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I'm trying to learn music production with a DAW, sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors

I'm trying to learn music production with a DAW, sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors can be therapeutic (I'm dealing with burnout/depression/cptsd). I'm at the stage where sometimes I make something that sounds good (to me) but I know it requires work (in the "not fun" sense) to finish it and even then, it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself. Which isn't a problem if the process itself is joyful, but I have to admit I've always struggled to enjoy anything that doesn't involve other people in some way (shared goal or approval of some form). None of these problems are "new", but I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent. Kind of wondering how others are affected by all this, if at all.

izzydata 6mo ago
I am hopeful that in the near future once AI has saturated as much of everything that it can that it will actually become even more worth it to do things. At least for me the only reason to experience art in any form is that there was human intent behind it. Thus making human generated content more valuable compared to the flood of empty AI content.
lacunary 6mo ago
I'm having fun building elaborate software that meets my needs precisely and nobody else's. I mean, maybe it would meet other's needs but that production would take away from the fun and learning I have building it, and would also reduce its utility for me personally.
prmoustache 6mo ago
Same applies to any creative hobby. Do it for yourself. I guess you can still share to your social circle. Others can still appreciate it.
taneq 6mo ago
The not-fun work isn’t on the song, it’s on you. Improving the song is a byproduct. This only really becomes apparent over time but you’ll realise you were working on yourself all along.
chung8123 6mo ago
You have the answer to the "why do it" in the first part of "why you are doing it". Just because something may be created at the click of the button doesn't mean it fulfills the goals you are looking for. People knit even though there are machines that do that for you. You are doing it for you.
janalsncm 6mo ago
I have done this with music, writing, and many other things. AI doesn’t make any of these things less enjoyable for me because the process of creation itself is the part that I enjoy. I have a very low bar for what I consider to be a successful creation: it just needs to be enjoyable for myself in the future. Anyone else who happens to enjoy the content I make is a bonus. I have several songs on SoundCloud that I have produced in the past and I still enjoy listening to them.
kdheiwns 6mo ago
It's not a waste of time. Every time some new thing comes out and becomes popular, everyone everywhere says everything must be that thing because it's the future. In America, everyone wanted pure white sliced bread. People wanted frozen TV dinners. People wanted chain fast food restaurants. People wanted no effort reality TV. People wanted endless superhero movies. Now people want actual food and they want stuff made with human hands and they want to know what's in it. People want TV shows with a proper story. People are beyond done with cookie cutter superhero movies. The slop wave is going to pass. AI can make stuff that sounds super polished and perfect, but people will want the rough and crude touch of something hand made. They'll want to see videos of musicians showing behind the scenes of how they made something. They'll want to go and see a musician perform. Interest in 100% AI generated music will fade into the background and it'll be relegated to soulless Muzak used for ambiance in soulless chain restaurants too cheap to pay for actual music and too afraid to play any songs that might offend or annoy someone.
embedding-shape 6mo ago
I love making music, and got into it as a venue to be away from the computer. I still do post-production in Ableton, but everything else happens with gear not even connected to a computer. I've tried to make music with a DAW, but it feels so sterile and boring, compared to actually using hardware to make it. Maybe get a second-hand Novation Circuit to start with, or some similar "groovebox" that lets you make songs on one device, and see if you actually still do enjoy making music, yet haven't found the right process for you yet. I don't think you're wasting your time, as long as you're having fun, regardless of what happens in the rest of the world. Sure, AI could probably make "better" (by some definition of "better") music than me, but AI couldn't make my friends smile at me as I play them my music I've made, that's quite literally priceless.
- strangegecko 6mo ago
  > AI couldn't make my friends smile at me as I play them my music I've made, that's quite literally priceless. Can I ask how you share music with friends? I guess this is part of my problem, I don't really have anyone I could share with or collaborate with. The few people in my life don't listen to the type of music I like.
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    I ask them to come over, then I ask them "Hey, mind if I play this for you and you tell me what you think?" basically. Alternatively, send it as a .mp3 via Whatsapp/Telegram and ask for feedback, but that's almost never as fun or useful. Best way to meet like-minded people is to go to music events where those people are, always a ton of music makers around those, usually also by themselves, sometimes in the back or on the side to the speakers. Most people in such events are OK with being approached by strangers :)
  - comprev 6mo ago
    I have "friends" purely through common interest in music, and the same for bicycles too. My oldest/life-long friends have very different musical tastes...and some can't even ride a bike :)
  - 6mo ago
Zambyte 6mo ago
Maybe you could see if there's someone who finds the "not fun" part fun and you could collaborate with them. That would solve two problems at the same time. Either way, I strongly encourage you to keep using a DAW if that brings you joy. Using AI to create art is a different skill set, just like using acoustic instruments is a different skill set from using either. Each option appeals a different amount to different people, and you should just do what brings you the most joy.
sph 6mo ago
