I'm excited that AI makes all the boring musical stuff we do, all the rehashing of the same ole' cliche, really easy to do. So that now as a human you finally have some serious competition in the music ecosystem that is not just from other humans. New apex predator in town. Now the human, unable to compete with AI, will be forced to ask some deep questions and focus on doing things musically that the AI would never do, all the atrociously unique and human things will suddenly not be "fringe" but the creme de la creme, the essential and truly valuable.

There's a popular misnomer, where we call musicians a "creative" profession. A lot of it isn't, and is simply a craft or a marketplace for noisy peddlers. Ultimately no one is even going to be sad that the peddlers have to go, and everything they used to sell to the public's overactive imagination is now free for all. We have to remind ourselves as we face the nightmare age of AI about what true creation entails: bringing something that needed to be, but didn't exist yet, was not yet manifest, into being.

Everybody who simply wanted to sound like somebody else to be "just as successful as them" will be kicked out of the space because AI makes cheap imitation even more cheap. Everybody who wanted to be externally impressive by playing an instrument will also be de-throned and move on to other things (but not those who love an instrument and love playing). That's a good thing, IMHO. The space becomes more rarified, but it won't stay empty.

As ChatGPT would say, "This is not simply a process of weaning out excess. It's process of CONCENTRATION. You have not just been warned about what is coming, you have percieved the EVANGELION of future music."

To which I say "Shut up, ChatGPT. Your slop is running again."

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2026

I always enjoyed listening to bedroom made music, raw, original, never too polished, always quirky, lot of potential, but never quite there, there was charm to it and 9/10 times if I stumbled upon music like that, I would listen to it entirely, comment and encourage someone to keep going. I'm a community guy, blessed to have chance to learn from people online, have huge respect for folks who decided to do it for the love of music, instead of chasing bag and career out of it, knowing far too well all the story and being there on the both sides.

Last few months stumbled upon so much AI generated stuff that I just stopped listening to unknown music and if someone can't waste time and years to make his own music, I have no time to waste listening to it either. There should be natural progress, you don't know shit about music, you make shitty music, you don't have great mixing chops, your music sounds like that and pretty much effort you make is easily recognized. Not you hum or write something and there's track you couldn't make if your life depended on it, perfectly mixed and all that.

So focused on just listening music that truly inspires me, made by folks who really have passion and love for music, which in return actually gave me all the inspiration and drive to put lot of more effort into my own music, invest more money into gear and studio and all that fun stuff.

I'm not elitist, never was, always was underdog and cheering for my own folks, that's why I always choose to listen to music my peeps made, hang on forums like this in order to give back and help somehow, never too critical, always found time to help anyone with anything, but yeah, essence of bedroom community is lost with AI, it's not just us regular schmucks trying to make noise to best of our abilities or for the fun of doing it.

But whatever makes you happy and all that, how ever you get there I guess, if you are happy, it's all that matters, I'm just not going to even bother with it anymore, not a big loss.

 

Yes, people will start to appreciate and focus on the creme de la creme of human music.

Just like fast food didn't displace restaurants, it only made them (and us) StRoNgEr (in the Darwinian sense).

Thank fuck for fast food automating and optimising all the boring, rehashed processes away. It finally made us ask the deep (fried) food questions and focus on real innovation - thanks to all that healthy CoMpeTitiOn.

Like *clicks fingers* yeah, uh. That dish.
You know, the one with the Indian spices.
The one with the yellow colour.
Real innovation.

Thank fast food for putting an end to slow food.
Look at how healthy everyone is now!
No one needs to have the grease pulled out of their arteries anymore.
No one's out of breath anymore.
Everyone's a real picture of health.

But.. let me guess.

"Doesn't affect me. ROFL I'm ahead of the curve, I'm so smart, lmao, don't give a fuck about anyone else HEH HEH HEH."


Ah fuck. The battery on my power chair is dying. How am I gonna get from the counter to the ice cream vending machine with this body of mine that is bursting at the seams? Call 911, it's a foodmergency, 4000 cal a day of same-same won't do!

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2026

Hi!
I had my share of producing music since 2008. Self taught for few years, a lot of Cubase 5 back then. Went to Dubspot NYC in 2014, studied their full music production program for 6 months to be better.

