Do you really think hiring a session "musician or vocalist" to perform a part is any different than using an AI generator?

Remember drummers getting all worried about Drum Machines? Why aren't they cranking out their own albums? Very few of them are writing the songs being recorded either, they are just playing notes written by someone else.

 

Actually, I think hiring a musician or vocalist to perform is totally different from using an AI generator. The choices you have to control the final output are much more diverse than you'd have with a machine. The ability you have to communicate with another person about the phrasing or delivery of individual lines or even specific words is far greater and immediate with another person than it would be with a machine. It's also far more spontaneous than playing around endlessly with machine parameters. With another person you also have the benefit of getting ideas and input you or your machine might never even have thought of. Most of my career in music has been spent doing recording sessions as a singer. Fortunately for me I did quite well. Even through Covid times I still got a good deal of work. I've yet to hear of one single person I've worked with suggesting they might replace me with an AI generated vocal. The people I work for want something good, not something cheap or artificial.

As far as drummers and drum machines, sorry, but I find it to be another flimsy example. Years back I was very close friends with a drummer who later became one of the biggest, most in-demand session drummers in the city I live in.When drum machines came to market, he bought up every different brand he could get his hands on. Literally, he'd travel to sessions with a trucking cartage service that carried all of it from one gig to the next. It brought to him HUGE amounts of work, because as a drummer he could program the machines far better than non-drummers. His knowledge of music and actual drumming is what made him so successful, not the machines in and of themselves. Producers wanted to say they'd hired someone with the latest drum machine, but what they were really hiring was a drummer who knew how to use them.

 

It's quite funny that humanity is working so hard towards eliminating itself lol.
Not only that humans are destroying the planet they live on, nope that's not enough. As a side project they are also trying hard to make themselves redundant with being replaced by technologies.
(I'm certainly not talking about some audio AI toys, but stuff like that is going on everywhere and it fits the bigger picture)

I have no doubt Science-Fiction scenarios will become reality, but I highly doubt humans will have a place in that reality. "Humans" as we know them now, that species has zero chance to survive.
Quantum computers might be the point where things change drastically. The potential is enormous.

To me, in medium-term humans will carry out some sort of symbiosis with technology, turning into kind of hybrid creatures, cyborgs if you will. We're already on the way of merging with technology, most people have a virtual identity that is dependent and characterized by technological devices, computers, mobiles, etc. This has even reached a point where many people would have the feeling their lives' would be gone, if you'd take away the devices from them. Be honest, how would you feel without your computer/mobile phone? It's part of your life and your entire identity, and not a small part. Still only the beginning, of course.
We're merging with technology, one might call it "evolution".

And in long-term the physical human being will disappear. There's no sense in keeping that weak, stinky, vulnerable body, with all its' disgusting flesh and hair and skin, all that trash that's only going to end up being malfunctional and will rot anyway.

Of course this must be seen in quite a long time span.
And if humanity manages to destroy the planet in the first place, something else will be happening.
Nevertheless, "humans" will be known as a species that existed for a ridiculous short amount of time on planet Earth.


[Sorry the post is pretty off-topic, but those AI topics are popping up everywhere and I'm usually not even commenting them. I simply had to drop my overall point of view on all that somewhere ]

 

It seems that Suno AI has partnered with Microsoft and it is now included on Microsoft Copilot... Blog link here

"We are excited to share that that we have partnered with Suno, a leader in artificial intelligence-based music creation to bring their capabilities to Microsoft Copilot. Through this partnership, people will have at their fingertips the ability, regardless of musical background, to create fun, clever, and personalized songs with a simple prompt. Suno has been a leader in AI music technology, pioneering the ability to generate complete songs—lyrics, instrumentals, and singing voices—from a single sentence.
You don’t have to know how to sing, play an instrument, or read music to bring your musical ideas to life. Microsoft Copilot and Suno will do all the hard work for you, matching the song to cues in your prompt."

 

We live in interesting times...

 

If you can't beat them, join them. I now identify as AI.

 

Big Black used only a Roland drum machine because they did not want to pay a drummer. Steve Albini, who is not a drummer; programmed all of the drums on the Roland. Later on, his other projects had real live drummers. So it isn't a flimsy example at all. Average musicians have been easily replaceable for a very long time.

If I do not want to pay some average session drummer, and I use a drum machine instead; is Danny Carey suddenly going to have no work? Or is it just someone average who will be looking for work?

The people most worried about AI are the "musicians" who are just as worried about anyone else who can show up to the session and sight read. If someone wants to do things on the cheap, they already are doing so. Ai is not going to change any of it. It only becomes a "problem" to anyone when they are the ones who will get replaced. Anyone great will get the work either way. Spend time practicing instead of worrying about something you have no control over.