It's worth doing. Those "no AI" mixes on youtube are doing great, though the vast majority of people is clueless and will happily digest any slop. Create for yourself, and for those that seek the human effort and passion. There's an increasing number of us. I'm the biggest doomer on this site, yet I'm certain human art will become even more valuable, and appreciated, than it has ever been before in history. Just don't expect to make billions out of it, or to reach out to the masses that are quite content with industrial-scale mediocrity.
tarnith 6mo ago
It depends what you want to get out of it, and what you think art itself really is. If it's nothing but an end product, that needs to fit a specific aesthetic, with a specific sound, then I probably agree. AI is making that "pointless" in a way. Almost everyone I know who's been an artist for years though, has come to a similar realization: What you set out to create, and what it turns into through the process of creating it are different things. The meaning, truly is found along the way. You can always be better, there's always more to learn. Nothing is ever truly perfect, or "complete" If you write harmony, there's always a different way it could be written, that might fit better, or be more interesting. If you do sound design, whether that's with getting different guitar tones, synth programming, unique recording techniques, there's always more to learn, or a different way to approach it. If the only point is an end result, then AI can deliver a simulacra of that. For everyone I know that loves music, or working with DAWs, the end result is an ever shifting target as you learn more, and understand music in a different way. Ultimately, there are no shortcuts to making something new, because the practice of trying to make things is what results in what your art becomes. Tools and technology can shape what that thing ends up being, but they (traditionally) don't replace the process of creating it, and the feedback loop between who you are and the decisions you make along the way. Stripping all of that out, and jumping to a "finished" product, is, well very product focused, but to me completely devoid of art or musicianship. Some people seem to compare this to sampling, but anyone who's ever actually worked with sampling in a creative way will realize how hollow that comparison is. Almost all good sampling still requires a good deal of active feedback, between the person working with it and the way THEY hear what's going on. Remove the person from that loop, replace the decisions with a general vague notion, and you end up with something that sounds "like" music, but that feedback loop is broken. I see the same thing with all the AI UI design that's coming out. It's all generally quite competent, and exactly the same. Great for a business tool, where maybe the velocity and an acceptable MVP is the only point, but terrible for actual design and novel thought. TL;dr: Why do it? Because you want to, and you think that with enough time engaging with something you'll change, just as it does, and the result isn't something you could have ever predicted when you started. It changes you, and that's the point. Just like learning an instrument, or learning to code. It's not purely about the produced result, and that very result fundamentally is changed by you actively engaging with whatever the medium is.
wartywhoa23 6mo ago
You're not wasting your time, my friend. But you've got to be very certain and honest as to why you want to learn that. If your goal is being heard and appreciated, well, you better reconsider. If you're doing it for your own pleasure and pure love of art, absolutely do go on, without any expectations. It may or may not take off, but the samurai must not care.
- vasco 6mo ago
  Some people just never found what that thing is for them. And usually you find those things doing them the hard way while you suck. And then the reward is people will see what you do and recognize the work you put in. But if suddenly every person with a prompt does the exact same thing with zero effort, it does take away from the joy of doing it. At least if the joy of doing it is related to the feeling of liking to do "hard things" or liking to think of oneself as one that "does hard things". And I'd say that includes a lot of people and a lot of activities. I bet a lot of accountants in the old days were really good at basic math, and proud of being fast and accurate and now there's calculators and the amount of people that work on mental math just for the love of the game is probably super small in comparison to when it was a core skill of many more people's jobs.
- TyrunDemeg101 6mo ago
  I 100% agree with this and have found it to entirely be my own drive for learning and creating. For me it is beyond trying to make money or become famous, it is simply to enjoy the journey and the creativity that comes with creating music.
  - strangegecko 6mo ago
    > For me it is beyond trying to make money or become famous, To clarify, when I speak of "approval", I'm not imagining a successful career or financial success. It's much more basic, i.e. having a few people tell me they genuinely like something I created would do that. > it is simply to enjoy the journey and the creativity that comes with creating music. It's unfortunately not simple for me (again, context of long term burnout / depression etc). If I only go by enjoyment, I will watch TV and maybe read and go on bike rides until the end of my days. But that is not fulfilling in the long term. I have a creative drive, but it's rather intermittent and not enough to consistently want to do the work involved. I'm trying to nurture it.
devindotcom 6mo ago
don't sell your work short. it has value because it comes from you, and struggling to finish is unbelievably common in the creation process - not to mention frustration and a lack of joy. if you're creating because you feel a drive to create, you are making art and that has intrinsic value to yourself and others. if however you are performing the act of musical creation as a means to an end, what you are doing may be better considered work and not art. the work of others can also be appreciated but it is different. keep at it though. you are asking good questions and unlike many you are also personally engaging with them.
mcmcmc 6mo ago