Released a few tracks, some even got played on the radio.

Haven't really touched music production in 6-7 years (life, kids) so I'm in a place where I can actually share a thought or wonder about the future of music production without having to ask myself if I "don't have the skill" or "lack of passion".

It's a debate worth having in this great community where all opinions are equal.

I had my personal peak a long time ago. I'm proud of my knowledge and skills and productions throughout the years. As someone who spent weeks on a single lead, I know how frustrating it is to have the idea but waste time on technical stuff and bam, muse gets away.

So, where is the line for using AI in music production?

 

You are beating dead horse at this point, do whatever you want and makes you happy, it's your time and music, there's nothing to debate here, whatever get's you there.

You can replace term AI with anything and it would still be pointless discussion, samples, presets, instrument, music theory, mixing, whatever, what does that change to anybody, why anyone needs anyone's validation or approval for any of it, there's nothing to debate about, everyone have different take on what he think is important to his own journey and outcome.

If we for example established that "proper" way is: you would go to music school, play an instrument, then finish audio engineering, have proper studio with gear and then start making your own music and properly mix and master it. So in that case, one would say you crossed the line when you started making music on your own without prior music knowledge, without knowing how to play an instrument and so on. So what, nobody should start because he skipped music school.

Nobody except you decides where's the line, there's nothing to debate here, most of us have little to no time for music, do whatever it takes to take the edge off and then go back to real life, this is as pointless as debating ones personal musical taste or fashion, food or whatever, music making is your personal expression and your own thing and only you are there deciding about any of it.

 

Different people are going to have different values. Do we want good-quality live music at some kinds of social gatherings, or produce and listen to it ourselves? That's probably going to shift things, sociologically.

Is music becoming a lonelier endeavor? How do we respond to that?
What about the effects of people walking around everywhere, peering at their cellphones? We never had that before.

The problem with tech is that it changes us and not necessarily for the better.

Someone once argued with me that, yes, we cook our food now and have bigger brains because of it, so as to suggest that technology will do that and that it's probably a good thing, because look at us, we're here and not too bad.
Even if so about the cooked food and brain thing, my argument was/is that we haven't yet evolved this out to some logical conclusions. Things might look good now, but consequences sometimes take a very long time-- generations-- to cascade through the systems and through us, and where backing out is no longer an option, due to lock-ins of various sorts.

If technology is supposed to make our lives easier, what happens when our lives are easy? What kinds of challenges-- stimulation-- does 'easy' place on our brains then?

Stagnation? Further retreats from the real, the tactile, the visceral?

Maybe we will have and take a pill for that. But some will refuse it. Hopefully they can, and it's not already too late.

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2026 at 5:40 AM

Very interesting takes here.

For me, the line is drawn once you’ve actually put something of your own on the table. Say you’re a guitarist, or even just an aspiring one.

I’d say it’s a good use of AI if you’re still being creative within your own means, experimenting to the limit of your abilities, exploring chord progressions, and so on. I bet AI will surprise you more the more you give it to begin with.

That said, like other people here have mentioned, you do lose some control over what AI is doing to a piece. So the more you understand music production, and the more you can actually replicate in a DAW what the AI is doing musically, the more power you have.

I think a skill that goes widely unnoticed right now is synthesis. If you’re able to recreate the sounds AI is generating, that gives you a huge amount of power right now. Even translating the sounds people get from Suno into actual synth patches is a very sellable skill at the moment.

Recording real guitars over the chord progressions Suno comes up with is also a hell of a skill right now.

So summing it all up:

• Start by being as creative as you can with your current skill set.
• Feed that into the AI of your choice.
• Learn from what it does to your input. How did it correct your harmony? Is it trying too hard to force it into a box, or is that actually helping your music translate to a wider audience? Between your version and the AI’s, what’s the best possible combination?
• Once you have all the pieces, bring everything into a DAW. I’d recommend recreating every sound again inside the DAW, especially harmonic elements like synths, guitars, and similar parts. Bass, depending on the AI output, might already be usable, though sometimes it just needs a low-pass filter to clean up the nasty comb filtering in the high end.