 

SEE: Spotify Daniel Ek even he admits this himself and says he wanted to be a rock star so he became a millionaire by stealing music and selling the technology delivering it to the masses. Then became a billionaire by repackaging and rebranding it as "streaming" platform, selling ad space and going public becoming one of the richest people in the world off the backs of real-musicians.

Absolutely 100% completely could not be polar opposite more different than it already is for blatantly obvious reasons I wont bother explaining to a non-musician.

Again SEE: Spotify Daniel Ek, owner of Helsing Ai battlefield weapons of war for sale to highest paying customers. He has been in the murder business for 3+ years already. So keep on supporting your hero and the murder of your brothers and sisters and neighbors, so long as you can get free AI music!

you wouldnt even know any of these peoples names if it werent for a time period where independent artists were being paid somewhat fairly for their work. Thanks to .. wait for it, you guessed it, Spotify Daniel Ek and stupid lazy scared musicians, those days are long gone and thanks to people like you we will never see independent musicians and producers (of Nirvana etc) like these ever again. Congratulations!


You just cant make this shit up.

 

Worrying about a computer taking away a skill job. Go practice.

 

I got no idea what you're talking about there and how it has anything to do with what I said, but that's ok.
By the way, I have never used Spotify my entire life. But again, it's totally unrelated anyway, so who cares.
One thing I agree on though:

 

A joke about an artist who f..ked coder girl, so the coder invented a program to replace artists. Everyone is happy.

 

Those concerned with A.I. creation of music and its artistic and legal ramifications should watch this video:

A few years back, I was attending a music-tech meetups. After a short while, I realized that the prevailing focus of the meetings was of technology applied to the control and regulation of music and musical culture, without any discussion of technology used for making music – except in regard to A.I. What convinced me that the music-tech bros were soulless and anti-human was when the presenter was describing a service whereby people could pay 99 cents for an A.I. bot to realize a piece of music per keyword descriptors – and how it would be perfect for those producing videos, films, and commercials (the part unspoken being ". . . who don't want to have to pay for some musician to create or license his/her music for the project"). In discussion, I told the guy that this was bad for people like me, as it stood to devalue my skills, but also my artistry, in favor of someone who'll pay a dollar to a machine rather than respectable compensation for what I have to offer as a human. He looked like he were caught in the glare of truth's headlights, and sputtered about how, no, it would make my abilities more valuable as a human – to which I replied, "Exactly. So why pay me, when you'd settle for a machine to generate something?" and he moved on to the next person raising their hand.

 

Well, that was fast.

For more future predictions, I'm here all week! Hit the like, subscribe, don't miss out on my newest predictions, join my patreon, tell me in comments what do you think about all this, see you next time. (Outro sequence)

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2023

The great artists, those who wrote history are also those who imagined the future, believed in it, and gave us progress. They did all this by fighting against the retrograde vision, against the sterile schemes of a society that was afraid of change. It is fatal: any conservative vision is destined to succumb to innovation and progress. We can say that Darwin's law also works for arts: everything that is no longer suitable for the present is destined to disappear, leaving room for new ideas that are more functional and suited to the evolving rhythms of life. Now, some attribute a dystopian connotation to AI, but it is an exaggeratedly pessimistic vision, I believe that we must have faith in the future, with all the good things it can bring us.
With AI, Kraftwerk's vision is finally coming true: the perfect interaction between human intelligence and electronic circuits, the Man Machine.

 

Love the "AI is only a tool for artists to express themselves so get on the gravy train NOW instead of complaining" crowd.
How many of them thought, upon discovering Midjourney, that a lucrative side-career in graphic design was at their feet, before their only AI assisted original art completely fused into the endless ocean of similar, uninteresting and bland AI generated imagery prompted by a million other geniuses who saw dollar signs because they thought they were trailblazers by having stumbled upon it a week before their grandmother learned about it?
It's a pretty similar scenario to crypto, where the really few early investors made bank, and the first wave of late bloomers started torturing the rest of us by polluting every social media outlet, family dinner or afterwork gathering with how crypto was the future and the skeptical ones were reactionary dinosaurs who would regret not having jumped on the gravy train now lol. Of course when it had reached that point the gold rush was already over, and except a few lucky ones who happened to stumble upon the right pump-and-dump at the right place and time, everyone and their grandmother knew about it and lost money.
Then the same shit happened with NFTs. Remember the thread here two-three years ago? Where a producer bro was boasting about his NFT (a disposable vape that's also a usb stick with a song in it.. genius) and calling everyone else old fashioned whatevers? I wonder how large the cash pile he's sitting atop of is.