Step 1: ditch the DAW and learn a real instrument Step 2: find a local jam group or community band/orchestra Step 3: have fun playing music with friends
- mschuster91 6mo ago
  Multiple problems with this one. For one, acquiring an instrument is expensive - even secondhand, most instruments cost a significant amount of money. Learning it properly is even more important and expensive - fixing something in a DAW is easy, unlearning muscle memory is much harder. Keeping up said muscle memory also isn't easy. Sure, if you got a free-standing house, no one will care much about a drum set, trumpet or whatever. But most people don't have that luxury in urban sets any more, and typical residential building quality makes even some electronic instruments (e.g. kicks still cause some amount of noise passing through floors) a challenge. Building noise ordnances / HOA rules are a bitch on top of that - most allow only a limited time window in the afternoon, useless for working-class people. Local community groups... if your community has one, and they have some studio space where noise doesn't matter, great! Most, unfortunately, don't - space in urban environments is already rare and at a hefty premium, space that accepts noise and has adequate resources (in practice: a usable toilet is the most important) is even rarer.
  - joenot443 6mo ago
    You can find really affordable used guitars or keyboards which are completely suitable for beginners. Beginner's electric drum kits are cheaper than real ones and hook up to headphones - there goes your sound problems. I definitely agree it is much harder to learn a instrument than it is to learn a DAW. Believe me, I've done both. There are lots of reasons to forego picking up an instrument, but living in an apartment or a modest budget are certainly not good reasons.
  - gos9 6mo ago
    > never leave your computer because everything might be hard
    - 6mo ago
gmueckl 6mo ago
I have two answers for you: 1. All that AI really does is a (partially) randomized exploration of the space that has been spanned by existing music. AI creativity, as far as it can be said to exist, is limited by this. You, on the other hand, are human and not bound by any of these limitations. You are free to explore wild things that no AI can do. Just as a completely random example, you could go out, record noises your environment (even if it's just with the smartphone), grab interesting parts, chop them up, process them and turn them into unique new instruments. Bang on random stuff that has a nice ring to it. Record background hums, apply filters and envelopes to them etc. And there are so many other ways to produce unique creations. 2. Most importantly, music is a form of human expression. It is able to capture the human condition in a unique way. As a human, you can express these things genuinely through your own emotions, experiences, memories etc. AI systems can only produce hollow facsimiles of this. Regardless of whether you are conscious about it, every piece of music that you create is a reflection of you: your thoughts, your emotions, your process. And that imparts the true value on your creations.
- epiccoleman 6mo ago
  > Just as a completely random example, you could go out, record noises your environment (even if it's just with the smartphone), grab interesting parts, chop them up, process them and turn them into unique new instruments. I'm not sure if you already knew this, but this is actually a thing already - it's been called "Botanica" and there are a bunch of cool tracks floating around. Sample track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0QCBPnJz5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0QCBPnJz5w Obligatory Ben Levin video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-mK82gLkWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-mK82gLkWE
antinomicus 6mo ago
You are clearly just at the beginning of your musical journey. I am happy for you. Yes, music for me too makes no sense without other people. This means, I suggest, that you must go out and find other people to collaborate with. The more you do it the more you realize just how many people out there are in the same boat as you. And once you find that right person or group, it’s like nothing else. And let’s be clear, this will take you far far outside your normal social circle. The type of people who like the same music as you may be completely different in every other way. It is important to actively seek out the right people and along that journey, define exactly what that person is, as well as who you are. This is the thing I care most about and yes I hope that more tools, AI or not come out to reduce that work that you have to do to make something polished, so everyone can focus on being creative.
RankingMember 6mo ago
I'd wager most people who make music are making it for the sheer joy of expression. Like .001% of people who make music get any kind of meaningful monetary return on it, and I think anyone who goes into it looking for monetary return is doing it for the wrong reasons. In my view, AI changes nothing where it matters it music.
junon 6mo ago
> Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors can be therapeutic (I'm dealing with burnout/depression/cptsd). This is the reason why a lot of us make music. Writing orchestral pieces is my own meditation. I don't share most of them, and replacing them with AI would defeat the purpose. Please keep learning it! The world needs more musicians, even if we never hear them.
kaiokendev 6mo ago
There are still several avenues for this, and I imagine they'll continue to exist even in a mostly-AI-enhanced world. You'll need to dedicate time to finding them. For example, Battle of the Bits [0] is a community all about chiptune music. I'm sure you _could_ use AI to help you learn and produce some things, but the community is mostly about sharing ideas about what works at the electronic level, so even if AI became super capable, it wouldn't help you engage with the community in any meaningful way. There are several such communities across different domains and I imagine they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of how much improvement happens w.r.t. AI, since the focus is on "what you learned" and not so much "what you did". Similarly, I have seen communities focused entirely on Silicon Graphics workstations, or pc-98 internals. Human passion-based communities aren't going anywhere, Google just makes it incredibly hard to find them outside of word-of-mouth. [0] https://battleofthebits.com https://battleofthebits.com
