusic – Doctore Xyramat – Luc Le Truc – Konstantin Unwohl

 

Agreed. The music "scene" was perfectly fine before "the industry" took hold of it (back in the early 70's). "The Industry" then twisted, mangled, and deformed it into a corporate $$$ venture so talentless, masochistic dickheads at the top of the pyramid could get rich. All the while musicians slaved away barely getting anything for their efforts. I would love to see "the industry" die a quick and well deserved death so that the music scene can revitalize itself to its former glory.

 

All valid points and great discussion!
I see "AI" is an ambiguous term. As I wrote on the thread, AI can be everything from correcting your mix up to prompting a whole track. That's the entire discussion where is the line for you? Will you use ai (or LLM or whatever you want to call it) to give you chord progression ideas? Maybe mastering? Will you upload your mix to a tool that will tell you what's wrong with it? Will you replace your guitar player with an AI player that can play whatever you want?

The discussion isn't about copyrights or creating a full song based on a prompt. It's about where do we, as musicians, draw the line where we welcome AI (artificial intelligence in it's purest form) to our workflow. Can I use Claude to code me a tool that'll automate some of my work?.can I consult Gemini about lyrics or key and chords?

 

The line is mass produced "slop". The difference between us using tools such as scaler, or loops, "AI" mixing tools is that its still us doing that. Its us making the decisions, making the final call on what sounds good, joining the elements together.

Funny fact, we, as human creators cannot create 30 songs in 5 minutes. Thats the line imo. When this slop get uploaded to the streamers in mass numbers, it takes away from authentic human created works. IDK exactly how the algorithms work, but i do know that its partially a numbers game, and a timing game. I believe to stay in the algorithm, you should have a release monthly. At minimum quarterly. When these slop "creators" upload en masse they can steal the algo's attention away from "real" artists. Uploading slop, that was trained on our works, taking away from the very people in which it was trained on.

Now. I have no problem using AI as a "tool". I use Suno daily. Im also a professional producer, songwriter, engineer of 20+ years, with multiple charting releases with various artist. I have engineered scoring sessions for some of the biggest TV shows of all time. I have songs placed on Apple, Netflix, HBO, ESPN at any given time. I play guitar, bass, keys, drums, flute, banjo, harmonica, accordion, concertina, voice, etc. I even design and build my own synthesizers from scratch, and have circuit bent something like 100 devices, which i use in my productions. I use Ableton, Protools, Bitwig, Logic, Reason, iOS / "DAW free" Analog, and recently acquired Studio One / Fender Studio. Im also working on a series of plugins with a programmer friend of mine. I say all this to show im not some spring chicken. Im an experienced, working professional who uses a wide variety of tools.

If you are using "ai" as just another tool, go for it. If you use it as an inspirational starting point, great, same thing as using a sample from splice. if you use it to hum a melody and get a trumpet, great, no difference doing that than there is humming into ableton, getting audio to midi, and using kontakt to get a trumpet. Need a jazz sample in a Persian scale, with glitched breakbeat IDM drums? cool, go for it, chop and screw that bitch up until YOU actually create something with it. Layer in your own sounds, record some bass, program some slapping drums, write to it, etc. Just be careful with copyright and the so-called "watermark" (which i don't believe is real or if it is, that its actually trackable once you chop and screw something beyond recognition, but thats another story that i will not get into)

The only difference between that, and using splice etc, is that it was trained unethically, but, whats done is done. Would i prefer that it was trained fairly, and that artists were compensated? yes of course. I know for a fact that it trained on some of my artists releases. I was pissed at first, and still am honestly, but I also want to hum a melody and get a trumpet, so ...??? Me not using Suno is not going to stop Suno from existing. The labels settled, and fucked us all as they always do. They will use it to remove the middle man, which is us, creators of all sorts. Im not going to stand by why these corporate pigs use the tools in which they trained on my music.

I guess im sort of rambling now, and hopefully got my point across. I had terrible night terrors last night and only slept 2 or 3 hours, so Im pretty out of it, sorry guys if i rambled too much lol.

TLDR, "slop" = bad. Creating with AI as a collaborator = same thing as using Splice (except unethical )

heres some Persian Jazz Glitch lol

https://suno.com/s/S6dlnWZ12OjbNxwq

 

Last edited: Feb 3, 2026 at 11:02 PM

At this point, we know most major AI generative tools, in all fields, have been unethically trained and deployed to the public in an adversarial manner by unscrupulous, amoral, bad actors, and that's me being generous. So any discussion about utility has to be prefaced by the moral and ethical discussion, you can't seperate the two in that context.

Where you can separate it is if we rephrase the question as it should have been asked.

"What part do ethically trained AI generative tools have in the creative process?".

Then you can discuss the utility more in keeping with these tools being a supercharged assistants and explore themes around, authorship, creative ethics, authenticity, augmentation of deficiencies, collaboration, and so on. However, another issue arises in that there is no general consensus on those topics, because they're subjective and personal to one's experience and ethical framework. For example if you're already using a bunch of tools to augment your deficiencies then you've likely crossed the line of anyone who has put in the work to "foster" the knowledge and skill to achieve the same and greater results off their own back.