Right now, mixing and mastering are still very relevant skills. Tools like Suno are absolutely insane when it comes to arrangement, but you still have to do a good job mixing.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. I think the indie artists who will have the most success over the next five years will be doing some version of what I just described.

 

Right, so "where's the line" is misdirection; there is no "line."

To elaborate a little, composers have borrowed, quoted, stolen music from other composers for centuries. It sure made "life easier" for them, didn't it. Is it a "line" though? Some lawmakers, lawyers, courts, and estates seem to think so - nowadays at least.

But that's composers - not "producers." When I went to music school, and when I produced records, a producer was a human interface. We interface with the label President and A&R, the artist/band and their management, the studio owner/management, the tracking/assistant engineer, the musicians, etc., and of course, the material, mixing engineer and mastering houses. We worked hard for a living.

In short, and notwithstanding musical ability, a Producer is able to interface/communicate/work with all the parties involved, handle egos and finances, and translate each party's professional or emotional jargon into words the other parties will comprehend.

A lot of EDM, Rap/Trap/Pop people call themselves "Producers" these last couple of decades, and why not, but they couldn't 'produce' a song - let alone an album - without the aid of "loops" and "easy" software. To be clear, if you're producing a "track" all by yourself in your bedroom-studio, who are you producing exactly, and who do you answer to, produce for?

Semantics aside, to circle back to my earlier point: there is (clearly) no "line," least of all for the mega corporations salivating at the prospect of paying musicians and producers less, and less, and less - until we're playing and "producing" for free (maybe lunch).


The "difference in workflow" is quite simple, and visible too actually: a sample library (drums, acoustic piano, Rhodes, horns, strings) is a tool. Yes, it replaces living, breathing, working (less and less) musicians, but it's a tool. It does jackshit on its own. You have to play it.

I've used such tools extensively, for film scores, for radio jingles, for Broadway musical production, for my own compositions and productions. But I played every note myself, including the drum parts, and when the demo was approved, if the budget allowed, I always hired musicians. Because I don't do this for money - I do it because I love music, and I want the best for my compositions and productions.

On the other end of the spectrum, ai is not a tool. It's one thing to do what Pink Floyd did with Another Brick In The Wall: after weeks of toiling with the outro of the guitar solo, they hired Lee Ritenour to come in the studio for a few hours and workshop/work out said outro. After Lee was done laying down his tracks, Gilmour and Waters poured over all the takes, and figured they liked how one fit in nicely with the 80-90% of the solo Gilmour had comped so far. Then Gilmour played the outro of the solo, maybe not note for note, but very much inspired by, and in the spirit of what Lee had laid down. And that's what you hear on the record.

I have no issue with using ai as a Lee Ritenour, as a collaborator/session musician, or collaborator lyricist that might suggest an idea you wouldn't have come up on your own - to get you out of a bind, or through a block. Personally, I haven't and wouldn't do it: when I hit a stumbling block, I let it rest, do some pranayama (yogic breathing) and circle back to it with a fresh mind and ears. Works for me.

I also have no issue with budding composers on a serious hard deadline outsourcing a section, a string quartet arrangement, whatever, to an ai platform in order to meet the deadline and put food on the table. I have no worries professional composers would do such a thing: we have friends or assistants we can ask for help, if need be.

The issue, and I've said this before on this forum and the courts have since sided with me (so to speak), is authorship and ownership.

The law is crystal clear, and the courts have recently ruled accordingly: a copyright can only be issued to a person, for work created by a person. Not an ai, not "aided" by (as a lyricist in the industry has claimed recently whereas ai had "produced" 100% of the music).

**********************​

So, there is no "line" but the bottom line. Just as ai can 'produce' a track for you, so can ai detect ai 'produced' music. (It can already flag text written by other ai platforms, and we all know about YouTube's aggressive take downs - all ai powered.) If you want to do it for fun, sure, go ahead. But be 100% clear, and truthful about it to everyone (friends, family, audience). How about that for workflow?

 

BTW If we have to ask for some kind of permission or approval from our peers or colleges to experiment or to do whatever the fuck we want with whatever the fuck falls into our hands, what a sad world we would be living in. My kid is going to live on a world+ai the same way we lived on a world+internet and he is not going to make a fuss about it as we also didn't.