4 ms·

It's interesting tech but none of the musical pieces impressed me (I play multiple instruments and have written and arranged music), most sounded too repetitive

It's interesting tech but none of the musical pieces impressed me (I play multiple instruments and have written and arranged music), most sounded too repetitive and not very imaginative. This is also an issue with diffusion based art AI in general, its good at a limited set of things but gets rather repetitive after a while. I could see using this as background music where quality is not important, like in games, though I doubt you could run the AI generator inside a game, you could generate it as a asset. People like Hans Zimmer and Ludwig Göransson have nothing to worry about. Singing would an interesting experiment, but I don't see that here.

Maschinesky 3y ago
I'm surprised that you even leap to people like Hans Zimmer and others. The people we need to worry about are aallll of the people earning a living for everything else like background music for Indi games, Ambient music etc.
riskable 3y ago
I thought the, "epic trailer music intense tribal percussion and brass" was pretty good. Rather, good enough for something like a video game where the game engine is dynamically generating music based on the present situation in the game. I could easily find that music entertaining if it started playing the moment my character triggered a trap and suddenly, "the floor is lava" or my character enters a scene with the quest of winning over one of the love interests =)
zone411 3y ago
Yes, while working on my AI Melodies Assistant project, it quickly became clear that generating a pleasant but boring music isn't too difficult. To create a catchy tune, an element of surprise is essential. In the end, I was able to use it as an assistant to compose 60 melodies that I'm happy with (https://www.melodies.ai/ https://www.melodies.ai/)
PatronBernard 3y ago
What I haven't seen done well by these generative AI's so far is structure (having a chorus, a verse, a bridge, ...) and harmonic movement/progressions (except for maybe a V-I or I - VI - ii - V) And those two be things are exactly what makes a song interesting and non-repetitive.
- Jeff_Brown 3y ago
  OpenAI's jukebox -- now 3 years old -- is creative and non-repetitive. Witness, for instance, its jam on Uptown Funk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaya74_NHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaya74_NHw Or the changes shortly after 1:15, 2:15 and 2:40 in these extensions of Take On Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3yOrUJ0SzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3yOrUJ0SzY
  - PatronBernard 3y ago
    Okay but here it still seems like it's just taking over snippets. It did not come up with the progression.
    - Jeff_Brown 3y ago
      If inventing new chord progressions is one of the requirements for musical creativity then neither Handel nor Paul Simon would qualify.
dylan604 3y ago
Yeah, the "rock drums" example was like a student in a practice. I'll be impressed when it can sound like Danny Carey. From all of the hype, I want to be impressed with results. Instead, we get these mediocre at best examples of what it can do. They are not good sales pitches to me.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  Sir, your dog can talk! Yes, but not very well.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    You joke, but even those videos of people saying their dog can talk is just like this. It's cute because it's a real dog making sounds we really want to believe when it's just them mimicking sounds because they get pettin's and treats. What I want is "AI" to do something impressive. Why are we trying to make the system generate the sounds itself? We don't make artists do that, we give them instruments. Give the models actual instruments, and then have it play them like a real artist. I will be much more impressed with an AI that understands composition and scoring, use of musical voices, key signatures. That would still be generative. I guess I just don't understand the point of the direction being taken. It's like a solution looking for a problem.
    - chpatrick 3y ago
      Well, we found with Midjourney et al that these models can work very well despite having no pre-conceived or symbolic notions of composition, color theory, perspective or anything. Yet they can produce really good results in the image generation space. It's the same idea here, except much earlier days. In the same way, many successful musicians can't read sheet music or know music theory, they just know how to produce something that sounds good.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        >In the same way, many successful musicians can't read sheet music or know music theory, they just know how to produce something that sounds good. Right, because they can operate the instruments that make the sound with natural talent, but they don't have to draw the waveforms. Audio generation is much different than image generation. It's just very odd to me.
cwillu 3y ago
I thought “Prompt: 116 BPM rock drums loop clean production” wasn't bad, but I'll grant that most of the rest would be an excellent way of showing (for instance) a death metal fan what their favoured music sounds like to those who don't have an ear for it :D
Auracle 3y ago
I disagree with your diffusion based art assessment, and I think it’s probably colored by what most people seem to want to make with it. Just as with regular art, you need some sort of vision to go beyond what everyone else does. Prompting “pretty girl wearing sexy clothing” for the umpteenth time isn’t new. AI art gets rid of the technical skill step but the rest is there, although you may luck in to something at random. If you’re using ControlNet on Stable Diffusion or training your own models you have a lot of control over the output as well.
mpsprd 3y ago
>where quality is not important, like in games I don't believe that's a good example. Video game music is an important part of the gaming experience, but its often taken for granted or overlooked.
Art9681 3y ago
The real test is when this stuff is out in the wild and no one tells you it’s AI and the thought doesn’t cross your mind. Of course it’s not impressive nor surprising when the answer was given up front.
devoice 3y ago
[dead]
chaosbolt 3y ago
This is the same kind of comment that got HN to seeth for months about how ChatGPT isn't the god programmer some clickbaity news sites claimed it was. ChatGPT is good in a way that having it is better than not having it, especially with how bad google has become, audio generation will also be good in this way, some people don't need your "musical expertise" but just some background calm music to use with a tutorial video without having youtube take it down for copyright infringement.
dvngnt_ 3y ago
gamers don't want bad music either. some go to video game music concerts or to fan covers