I think many would argue that any tool that democratises a process to the degree that it can completely replace us, it's probably more detrimental than it is beneficial, at least in the short term.

If you're using any of these products without acknowledging that you're waiving the ethical considerations for personal gain, you're living with cognitive dissonance.


Edit: considering where we are, if you're using warez then any ethical discussion is waste of time, just carry on doing whatever the fuck you want.

 

Last edited: Feb 3, 2026 at 10:17 PM

Completely disagree. This industry needs an agonizing slow death, quick one is too merciful.

By the way, to clarify my earlier post, I'm anti-AI in any creative department be it music or images or video but it is a really powerful tool which shines for mundane technical things like cleaning up bad mic recordings or noise removal and that's where I draw the line - just tools, not creative consultants, I have real friends for that

 

Quite the bitchin' track. Shine on!

 

its kinda like in sports, you get an asterisk for using performance enhancing drugs - people kind of question from then on any of the great stuff you do or did

 

Any timely death for the music "industry" is perfectly A-OK with me.

 

The discussion isn't but very much should be (in musician circles) about copyrights.

As far as can you use this tool to automate some of your music or lyric work, obviously you can. The question is why would you want to?

Would you want only orgasms in your love life? No flirting, no hand holding, no kissing, no rush from feeling your energy reciprocated, no bedroom preliminaries, no 20mn-2hr s/explorations of the kama sutra? Straight to orgasm? Only goals, buckets, home runs? No play?

Where's the fun, the joy, the pleasure in that "workflow?"

Well it's the same with music. Automate all you want, whatever you feel you must (tight deadlines, and so on). And pray you don't get sued by a label, or a studio, or another Claudist or Geminist whose song/lyrics are close enough that they feel ripped off by you.

The bottom line is precisely that: the bottom line. And it's the only line that matters, in business, in congress, and in the courts.

We creators ignore this reality at our (long term) peril.

 

Music production is an emotional process, not cognitive.

 

There you go. Just add any uncleared direct and unmodified samples of other peoples work, any samples you didn't sample yourself, and any sample libraries you haven't paid for either. Underground music genres have never cared about any of it, and often did it deliberately to be humorous.

If someone wants to play the purist card, that is all included in the stuff where people will say someone was "cheating". Even if you are (or were) Daft Punk. That only matters if you care at all about commercial releases, copyrights, or simple virtue signaling.

The algorithm argument is close to meaningless anyway. If there are 30,000 songs uploaded every day, or if there are 100,000; blaming less revenue on more junk out there is something you will never see anyone selling music at scale complain about. They lose more money to freely downloadable copies than someone uploading junk is ever going to cost them.

The asterisk* mention about sports is a workable comparison, other than some changes which make it worse due to the huge increase in legal online sports bookmaking. Just recently, Bill Belichek was not inducted into the hall of fame (the first year possible), because of the small asterisk on his career now to a little scandal called DeflateGate. No-one will ever discuss Tom Brady's career without it being mentioned. Shoeless Joe Jackson will never be mentioned as much besides a member of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox. These kinds of things are written in stone about sports.

I think Chess might be a better direct comparison. A well trained computer model can beat almost any human effort and has been able to since Gary Kasparov lost to IBM's Deep Blue. Now, a single desktop gaming PC with a good GPU is about 50 times more powerful than Deep Blue was in 1997. You see many "cheating accusations" about players using computers to cheat. It's not set in stone, recorded forever. It's mostly just a vehicle people use to argue about and sling accusations at one another.

" The line" will remain as arbitrary as someone needs to support their own agenda, dynamically. In sports history, it is a lot more difficult to move the goalposts.

 

Is any AI prompting service commercially available a human being or an artist? The answer is absolutely not, they go hand in hand unless one contrives new definitions of both which I don't feel would be at all honest. When two people or more collaborate they can create art, and when AI is added into the creation it ceases to be by definition. AI is neither an artist nor a person, so when an individual is not creating every aspect and making every creative choice, be it the melody or rhythm into a finished track then a person cannot say it is their own creation, something else did the work of creation instead of yourself...one must birth their own ideas. A musical instrument such as a synthesizer might have presets but you still need to play it just like you would a guitar which does not. Because I did not fabricate my own paint, grow the flax, harvest it and weave it to make a canvas, grow the tree, cut it down and mill it, make the handle and gather animal hair to make my own brushes is a rubbish idea and argument about where to draw the line...I still need to get down to the business of painting, and those tools, the paints, canvases and brushes cannot by themselves. AI has no place in the creation of art and is not a tool because tools don't do the work for you. AI does. Prompting is not in itself an art, it is a craft and the end result cannot be art as it is only a product and it is produced by corporations for profiting on the your interaction and then using that to make a better product to sell you to yourself. They are not in the business to help artists realize their ideas, they are not your muse.