JodieBenitez 6mo ago
> I've always struggled to enjoy anything that doesn't involve other people in some way Well... play in band/orchestra ? You get to meet people, interact with them, build with them, etc. I've been making music solo using various machines and computers all my life and I love it, but it's probably not for everyone. Yes, you're alone. Yes, (almost) nobody cares, so if you can't enjoy the process there is no point really. () from time to time someone will show some interest but let's face it: there's just too much good music released everyday, competing with other distractions for the attention of the people. For people like me, AI doesn't change much, it's another tool. We've been abusing technology in music for decades.
deleted 6mo ago
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neonstatic 6mo ago
> I'm trying to learn music production with a DAW, sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors can be therapeutic (I'm dealing with burnout/depression/cptsd). If you enjoy the process and its outcomes, then it's not a waste of time. If you are forcing yourself to do it or have another motivation for it that is not rooted in genuine interest, then yes, you are wasting your time. > I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent This is a spiritual question, so you will have as many answers as there are askers. I found my answer and am happy to share it with you. Why do it? Because I want to. What is worth doing? What I want to do or what gets me to the things I want. Wanting is a very important process, that is often damaged by conditioning. We are told that some things we want are bad and that some things we don't want are good. Or that ego is evil. So many ways this process can go wrong. I think fixing this in oneself is part of becoming an actual adult. Once you know what you want and what you don't want, you no longer are dependent on others telling you what to do or forcing you to do things you shouldn't be doing. Ego is not evil, it's there for a reason. Some people have an overgrown one while others have an underdeveloped one. What is needed is balance. I don't think the pattern recognition machine has anything to do with it. I suspect, that a lot of people who use music as a band aid for personal problems, i.e. people who build their identity around being special due to music making, are the ones who are afraid of AI, but if you just enjoy making music, then what does it matter if music itself is patterned and if a machine can exploit that? It doesn't take anything away from the joy of making music, if you experience it in the first place.
- strangegecko 6mo ago
  I need to force myself to do almost everything. Simply saying it's a waste of time because of that isn't practical unless I give up on life entirely. In practice, it's not binary. I'm interested because I want to make music similar to that which I like listening to. Sometimes I get enjoyment out of it, but sometimes I lose interest maybe because I'm facing a frustration. My question of wasting time is connected to "can I even create something worth listening to". If nothing I could make is worth listening to, then I guess I would feel the process of creation is pointless. I've heard others write about how what they produce is worth listening to, to them. I think that is enough, but I also think I lack confidence in my own judgement. Almost like I need someone else to confirm my validity. I have recognized that as a result of emotional neglect, but I haven't figured out how to fix it.
some-guy 6mo ago
A lot of people thought the same thing with everything going from analog -> digital. Or heck, even learning an instrument when MIDI was first introduced. Even before generative AI, there is a long-going debate in audio circles around simulated guitar amplifiers. The truth is, the simulations of them have gotten so insanely good that now one could simply purchase an all-in-one pedalboard and have basically all of guitar history at your toes. My rule-of-thumb is this: "does this tool I'm using in particular take away from the authenticity of my performance or songwriting?" Example: I am very keen on performing vocals and guitar at the same time, and I don't have an expensive studio setup, and my office has background noise. I use these tools, and yes even some open source AI ones, 1) remove background noise of the individual tracks and 2) do a final master against a recording I want to target (using something like Matchering or similar [0]). It still sounds like me, my voice isn't perfect, my beat isn't consistent, but it sounds like I rented some studio space. So for me it was a cost-saving measure. [0] https://github.com/sergree/matchering https://github.com/sergree/matchering
- basisword 6mo ago
  >> one could simply purchase an all-in-one pedalboard and have basically all of guitar history at your toes And this is actually a problem. Great art usually comes from constraints, real or artificial. These things are a lot of fun to tinker with (a really fun hobby) but one amp, one guitar, and a small number of effects pedals will probably lead to you actually make more and better stuff.
  - ironman1478 6mo ago
    I have an all-in-one amp / pedalboard and it's just more practical, even though all I do is just pick an amp, plug in my guitar and play. They take up less space and cost less money in the long run if you actually do want to use many pedals. I get what you're saying but in general this specific case I think the all-in-ones win for most people.
  - some-guy 6mo ago
    This was definitely true for me, which is why I write everything acoustically and ensure the song is "good" before going in my later age. If I want a specific effect, I then google what pedals were used in a particular song or artist, then I try to recreate the chain, and then tinker with that on top. Ultimately I spent so much of my time worrying about "what crazy expensive equipment should I buy" when I was younger and more into this stuff, and I should have simply just played my shitty instruments and recorded on my shitty equipment. That's on me, but I also find it empowering as an artist that I can clean up my recording in the way that replaces my need for expensive equipment while maintaining (in my humble opinion) a sense of authenticity of my performance. I agree there may be too many knobs, but finding the knobs that I want has never been easier and I would rather live in the now than in the past.