Those who think they're paving way for the next generation of artistic expression by being early adopters of AI music, I have a question : when, inevitably, AI will be powerful enough as to not even need a human to write prompts for music generation -which will happen faster than you think, because it's a billion times easier to train an AI to do that than to do music- what will become of your newly found talent?
Even better : when, at the latest three months from now, everyone and their paraplegic aunt will be prompting the same bland shit music using AI, who will care about your bland shit music just because you happened to come across Suno three months before them?

Who does REALLY believe ANYONE with money is looking at the trajectory of things and thinking "with all these new tools, we can discover the new generation of artists who will create unique stuff never possible before, and we'll remunerate them accordingly" ?
Music industry is ruled by tech bros today, who'd rather eliminate the human factor completely if they can, and AI is their holy grail.

So keep telling yourselves this is just another drum machine scare if it helps you sleep better. And sure, people who really care about music and dedicate their lives to it aren't gonna disappear tomorrow (that will be due to climate change, not AI, lol) and your local ZZ Top cover band will still be playing dive bars for a congregation of beer bellies and sweaty floppy tittie (that is until they become homeless because their day jobs will be replaced by AI too), but seriously : if you can't see we're right in the midst of the biggest paradigm shift humanity has ever known, and that it is NOT a positive for a majority of us, at least in the short run, your opinion is worthless. There's a reason why everyone who works in tech, except the psychopaths at the top and their entry level sycophants, are terrorized by AI.

 

Kraftwerk's music was composed and executed by humans, not by machines, especially a software machine.

"Yes, but . . ." Well, no.

 

Kraftwerk's music was composed and executed by humans, not by machines, especially a software machine.

"Yes, but . . ." Well, no.

QUOTE="El Cycer, post: 745225, member: 118558"]The great artists, those who wrote history are also those who imagined the future, believed in it, and gave us progress. They did all this by fighting against the retrograde vision, against the sterile schemes of a society that was afraid of change. It is fatal: any conservative vision is destined to succumb to innovation and progress. We can say that Darwin's law also works for arts: everything that is no longer suitable for the present is destined to disappear, leaving room for new ideas that are more functional and suited to the evolving rhythms of life. Now, some attribute a dystopian connotation to AI, but it is an exaggeratedly pessimistic vision, I believe that we must have faith in the future, with all the good things it can bring us.
With AI, Kraftwerk's vision is finally coming true: the perfect interaction between human intelligence and electronic circuits, the Man Machine.

[/QUOTE]

 

Geez, you are so off base it's hard to even know where to begin. At this point I'm even wondering if you're actually a musician, one that works, has experience, etc. I'd like to know more about what your background is in music that's led to the conclusions you've reached. Me, I did my first professional paid work as a singer when I was 10 years old! I'm doing it for a lifetime. I've made my money and have no worries. My concerns are what will be available for the next generation of musicians, singers, artists. Personally, regardless of which way the wind blows I will be absolutely set for the rest of my days.

Anyway, instead of relying on some goofball interpretation of a song from the late 70's, you should read this interview from 2022 in The Guardian with Karl Bartos, the original drummer from Kraftwerk. Hopefully it will sink in that you know not whereof you speak! The reality is a bit different than the self-serving interpretation you've chosen to adopt. (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/03/karl-bartos-kraftwerk-turned-into-the-dehumanisation-of-music).

This was some of his final quoted words in that interview:

“Society has turned into a conveyor belt,” he says. “You put in resources, you turn it into a consumer product,
you earn money and ... rubbish. This is what happened to Kraftwerk. They turned into the dehumanisation of music.”
Although he still deeply loves his time in the classic analogue era of the band. “I loved being a man-machine,” he says.
“But we just lost the man.”


And here you are El Cycer, urging us to dive deeper into losing the man.

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2023

Most money is made from touring. We're probably still a century from robots that are indistinguishable from humans. Until that time studios looking to remove the middle-men/women standing between themselves and 100% of the profit will have to put up with real artistes. But I think we're probably going to see more reality TV 'stars' who can't sing miming to their AI voices live. It's all about the face and body now, the music and voice are easily AId. Actually so is the face and body, but not yet in a live scenario. Maybe next we'll have 'stars' standing off stage moving around and the audience seeing their perfect avatar hologram (Abba Voyage has evolved the technology, they now use 65-million-pixel LED screens). They could even make Madonna look 80 years younger - 20 again!

 

There is a big difference between hiring a drummer, using a VST like Superior Drummer, and asking AI to do everything for you with just the press of a button.