5 ms·

Two Turntables and a Microphone (2006)

63 points by mellosouls 2y ago

diggan 2y ago
Fun ad/poster included in the article (https://goodfuzzysounds.com/ma/img/phonovox_250.gif https://goodfuzzysounds.com/ma/img/phonovox_250.gif) which has pretty much exactly the same sentiment today where companies try to replace people with AI, like https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/artisan_ad_hero_1.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/artis... I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bayindirh 2y ago
  > I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. Ex-Orchestra player here. I don't think so. A musician who's not playing in an orchestra pit in a play/performance can always play in a concert or in future times in a recording orchestra, or have a solo career. Using the same skill set they have, and even earning more in the process. Employees replaced by AI find that their whole skill set captured by the said AI, and they're now irrelevant without a new set of skills. Getting a new skillset requires time, money and effort, and sometimes substantial background. What we're going through is much more damaging. The former one was transformative, not destructive.
  - diggan 2y ago
    I'm not sure if I'm dumb or something, but I don't see the difference in your examples. First: Musician used to play orchestra, but now automation might replace them. Musician can take their skills elsewhere as they still posses them Second: Software developer (for example) used to write CRUD apps, but now automation might replace them. Developer can take their skills elsewhere as they still posses them. I don't see how in the second example, somehow the skills as "destroyed" while in the first example, they're used somewhere else instead of destroyed.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      A cello player is a cello player everywhere. They can use the same instrument, same reflexes, and what they used to play in a different environment. Consider a developer versed in CRUD apps obsoleted by a code generator AI and, they need to pivot to something different. e.g.: UI, simulation, games or system. That pivot will require different languages, different mindset, different knowledge (simulation and games needs different sets of deep math, UI needs new tools and paradigms, system requires a different knowledge stack from hardware to lower levels of OS, etc.). They need to learn, get experience, go through hoops, etc. A musician can play in an orchestra pit in 2PM and play with a symphony at 8PM. They just need a little rest and a meal in between (had friends doing exactly that). If said musician is forced to change their instrument. e.g. from cello to tuba, or cello to timpani, the effect will be the same as software developer's. Some things would carry over, but others needs to be replaced completely.
      - diggan 2y ago
        > A cello player is a cello player everywhere. They can use the same instrument, same reflexes, and what they used to play in a different environment. But programming is exactly the same. A programmer knows how to program, and they can program all sorts of different things, with different languages, without having learn how to program from scratch each time. Most programming languages/projects are more similar to the rest, than different. > A musician can play in an orchestra pit in 2PM and play with a symphony at 8PM. In your developer example, it would be more fitting to compare it to that they could build CRUD apps, or desktop applications, and it wouldn't be that much different. Plenty of programmers work in multiple "fields" at the same time, just like a Cello player might.
        bayindirh 2y ago
        > But programming is exactly the same. Respectfully, no. You're right about picking up programming languages, but missing the nuance about developing different genres of software. I develop utilities, material simulation systems (think finite element, boundary element, etc.), and used to develop an AI system (a multi-agent collectively intelligent system, an autonomous marketplace). The knowledge required in each one of these is vastly different. First one requires OS knowledge and is generally I/O bound, so you try write good code, talk sensibly with the OS, but you don't need to optimize beyond the obvious pain points. Writing simulations is completely different. I do care about the language, how it behaves, how I can extract every bit of performance from the CPU, while implementing numerical differential equations which needs to be exact, accurate and precise, while not compromising the performance of the codebase. I benchmark memory and CPU separately and as a whole, while not deviating from ground truth values. Otherwise things go very bad. AI system was latency sensitive. I needed to make it fast while not bogging down the system as a whole, it needed to scale while being intelligent about what to do, and be flexible enough. This required strategies, self-tuning, etc. It was no neural net, so it was a completely different beast. System programming is similar. Latency sensitive, talking correctly with the OS, and not bogging the system down while doing useful work. Learning programming languages is easy. Implementing differential equations with demoscene levels of optimization while being exact and accurate is not. Heck, even the usage patterns for the same programming language is different between different genres of software.