Lucasoato 6mo ago
I’ve asked an artist if they should be worried about the newest generative AI capabilities. This is his (translated) response: > Artists? Pencil laborers, more like.. I am in favor of using AI in visuals. It will eliminate a lot of mere decorators, and won’t even slightly affect the artists. I hope AI as a technology has the same effect on the world of ART as the invention of photography had: it got rid of a lot of empty landscape copiers. Impressionism was born shortly after that. See, I believe many cursed photography, but Monet never saw it as a problem.
- MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago
  > I hope AI as a technology has the same effect on the world of ART as the invention of photography had: it got rid of a lot of empty landscape copiers I like this analogy. Maybe this time around is different, but I like to hope it's not.
  - api 6mo ago
    The anti-AI discourse is almost identical to anti-photography diatribes from more than a century ago. Artists will also learn to use AI to make art. I don’t mean slop, which is low effort stuff and I tend to use that term regardless of whether AI was involved. I mean real art where the AI is used with painstaking care the way a photographer uses their camera.
- coldtea 6mo ago
  Wishful thinking. What it will do is it will spoil it for 99% of small time artists that still managed to make a living out of it. It will drown audience with slop and make them not care for new releases even more. That "artists" idea is that the Monet's will survive, but art is not a rat race where just the Monets need apply. A healthy art scene needs all kinds of creators, at different levels, and needs to be able to sustain a decent above-average quality chunk of them. Not just the Monets. Not to mention it seems like the pretentious artist in the discussion sees themselves as some outlier Monet type that will be fine.
  - 6mo ago
basisword 6mo ago
Is it therapeutic if it relies on the approval of someone else?
jackyinger 6mo ago
Just pick up your instrument and make some noise. DAWs are time sinks. Music is about the “feel” first and foremost. Playing music on a physical instrument or singing is a feel thing. DAWs are tools for polishing what was created with feeling into something “produced”. If that’s what you want to end up with, that’s ok. Just be clear with yourself on which you’re trying to do.
- djaro 6mo ago
  I had this exact realization. Taking chords from a chord progression generator, putting it into FL studio, adding a random melody that stays in the key from a cool synth preset, some random drum loop, and end result? I guess it could be called music. Its a combination of sounds that doesnt sound actively bad. I noticed the problem when I realized I couldn't make music in a specific mood or genre. Sometimes I'd finish my song and think "oh wow, a happy rock song" or "a sad edm song" or whatever but it was always just random chance where I ended up. With music theory knowledge I could always add more instruments or notes that could exist in that place but with 0 direction, whatever I made was always listenable but never more than that.
nazgulsenpai 6mo ago
I just recently setup a very simple home recording studio after picking up drums again at 40. I had the same thoughts, but I'm going it for me and it is extremely therapeutic. Plus, given the genre (extreme metal), I've gotten into much better shape. (Also picked up an 8 string guitar. I never grew out of my edgelordiness. No real point to mentioning this but just wanted to tell someone :) AI music may eventually satisfy the masses and you can't stop that speeding train, but the process of creating something yourself will always have value if it's something you're interested in creating.
Rekindle8090 6mo ago
"it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself." AI is forcing art to return to having no meaning or purpose beyond itself and thats a good thing. It's how things used to be
orsorna 6mo ago
Just remember that AI has lowered the skill ceiling to produce a lot of things. But it hasn't lowered the bar for taste :)
poulpy123 6mo ago
If you do it for money it is maybe a waste of time, because the chance to win the race were already low and now you have to compete with a tsunami of AI generated music. If you do it for your enjoyment, nothing changed and nothing will change
comprev 6mo ago
I have little interest in doing a DJ set in public but I'll spend hours crate digging for new music and mixing circular black slabs of vinyl for nothing more than the love of the craft.
deleted 6mo ago
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tmountain 6mo ago
I’ve been involved in one music project or another (bands, albums, solo projects, etc) for the past 25 years. During the pandemic, a friend and I decided to make a record together. We labored over it for almost two years and finally “released it” on bandcamp to very little fanfare. A few friends and family had nice things to say, and one random stranger reached out with positive feedback. I get a monthly stream report from bandcamp, and it almost always says zero. I am so pleased with this project and have such great memories of making the album that I had two lathe cut vinyl copies made (one for me, and one for my friend). I put a big part of myself into the project and was able to convey ideas and feelings that I couldn’t express effectively via other methods. I listen to the recording about once a year. It’s a part of me now, and I couldn’t be happier with my journey in making it. To me, this is the purpose of the creative journey. Knowing yourself better, and enjoying all of the steps involved in arriving at what is always a surprising destination. If someone else feels something as a result of your work, that’s a nice bonus, but not something I focus on at all.
- Projectiboga 6mo ago
  It isn't in your profile. Why not post it there or here?
  - croon 6mo ago
    I'm happy they shared it on a further request, but I feel not having it in GP or profile is consistent with and further strengthens what they wrote in the post.
- cyclopeanutopia 6mo ago
  Please share your bandcamp page!
  - mettamage 6mo ago
