5 ms·

AIVA – Music Engine

39 points by ZeljkoS 8y ago

byproxy 8y ago
I consider myself a music creator. I signed up for the beta. I'm ambivalent about the idea of "AI"-assisted creative production and the trend toward homogenization.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
phmagic 8y ago
I love this tech! However a more painful problem it was solve for me is putting non-copyrighted sound tracks in my videos. I'd pay for royalty-free music generated on-demand.
zozbot123 8y ago
Note that the orchestration on the available AIVA tracks is (at least as far as one can tell) entirely manual. Even the music itself may well be more like the result of a process involving both the 'AI' and the human producer, than something truly generated 'end to end',[1] free of manual intervention! (Not that there's anything wrong with the former; it might be the best way of ending up with a truly compelling and impressive end-product!) (I don't quite recall off-hand if it was these folks or someone else who claimed to have fed their AI a corpus of tens of thousands of classical pieces in "digitized sheet music" form as part of the training process - something that would be a treasure trove for academic music corpus studies, if it existed!) [1] End-to-end systems do exist, and their output is quite interesting, but in a "quirky, weird but it actually sounds nice" way - sorts of like the musical analog of the DeepDream doggie pictures. Arguably the most successful (of the ones that are openly available) is "Hexahedria"/Daniel Johnson's "biaxial music composition" (aka "tied parallel networks") project, which was featured here before. The "BachBot" and "DeepBach" projects also deserve mention, but their scope is rather limited as their names suggest.
- byproxy 8y ago
  I'm sure you know about it, but IMSLP (https://imslp.org/ https://imslp.org/) has quite a few scores from which they could pull.
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    These are not "digitized" in the relevant sense, though. The OpenScore project (https://www.openscore.cc https://www.openscore.cc ) makes it quite clear what is meant by that. And it's hard work, though in principle some AI engine of a very different sort might be able to help with it.
    - byproxy 8y ago
      Ah, I see. So, some kind of OCR for sheet music, then?
- inetsee 8y ago
  I am very interested in the "freestyle" model of chess, where one or more human players are paired with one or more chess engines to form a team, playing against other teams. This model has demonstrated that these teams can play stronger chess than either the human players or the chess engines. I believe that this same model can be applied to many more creative applications, including music. A lot of the pure AI creative applications I've seen still have a long way to go before they get close to what talented human creatives can do.
- pierreb-aiva 8y ago
  Hi there! :) Indeed, up till now, all of the orchestral tracks we released where orchestrated by humans. However, we've just finished automating that part of the process as well; our Beta will allow users to generate scores that are orchestrated for a wide variety of ensembles. And regarding our database, we have over 30.000 scores right now, digitized in MIDI format. :)
maximp 8y ago
I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click of a button. Is this a tool for composers (and if so, how?) or a tool for users who'd otherwise go to stock music libraries?
- pierreb-aiva 8y ago
  Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add for composers is by giving them an original, 2-3 minutes long theme in seconds, that they can modify however they want in their own creative workflow (Digital Audio Workstation or Notation program). You could think of this as a composition assistance that gives you a sketch, as opposed to starting out with a blank slate, and potentially having to face writer's block. FYI, our closed beta is going live in early January, and we'll be on-boarding new users on a regular basis from there. Hope that clarifies!
  - neurotrace 8y ago
    I had a similar experience and seeing that video made things a lot more clear. I'd recommend putting that on your website. Anyway, looks like a great tool!
    - pierreb-aiva 8y ago
      Thanks for the feedback, we will improve the website’s presentation!
  - zozbot123 8y ago
cronix 8y ago
Does the AI get the music award now? The art is then the AI algorithms and not the human. I wouldn't value an "artist" who "created" their "art" this way. It's not really them.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > The art is... the AI algorithms ... To the extent that this is a common POV, it is a bit of a problem for AIVA, in contrast with open systems. Because how do you assess the "art" that might or might not be embodied in AIVA's algorithms, when those algorithms are not in fact available for scrutiny? Where's the compelling expression, the impressiveness, that is supposed to be a defining feature of "true" art? It's nowhere to be seen, really - all we have is some "magic" and we can at best surmise about what it might be doing under the hood. The developers of, e.g. BachBot, DeepBach and other open systems seem to be in a rather more enviable position as "true" artists!
  - cronix 8y ago
    It's basically like Antares Autotune in music, to correct "singers" who can't really actually sing, which is most in the top charts today. There are few current top-chart artists who can truly sing (Gaga, Sheeran are some who can actually sing - with 0 effects). I'm not talking about using it as a vocal effect, but as it was originally intended - to correct pitch of singers who can't really sing. Although I think many using it as an effect also can't really sing and hide behind the effect to mask that fact. It's just a crutch for sub-par singers.
Wlodzislaw 8y ago
I understand that we have to wait till January for beta version to be able to do any experiments oneself. A pity as some simple experiments with Christmas carols could impress my friends and January will be more busy ...