  - vunderba 2y ago
    I agree with respect to that old advertisement, but GenAI + acoustic physical modeling (SWAM) are likely poised to disrupt music more than you'd think. You can 100% believe that the moment a composer/company/etc. can sketch out the cello/viola/whatever line of a song as pure midi and have an AI that can render it in a realistic articulable fashion (think some kind of futuristic band in a box coupled with physical modeling of the instrument)... a TON OF GIG/SESSION musicians will unfortunately lose their jobs. It also wouldn't surprise me with the advent of MPE (Seaboard, Linnstrument, Osmose) that we start to see more instrumental approximations that are considered good enough for many lines of work. Obviously though live performances will always have their place. https://youtu.be/11Qprwtzl6s?si=qKlWX35zeOHIkiSS https://youtu.be/11Qprwtzl6s?si=qKlWX35zeOHIkiSS
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      The comment I have written taken both examples during their eras of the respective advertisements. So it was what records did to orchestra players vs. what AI did to programmers. Good sound fonts, a good sound cards (DACs) and MIDI was already good enough to render complex orchestrations at impeccable quality since 00s. We're just seeing it trickle down to ordinary attic musicians' budget limits. I like Venus Theory's channel and videos for that reason. He shows what can be done with bog standard software of today, but it was already possible yesterday.
- wiml 2y ago
  I've read that there was familiar controversy over player-piano rolls in the early 1900s/late 1800s. They'd be created in the eastern US and then be duplicated out west, potentially putting pianists out of a job.
  - Animats 2y ago
    Yes. That's why the copyright license to record a composition is called a "mechanical license".[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license
- Animats 2y ago
  > I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. Yes, it was. Here's the view from Local 802, American Federation of Musicians. Nowhere else in this mechanical age does the workman create the machine which destroys him, but that’s what happens to the musician when he plays for a recording. The iceman didn’t create the refrigerator. The coachman didn’t build the automobile. But the musician plays his music into a recorder and a short time later the radio station manager comes around and says, “Sorry, Joe, we’ve got all your stuff on records, so we don’t need you anymore.” And Joe’s out of a job.[1] This finally came to a head in an 800-day strike. The outcome was that performers started getting royalties from recordings. An unexpected side effect was the end of the big band era and the rise of the pop star. [1] https://www.local802afm.org/allegro/articles/the-silence-was-deafening/ https://www.local802afm.org/allegro/articles/the-silence-was...
  - diggan 2y ago
    Thanks a lot for digging this up, the outcome of introducing royalties is very interesting.
  - gorjusborg 2y ago
    > I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. I'm not sure about controversy, but I do think they will look similarly silly in retrospect. Early vendors of new technology tend to over-promise and under-deliver. They sort of have to, as they are creating a new market. People need to be moved in order to be convinced they need it. The technology (if there is real merit to it) usually evolves over time based on who pays for it, which helps separate the actual uses from imagined ones. I do not think today's AI will replace everything, it's unclear where it will be used and where it wont. Just keep doing what you are doing. The salesmen are just doing their thing. As for whether musicians specifically will be impacted, sure, some will. Good musicians, the ones who channel and share their feelings with listeners will always (well, until AI has something resembling real emotion) have work. Today's AI does not have emotion, and I expect people will know the difference. I'm sure the music industry will go wild trying, but people will always create music for themselves, and real emotion will resonate far further than 'art' created via a prompt.
- Gravityloss 2y ago
  I can recommend a silent film with real live music to everyone. I've been to a few at the Midnight Sun film Festival. It can be really good.
keep_walking 2y ago
bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands
- HankWozHere 2y ago
  Where it’s at!
23B1 2y ago
[flagged]
- dtgriscom 2y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+where+it%27s+at+lyrics https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+where+it%27s+at+lyrics