    I'm curious too now
  - tmountain 6mo ago
serial_dev 6mo ago
1. None of this should matter if you do it because it’s therapeutic. 2. If it turns out it’s not therapeutic for you, try something different. Play piano. Learn chess. Learn MMA. Go for a run. Heck, vibecode something silly. Music production is not the only way, if you have it a good try and it just frustrates you, try something else.
estetlinus 6mo ago
I have ~40 demoes from a music career that never took off. Now I am feeding little Suno with this demoes, turning them into afrobeat with oboe, deep house with harmonica, etc, and reliving the creative joy. You can make a decent demo in a DAW and run it through AI for a nice production. The art of writing songs is still equally hard IMO. And a good song is still good, no matter what costume it wears.
throw_m239339 6mo ago
Learn an instrument (guitar,keys,drums...) if you haven't already and go jam with friends and do concerts instead. That's the best part of making music. The age of music production is almost over, the age of the music industry already is. I wouldn't want to be in the DAW/VST business today though, because a lot of potential customers are thinking exactly as you do...
pojzon 6mo ago
AI makes or will make everyone question doing „any” creative work. The real question you should ask yourself is „Do I care?” If you do it for yourself - do it. If you learn that to make money - forget about it.
coldtea 6mo ago
>I'm at the stage where sometimes I make something that sounds good (to me) but I know it requires work (in the "not fun" sense) to finish it and even then, it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself. That's true of 99% of very polished finished work too. Amazing bands and artists in Spotify with sub 1000 streams/month. >None of these problems are "new", but I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent. Kind of wondering how others are affected by all this, if at all. Absolutely. One big concern is that even if you do it and you're proud of it, many will think it's AI anyway. Plus the over-inflation of AI generated shit. It could all die in a fire.
Tanoc 6mo ago
Art is a form of communication. You turn to the arts when the other methods to communicate something either do not feel as if they fit, or feel that they will not encompass the idea you wish to convey. Art is a dialogue with other people, not a commodity. The point is to help yourself understand what you want to say, not to say something that is valuable in way that can be exchanged for goods. So do not become discouraged by the machine generated sounds. They are only sounds, not a message.
- chickensong 6mo ago
  “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley
999900000999 6mo ago
I've been making music as a hobbyist for 18 years. It's fun. That's it's own reason. Even before AI you statistically will never ever ever make money. Not only that, but legions of scam artists want to rip you off in some manner. 'Cool music , for 400$ I can get your listeners '
poolnoodle 6mo ago
Making the art changes you. Don't do it with the goal of having produced 'content' in mind.
BoredPositron 6mo ago
Mhm... it sounds like the main problem is that you like the result more than the actual process. If you start a new hobby, you should enjoy the time you spend doing it. Of course, every hobby has its chores or tedious parts, but doing it just for the end product or for the validation you get from others will never work in the long run.
DesaiAshu 6mo ago
Fear not, a few of us are building in the direction you're hoping. Leveraging AI to make it easier to stay in a creative headspace with music rather than getting caught in a spreadsheet with endless settings Sharing is definitely a core part of "why do it", but that can be sharing with friends/family or a living room performance Some preliminary ideas here: https://songbird.studiocollective.xyz https://songbird.studiocollective.xyz
kypro 6mo ago
I recently wrote more or less this exact comment on another platform recently (although I've been making music for a while). I was told that I should make music for myself, but I guess I don't really understand that perspective? It's like with code – I used to enjoy writing code in the past, but these days if I want to build something I'll just generate it with AI because most the time it will be quicker and better than me hand cranking it. I used to enjoy it but coding just seems pointless now. I don't really get why the average musician would bother recording there own stuff anymore either. If you want to create music then the AI is really good and you should just use that. It took decades to get half decent at playing instruments and producing my own songs, but today a kid can put out a song that sounds far better than what I can do in just 10 minutes with AI. For the last two decades of my life all my free time was basically spent coding or write music. I can do neither now. I'm trying to learn more practical skills like wood work because that's the only way I've found I can still get that feeling of accomplishment which I got with coding and music, but it doesn't come as naturally to me unfortunately. Definitely lost a big part of myself over the last year or two which I'm trying to come to terms with.
- 8note 6mo ago
  why are you learning to do woodwork when working wood was already automated away decades or centuries ago?
  - kypro 6mo ago
    Maybe I should have been more precise – I'm trying to learn how to physically manifest things in head. Woodwork is part of that, but I'm just generally manufacturing skills from CAD design, electronics & PCB design, metal work, 3d printing, etc. You should 100% buy a cardboard table from Ikea if you just need a table that sorta does the job for 5 years, but if you want something made of solid wood that's a certain shape and style, you might be better off building your own depending on your product & price requirements. Similarly there are just little things that I know can be built but there's no real demand for the product because my specific requirements are niche. For example, I have chickens and sometimes we get foxes snooping around their coop at night. I have an alerting system for this, but I'd quite like to be able to trigger gun shot noises and my sprinkler if there's indeed a fox in my garden to try to deter them from coming back. No one's going to sell stuff like this, but I can make it. I'm also an AI doomer, so feel I need to learn basic skills like this which might help if things start getting bad and I'm somehow still around.