Maschinesky 3y ago

I'm surprised that you even leap to people like Hans Zimmer and others. The people we need to worry about are aallll of the people earning a living for everything else like background music for Indi games, Ambient music etc.

riskable 3y ago

I thought the, "epic trailer music intense tribal percussion and brass" was pretty good. Rather, good enough for something like a video game where the game engine is dynamically generating music based on the present situation in the game. I could easily find that music entertaining if it started playing the moment my character triggered a trap and suddenly, "the floor is lava" or my character enters a scene with the quest of winning over one of the love interests =)

zone411 3y ago

Yes, while working on my AI Melodies Assistant project, it quickly became clear that generating a pleasant but boring music isn't too difficult. To create a catchy tune, an element of surprise is essential. In the end, I was able to use it as an assistant to compose 60 melodies that I'm happy with (https://www.melodies.ai/ https://www.melodies.ai/)

PatronBernard 3y ago

What I haven't seen done well by these generative AI's so far is structure (having a chorus, a verse, a bridge, ...) and harmonic movement/progressions (except for maybe a V-I or I - VI - ii - V) And those two be things are exactly what makes a song interesting and non-repetitive.

Jeff_Brown 3y ago
OpenAI's jukebox -- now 3 years old -- is creative and non-repetitive. Witness, for instance, its jam on Uptown Funk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaya74_NHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaya74_NHw Or the changes shortly after 1:15, 2:15 and 2:40 in these extensions of Take On Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3yOrUJ0SzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3yOrUJ0SzY
- PatronBernard 3y ago
  Okay but here it still seems like it's just taking over snippets. It did not come up with the progression.
  - Jeff_Brown 3y ago
    If inventing new chord progressions is one of the requirements for musical creativity then neither Handel nor Paul Simon would qualify.

dylan604 3y ago

Yeah, the "rock drums" example was like a student in a practice. I'll be impressed when it can sound like Danny Carey. From all of the hype, I want to be impressed with results. Instead, we get these mediocre at best examples of what it can do. They are not good sales pitches to me.

chpatrick 3y ago
Sir, your dog can talk! Yes, but not very well.
- dylan604 3y ago
  You joke, but even those videos of people saying their dog can talk is just like this. It's cute because it's a real dog making sounds we really want to believe when it's just them mimicking sounds because they get pettin's and treats. What I want is "AI" to do something impressive. Why are we trying to make the system generate the sounds itself? We don't make artists do that, we give them instruments. Give the models actual instruments, and then have it play them like a real artist. I will be much more impressed with an AI that understands composition and scoring, use of musical voices, key signatures. That would still be generative. I guess I just don't understand the point of the direction being taken. It's like a solution looking for a problem.
  - chpatrick 3y ago
    Well, we found with Midjourney et al that these models can work very well despite having no pre-conceived or symbolic notions of composition, color theory, perspective or anything. Yet they can produce really good results in the image generation space. It's the same idea here, except much earlier days. In the same way, many successful musicians can't read sheet music or know music theory, they just know how to produce something that sounds good.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      >In the same way, many successful musicians can't read sheet music or know music theory, they just know how to produce something that sounds good. Right, because they can operate the instruments that make the sound with natural talent, but they don't have to draw the waveforms. Audio generation is much different than image generation. It's just very odd to me.

cwillu 3y ago

I thought “Prompt: 116 BPM rock drums loop clean production” wasn't bad, but I'll grant that most of the rest would be an excellent way of showing (for instance) a death metal fan what their favoured music sounds like to those who don't have an ear for it :D

Auracle 3y ago

I disagree with your diffusion based art assessment, and I think it’s probably colored by what most people seem to want to make with it. Just as with regular art, you need some sort of vision to go beyond what everyone else does. Prompting “pretty girl wearing sexy clothing” for the umpteenth time isn’t new. AI art gets rid of the technical skill step but the rest is there, although you may luck in to something at random. If you’re using ControlNet on Stable Diffusion or training your own models you have a lot of control over the output as well.

mpsprd 3y ago

>where quality is not important, like in games I don't believe that's a good example. Video game music is an important part of the gaming experience, but its often taken for granted or overlooked.

Art9681 3y ago

The real test is when this stuff is out in the wild and no one tells you it’s AI and the thought doesn’t cross your mind. Of course it’s not impressive nor surprising when the answer was given up front.

devoice 3y ago

[dead]

chaosbolt 3y ago

This is the same kind of comment that got HN to seeth for months about how ChatGPT isn't the god programmer some clickbaity news sites claimed it was. ChatGPT is good in a way that having it is better than not having it, especially with how bad google has become, audio generation will also be good in this way, some people don't need your "musical expertise" but just some background calm music to use with a tutorial video without having youtube take it down for copyright infringement.

dvngnt_ 3y ago

gamers don't want bad music either. some go to video game music concerts or to fan covers