63 points by mellosouls 2y ago

Fun ad/poster included in the article (https://goodfuzzysounds.com/ma/img/phonovox_250.gif https://goodfuzzysounds.com/ma/img/phonovox_250.gif) which has pretty much exactly the same sentiment today where companies try to replace people with AI, like https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/artisan_ad_hero_1.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/artis... I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bayindirh 2y ago
> I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. Ex-Orchestra player here. I don't think so. A musician who's not playing in an orchestra pit in a play/performance can always play in a concert or in future times in a recording orchestra, or have a solo career. Using the same skill set they have, and even earning more in the process. Employees replaced by AI find that their whole skill set captured by the said AI, and they're now irrelevant without a new set of skills. Getting a new skillset requires time, money and effort, and sometimes substantial background. What we're going through is much more damaging. The former one was transformative, not destructive.
- diggan 2y ago
  I'm not sure if I'm dumb or something, but I don't see the difference in your examples. First: Musician used to play orchestra, but now automation might replace them. Musician can take their skills elsewhere as they still posses them Second: Software developer (for example) used to write CRUD apps, but now automation might replace them. Developer can take their skills elsewhere as they still posses them. I don't see how in the second example, somehow the skills as "destroyed" while in the first example, they're used somewhere else instead of destroyed.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    A cello player is a cello player everywhere. They can use the same instrument, same reflexes, and what they used to play in a different environment. Consider a developer versed in CRUD apps obsoleted by a code generator AI and, they need to pivot to something different. e.g.: UI, simulation, games or system. That pivot will require different languages, different mindset, different knowledge (simulation and games needs different sets of deep math, UI needs new tools and paradigms, system requires a different knowledge stack from hardware to lower levels of OS, etc.). They need to learn, get experience, go through hoops, etc. A musician can play in an orchestra pit in 2PM and play with a symphony at 8PM. They just need a little rest and a meal in between (had friends doing exactly that). If said musician is forced to change their instrument. e.g. from cello to tuba, or cello to timpani, the effect will be the same as software developer's. Some things would carry over, but others needs to be replaced completely.
    - diggan 2y ago
      > A cello player is a cello player everywhere. They can use the same instrument, same reflexes, and what they used to play in a different environment. But programming is exactly the same. A programmer knows how to program, and they can program all sorts of different things, with different languages, without having learn how to program from scratch each time. Most programming languages/projects are more similar to the rest, than different. > A musician can play in an orchestra pit in 2PM and play with a symphony at 8PM. In your developer example, it would be more fitting to compare it to that they could build CRUD apps, or desktop applications, and it wouldn't be that much different. Plenty of programmers work in multiple "fields" at the same time, just like a Cello player might.
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        > But programming is exactly the same. Respectfully, no. You're right about picking up programming languages, but missing the nuance about developing different genres of software. I develop utilities, material simulation systems (think finite element, boundary element, etc.), and used to develop an AI system (a multi-agent collectively intelligent system, an autonomous marketplace). The knowledge required in each one of these is vastly different. First one requires OS knowledge and is generally I/O bound, so you try write good code, talk sensibly with the OS, but you don't need to optimize beyond the obvious pain points. Writing simulations is completely different. I do care about the language, how it behaves, how I can extract every bit of performance from the CPU, while implementing numerical differential equations which needs to be exact, accurate and precise, while not compromising the performance of the codebase. I benchmark memory and CPU separately and as a whole, while not deviating from ground truth values. Otherwise things go very bad. AI system was latency sensitive. I needed to make it fast while not bogging down the system as a whole, it needed to scale while being intelligent about what to do, and be flexible enough. This required strategies, self-tuning, etc. It was no neural net, so it was a completely different beast. System programming is similar. Latency sensitive, talking correctly with the OS, and not bogging the system down while doing useful work. Learning programming languages is easy. Implementing differential equations with demoscene levels of optimization while being exact and accurate is not. Heck, even the usage patterns for the same programming language is different between different genres of software.