prawn 6mo ago
What about finding game creators or similar who could make use of a musical collaborator. Your music gains an extra purpose, you mix with other creatives and those others get their soundtrack sorted before they head to Suno as the easy option.
qotgalaxy 6mo ago
[dead]
hacknewsburner 6mo ago
I used to make a lot of music in FL, mostly beats. I would make beats similar to whatever I was listening to at the time, try to get a little weirder with it every time. Like making Memphis style beats with crushed drums and warped samples running through PS1 reverb until it's drowning. It was never for anyone, I would send my songs to my group chat with my buddies for feedback. Kind of fell off just because I got into other hobbies. It doesn't need to be for anyone else. A re-mix of a song I did got 2M on YouTube though, the real catharsis was beating the botted 300k views the shitty rapper from my grad class had though. That video is copyright struck so I don't make any money from it, but that was never the goal, I just uploaded so I could send my songs to the boys/listen on my phone to do the 'ol car test.
pbreit 6mo ago
If no one hears them, do they really exist?
tills13 6mo ago
I know this is kind of at odds with this thread in general but > but I know it requires work (...) to finish it If you're like me and, when you get to this stage, you tend to burn out and abandon the thing, have you tried using gen AI to get you over that hump? I love coding and still do but I often reached a point where all the fun, easy things were done and I'd be stuck at 90% with only difficult and boring tasks. I've been using Claude recently to just get me over that hump and finish my projects. It can still be fulfilling if you do it right.
sovietswag 6mo ago
Hey friend, if it helps, every “song” you make will eventually become a symbol and memory of a time in your life. It doesn’t have to be good. Sometimes these sounds have even more fidelity than text when it comes to capturing your emotional state and thoughts at the time. I didn’t realize that for a while but in retrospect all of the “it sounds bad” and “I didn’t finish it” didn’t matter
rf15 6mo ago
> I wonder if I'm wasting my time Art is strictly not about efficiency. Go do the thing instead of thinking about optimising everything. > it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself. So? Not everything you create needs fans or monetisation. It should still elevate your sense of accomplishment, like a kind of Type 2 fun.
wazHFsRy 6mo ago
But you will end up with something where you can say „this is mine, I did that“ for the rest of your life. Even if no one ever cares. I come back to some of the things I did in the past through hard labour (coding projects, skateboarding videos) and even if it is nice if others appreciate this, they are still always there for myself as sign of what I achieved.
smithtech 6mo ago
I agree, the question of “why should I bother to do x/y/z when AI can do it so much better/faster/easier?” will become more prevalent and urgent as time goes on, resulting in a sort of creative and intellectual nihilism that will be harder on bright, intelligent people. It was already difficult in the pre-AI age to engage with some activity in a meaningful way for the love of the process. AI now serves as the ultimate temptation away from doing the process yourself, getting the reward with much less of the effort. At work this may be appropriate, but life is not your work. We must be wary of using AI for activities that reduce the texture of our lives, making it less rich experientially. Bold claims to AI changing the world is reducing human activity to that which is readily generated on computing devices, and with it collapsing our sense of self to those few activities.
Slow_Hand 6mo ago
Few things are as satisfying to me as seeing a musical idea realized and executed well. It is immensely fun to write, play, and record with friends. In a good session there's usually a moment where something falls into place and suddenly the record feels awesome and the path forward is clear. The whole room will jump up and say "That's it! Do that again!" and shout and high-five and get a second wind to keep going. It is invigorating and it never gets old. Even if the records aren't any good, it's so. much. fun. to make dumb shit. Whether by yourself or with a friend. Don't underestimate the fact that music is pure play. It is one of the most plastic mediums available to us and you can sculpt it endlessly and continue to surprise yourself with the things that you can make. Have fun and do it for it's own sake. This is all to say, the reward of making music (for me) is doing the work and being creative. Even if that's all you achieve it's valuable and priceless. You've already won. Great work. All secondary rewards (adoration, financial success, etc) are a cherry on top of that thing you've created. You did that.
ntlk 6mo ago
I find the process itself a balm for the soul. It’s the one part of my life where only my vision matters, and I am free to completely disregard what others want. That includes some kind of imaginary audience. I have a bunch of friends who also make music for fun and we share demos and build each other up. Sometimes we make stuff together, send each other inspo, discuss how to improve something in a song, etc. But I have to say, the end result is completely irrelevant here. We’re all doing it for the fun of making, not for the finished product. Given that you said you get the energy from the social element and approval, you could build a social network that will be a source of that approval for your creations. Otherwise you could find a hobby that gives you what you’re looking for without the less enjoyable parts.
ChrisRR 6mo ago
If you're learning for your own enjoyment then you should keep learning. But regardless of AI, the music industry has always been notoriously difficult to get into
7bit 6mo ago
It's process vs end result. If it's the end result important to you, use whatever tool brings you there fastest and makes you the most happy about the result. But often it's the process that's important to people. In both cases, it's very clear what the answer is.