If you wish to have a singer in your song then find a singer or sing it yourself. Need drums, program a drum machine or find someone to do so. Write the lyrics about how you feel or see the world and don't relegate it away and lose the soul to a cold algorithm. Not every individual, duo or group is going to be great, there are levels of both proficiency and ability of expression. Was Lou Reed a great technical singer or could he rip on guitar? Hell no, but what a great artist! Was Jean Michel Basquiat gonna paint the Sistene Chapel, no not that kinda guy, but what a great artist!

You can write a song and not perform it but still retain the status of songwriter and retain creative ownership providing it is 100% all you. Jaco might have played on your album but he only played his part and didn't write the song, the same goes for generated parts. He needs to be paid for his work and there a contract stating that agreement, AI content needs the same.

Be an artist, strive to be an artist. An artist can only be human.

That is the line.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2026 at 4:37 AM

If you appreciate modern art at all, most of that argument falls apart immediately. Not all art is good art, and more importantly, something does not have to be art in the classical sense to exist within modern art. The claim that “AI can’t make art because it’s not human, it doesn’t suffer, it didn’t live” stops working almost as soon as you compare it to modern and contemporary art.

Modernism already threw the idea that technical skill equals art out the window. Basquiat wasn’t about Renaissance-level technique; he was about expression, context, impact, and how the work engaged with society. He started as a graffiti artist tagging SAMO for “Same Old Shit” or Samo, Samo in street slang. You picked one of my favorite New York City street artists, even more so than Keith Haring.

My point isn’t that AI can, or cannot, create art. But all music is not art either way. Things which are music do not have to be made with the output intended as “Fine Art.” One of the simplest qualifications of art, as it was often framed in art history classes, is intent: art for art’s sake.

Marcel Duchamp took a men’s urinal and made it Modern Art. Andres Serrano took an image of Jesus he didn’t create, submerged it in urine, and called it Immersion (Piss Christ). Both generated outrage, and that outrage became part of the work itself. Dadaism and Absurdism weren’t mistakes or jokes.

Julian Schnabel, another NYC modernist, worked in restaurants and later made now-famous Modern Art by collecting broken dishware and affixing it to canvas. He didn’t manufacture any of it. He selected, framed, and painted over it until it became his.

Instead of saying “this is all bullshit” (modernism), postmodernism says: “Okay, everything’s bullshit. Who’s up next?”

Banksy isn't a construction worker or member of the Bricklayers Union.

I’ll skip the MoMA and Leon Black jokes for now.

 

@clone mmm, not necessarily. though i also appreciate modern art (i also love basquiat and harring) but youre comparing visual art against performative art. culturally throughout the history of our species, music is a performing art we developed over thousands of years. the styles and artistic movements are also different because they evolved differently based on that

so trying to constitute what is art in a performing art based on visual art, doesnt really do anything against his point

 

You don't need any theory or any musical ability to write great music today.

Most acts, from Beatles to Calvin Harris had no formal training, just a chord book.

I started writing with a Tascam 246 Portastudio, Juno2, 707, boss delay and a SPX90 multi effects, self-taught, no samples, no internet just my ears and eyes.

A drum box with steps is a brilliant way to learn to programme drums cos you get a visual representation, only 16 steps, so you can see a four on the floor beat, the kick the snare the hats etc, now I can swiftly do rock or dance beats. Even so, i do also use a lot of sample drums as programming complete drum track is very time consuming.

There are no exuses, you are on your own in dis biz, if those who claim they can 'help' you really could, that's what they would be doing, 'elping themselves.

Writing great music is not about plugins, it's about intervals, that's the only thing that make hits.

Learn how to use them by using your ears, that's how everybody does it, it's only your ears that matter, you just need to hear a decent riff forming under your fingers und take it where it wants to go, it's in your hands, nobody can do it for you.

 

I miss the good old days when live music was everywhere, no DJ or other fake nonsense, there were nightclubs, bars church halls auditoriums everywhere even movie theaters on occasion. So many places filled every week by bands local and popular, musicians who were everywhere and many of us knew each other because we were always competing for the better and more popular venues, we exchanged musicians for projects and sessions everyone could always get a piece of the musical pie, we paid our dues, we belonged to musician guilds, unions and associations we had booking agents that kept us constantly busy, everyone was happy until the sheer greed started by some groups and their greedy agents thinking that they deserved more than any of the others, clubs were fed up being financially gouged and many just closed down as stricter drinking and driving laws were now enforced. Some of us we were always able to continue playing from pickup bands and gigs, to studio and session work for performers from other countries hiring local musicians for their concerts and shows Nothing beats the adrenalin rush of performing live to appreciative audiences, regardless of the type or style of music.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2026 at 7:43 AM

That's what I'm always asking myself about in these debates in THIS forum. C'mon, We are little entitled bitches enjoying the spoils of the pirates having philosopical debates about lines and kant and duty and ethics while donwloading the last R2R release and making appreciaton posts about a guy who smugles for us all the best VSL releases. And we even have to circle around the "ethical debates" constraning ourselfs about going radical about it cause politics are against the forum's rules. It's mental and nosense.

If a tool is useful to me and improves my joy on making music/video/designs, I use it and I get good at it. That's my line. My joy. My pleasure. I'm an epicurean mf, fuck kant.