- vunderba 2y ago
  I agree with respect to that old advertisement, but GenAI + acoustic physical modeling (SWAM) are likely poised to disrupt music more than you'd think. You can 100% believe that the moment a composer/company/etc. can sketch out the cello/viola/whatever line of a song as pure midi and have an AI that can render it in a realistic articulable fashion (think some kind of futuristic band in a box coupled with physical modeling of the instrument)... a TON OF GIG/SESSION musicians will unfortunately lose their jobs. It also wouldn't surprise me with the advent of MPE (Seaboard, Linnstrument, Osmose) that we start to see more instrumental approximations that are considered good enough for many lines of work. Obviously though live performances will always have their place. https://youtu.be/11Qprwtzl6s?si=qKlWX35zeOHIkiSS https://youtu.be/11Qprwtzl6s?si=qKlWX35zeOHIkiSS
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    The comment I have written taken both examples during their eras of the respective advertisements. So it was what records did to orchestra players vs. what AI did to programmers. Good sound fonts, a good sound cards (DACs) and MIDI was already good enough to render complex orchestrations at impeccable quality since 00s. We're just seeing it trickle down to ordinary attic musicians' budget limits. I like Venus Theory's channel and videos for that reason. He shows what can be done with bog standard software of today, but it was already possible yesterday.
wiml 2y ago
I've read that there was familiar controversy over player-piano rolls in the early 1900s/late 1800s. They'd be created in the eastern US and then be duplicated out west, potentially putting pianists out of a job.
- Animats 2y ago
  Yes. That's why the copyright license to record a composition is called a "mechanical license".[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license
Animats 2y ago
> I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. Yes, it was. Here's the view from Local 802, American Federation of Musicians. Nowhere else in this mechanical age does the workman create the machine which destroys him, but that’s what happens to the musician when he plays for a recording. The iceman didn’t create the refrigerator. The coachman didn’t build the automobile. But the musician plays his music into a recorder and a short time later the radio station manager comes around and says, “Sorry, Joe, we’ve got all your stuff on records, so we don’t need you anymore.” And Joe’s out of a job.[1] This finally came to a head in an 800-day strike. The outcome was that performers started getting royalties from recordings. An unexpected side effect was the end of the big band era and the rise of the pop star. [1] https://www.local802afm.org/allegro/articles/the-silence-was-deafening/ https://www.local802afm.org/allegro/articles/the-silence-was...
- diggan 2y ago
  Thanks a lot for digging this up, the outcome of introducing royalties is very interesting.
- gorjusborg 2y ago
  > I wonder if "The Orchestra that draws no salary" was as controversial at the time as "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" is today. I'm not sure about controversy, but I do think they will look similarly silly in retrospect. Early vendors of new technology tend to over-promise and under-deliver. They sort of have to, as they are creating a new market. People need to be moved in order to be convinced they need it. The technology (if there is real merit to it) usually evolves over time based on who pays for it, which helps separate the actual uses from imagined ones. I do not think today's AI will replace everything, it's unclear where it will be used and where it wont. Just keep doing what you are doing. The salesmen are just doing their thing. As for whether musicians specifically will be impacted, sure, some will. Good musicians, the ones who channel and share their feelings with listeners will always (well, until AI has something resembling real emotion) have work. Today's AI does not have emotion, and I expect people will know the difference. I'm sure the music industry will go wild trying, but people will always create music for themselves, and real emotion will resonate far further than 'art' created via a prompt.
Gravityloss 2y ago
I can recommend a silent film with real live music to everyone. I've been to a few at the Midnight Sun film Festival. It can be really good.

keep_walking 2y ago

bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands

HankWozHere 2y ago
Where it’s at!

23B1 2y ago

[flagged]

dtgriscom 2y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+where+it%27s+at+lyrics https://www.google.com/search?q=beck+where+it%27s+at+lyrics