39 points by ZeljkoS 8y ago

I consider myself a music creator. I signed up for the beta. I'm ambivalent about the idea of "AI"-assisted creative production and the trend toward homogenization.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

phmagic 8y ago

I love this tech! However a more painful problem it was solve for me is putting non-copyrighted sound tracks in my videos. I'd pay for royalty-free music generated on-demand.

zozbot123 8y ago

Note that the orchestration on the available AIVA tracks is (at least as far as one can tell) entirely manual. Even the music itself may well be more like the result of a process involving both the 'AI' and the human producer, than something truly generated 'end to end',[1] free of manual intervention! (Not that there's anything wrong with the former; it might be the best way of ending up with a truly compelling and impressive end-product!) (I don't quite recall off-hand if it was these folks or someone else who claimed to have fed their AI a corpus of tens of thousands of classical pieces in "digitized sheet music" form as part of the training process - something that would be a treasure trove for academic music corpus studies, if it existed!) [1] End-to-end systems do exist, and their output is quite interesting, but in a "quirky, weird but it actually sounds nice" way - sorts of like the musical analog of the DeepDream doggie pictures. Arguably the most successful (of the ones that are openly available) is "Hexahedria"/Daniel Johnson's "biaxial music composition" (aka "tied parallel networks") project, which was featured here before. The "BachBot" and "DeepBach" projects also deserve mention, but their scope is rather limited as their names suggest.

byproxy 8y ago
I'm sure you know about it, but IMSLP (https://imslp.org/ https://imslp.org/) has quite a few scores from which they could pull.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  These are not "digitized" in the relevant sense, though. The OpenScore project (https://www.openscore.cc https://www.openscore.cc ) makes it quite clear what is meant by that. And it's hard work, though in principle some AI engine of a very different sort might be able to help with it.
  - byproxy 8y ago
    Ah, I see. So, some kind of OCR for sheet music, then?
inetsee 8y ago
I am very interested in the "freestyle" model of chess, where one or more human players are paired with one or more chess engines to form a team, playing against other teams. This model has demonstrated that these teams can play stronger chess than either the human players or the chess engines. I believe that this same model can be applied to many more creative applications, including music. A lot of the pure AI creative applications I've seen still have a long way to go before they get close to what talented human creatives can do.
pierreb-aiva 8y ago
Hi there! :) Indeed, up till now, all of the orchestral tracks we released where orchestrated by humans. However, we've just finished automating that part of the process as well; our Beta will allow users to generate scores that are orchestrated for a wide variety of ensembles. And regarding our database, we have over 30.000 scores right now, digitized in MIDI format. :)

maximp 8y ago

I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click of a button. Is this a tool for composers (and if so, how?) or a tool for users who'd otherwise go to stock music libraries?

pierreb-aiva 8y ago
Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add for composers is by giving them an original, 2-3 minutes long theme in seconds, that they can modify however they want in their own creative workflow (Digital Audio Workstation or Notation program). You could think of this as a composition assistance that gives you a sketch, as opposed to starting out with a blank slate, and potentially having to face writer's block. FYI, our closed beta is going live in early January, and we'll be on-boarding new users on a regular basis from there. Hope that clarifies!
- neurotrace 8y ago
  I had a similar experience and seeing that video made things a lot more clear. I'd recommend putting that on your website. Anyway, looks like a great tool!
  - pierreb-aiva 8y ago
    Thanks for the feedback, we will improve the website’s presentation!
- zozbot123 8y ago

cronix 8y ago

Does the AI get the music award now? The art is then the AI algorithms and not the human. I wouldn't value an "artist" who "created" their "art" this way. It's not really them.

zozbot123 8y ago
> The art is... the AI algorithms ... To the extent that this is a common POV, it is a bit of a problem for AIVA, in contrast with open systems. Because how do you assess the "art" that might or might not be embodied in AIVA's algorithms, when those algorithms are not in fact available for scrutiny? Where's the compelling expression, the impressiveness, that is supposed to be a defining feature of "true" art? It's nowhere to be seen, really - all we have is some "magic" and we can at best surmise about what it might be doing under the hood. The developers of, e.g. BachBot, DeepBach and other open systems seem to be in a rather more enviable position as "true" artists!
- cronix 8y ago
  It's basically like Antares Autotune in music, to correct "singers" who can't really actually sing, which is most in the top charts today. There are few current top-chart artists who can truly sing (Gaga, Sheeran are some who can actually sing - with 0 effects). I'm not talking about using it as a vocal effect, but as it was originally intended - to correct pitch of singers who can't really sing. Although I think many using it as an effect also can't really sing and hide behind the effect to mask that fact. It's just a crutch for sub-par singers.

Wlodzislaw 8y ago

I understand that we have to wait till January for beta version to be able to do any experiments oneself. A pity as some simple experiments with Christmas carols could impress my friends and January will be more busy ...