izzydata 6mo ago

I am hopeful that in the near future once AI has saturated as much of everything that it can that it will actually become even more worth it to do things. At least for me the only reason to experience art in any form is that there was human intent behind it. Thus making human generated content more valuable compared to the flood of empty AI content.

lacunary 6mo ago

I'm having fun building elaborate software that meets my needs precisely and nobody else's. I mean, maybe it would meet other's needs but that production would take away from the fun and learning I have building it, and would also reduce its utility for me personally.

prmoustache 6mo ago

Same applies to any creative hobby. Do it for yourself. I guess you can still share to your social circle. Others can still appreciate it.

taneq 6mo ago

The not-fun work isn’t on the song, it’s on you. Improving the song is a byproduct. This only really becomes apparent over time but you’ll realise you were working on yourself all along.

chung8123 6mo ago

You have the answer to the "why do it" in the first part of "why you are doing it". Just because something may be created at the click of the button doesn't mean it fulfills the goals you are looking for. People knit even though there are machines that do that for you. You are doing it for you.

janalsncm 6mo ago

I have done this with music, writing, and many other things. AI doesn’t make any of these things less enjoyable for me because the process of creation itself is the part that I enjoy. I have a very low bar for what I consider to be a successful creation: it just needs to be enjoyable for myself in the future. Anyone else who happens to enjoy the content I make is a bonus. I have several songs on SoundCloud that I have produced in the past and I still enjoy listening to them.

kdheiwns 6mo ago

It's not a waste of time. Every time some new thing comes out and becomes popular, everyone everywhere says everything must be that thing because it's the future. In America, everyone wanted pure white sliced bread. People wanted frozen TV dinners. People wanted chain fast food restaurants. People wanted no effort reality TV. People wanted endless superhero movies. Now people want actual food and they want stuff made with human hands and they want to know what's in it. People want TV shows with a proper story. People are beyond done with cookie cutter superhero movies. The slop wave is going to pass. AI can make stuff that sounds super polished and perfect, but people will want the rough and crude touch of something hand made. They'll want to see videos of musicians showing behind the scenes of how they made something. They'll want to go and see a musician perform. Interest in 100% AI generated music will fade into the background and it'll be relegated to soulless Muzak used for ambiance in soulless chain restaurants too cheap to pay for actual music and too afraid to play any songs that might offend or annoy someone.

embedding-shape 6mo ago

I love making music, and got into it as a venue to be away from the computer. I still do post-production in Ableton, but everything else happens with gear not even connected to a computer. I've tried to make music with a DAW, but it feels so sterile and boring, compared to actually using hardware to make it. Maybe get a second-hand Novation Circuit to start with, or some similar "groovebox" that lets you make songs on one device, and see if you actually still do enjoy making music, yet haven't found the right process for you yet. I don't think you're wasting your time, as long as you're having fun, regardless of what happens in the rest of the world. Sure, AI could probably make "better" (by some definition of "better") music than me, but AI couldn't make my friends smile at me as I play them my music I've made, that's quite literally priceless.

strangegecko 6mo ago
> AI couldn't make my friends smile at me as I play them my music I've made, that's quite literally priceless. Can I ask how you share music with friends? I guess this is part of my problem, I don't really have anyone I could share with or collaborate with. The few people in my life don't listen to the type of music I like.
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  I ask them to come over, then I ask them "Hey, mind if I play this for you and you tell me what you think?" basically. Alternatively, send it as a .mp3 via Whatsapp/Telegram and ask for feedback, but that's almost never as fun or useful. Best way to meet like-minded people is to go to music events where those people are, always a ton of music makers around those, usually also by themselves, sometimes in the back or on the side to the speakers. Most people in such events are OK with being approached by strangers :)
- comprev 6mo ago
  I have "friends" purely through common interest in music, and the same for bicycles too. My oldest/life-long friends have very different musical tastes...and some can't even ride a bike :)
- 6mo ago

Zambyte 6mo ago

Maybe you could see if there's someone who finds the "not fun" part fun and you could collaborate with them. That would solve two problems at the same time. Either way, I strongly encourage you to keep using a DAW if that brings you joy. Using AI to create art is a different skill set, just like using acoustic instruments is a different skill set from using either. Each option appeals a different amount to different people, and you should just do what brings you the most joy.

sph 6mo ago

It's worth doing. Those "no AI" mixes on youtube are doing great, though the vast majority of people is clueless and will happily digest any slop. Create for yourself, and for those that seek the human effort and passion. There's an increasing number of us. I'm the biggest doomer on this site, yet I'm certain human art will become even more valuable, and appreciated, than it has ever been before in history. Just don't expect to make billions out of it, or to reach out to the masses that are quite content with industrial-scale mediocrity.

tarnith 6mo ago

It depends what you want to get out of it, and what you think art itself really is. If it's nothing but an end product, that needs to fit a specific aesthetic, with a specific sound, then I probably agree. AI is making that "pointless" in a way. Almost everyone I know who's been an artist for years though, has come to a similar realization: What you set out to create, and what it turns into through the process of creating it are different things. The meaning, truly is found along the way. You can always be better, there's always more to learn. Nothing is ever truly perfect, or "complete" If you write harmony, there's always a different way it could be written, that might fit better, or be more interesting. If you do sound design, whether that's with getting different guitar tones, synth programming, unique recording techniques, there's always more to learn, or a different way to approach it. If the only point is an end result, then AI can deliver a simulacra of that. For everyone I know that loves music, or working with DAWs, the end result is an ever shifting target as you learn more, and understand music in a different way. Ultimately, there are no shortcuts to making something new, because the practice of trying to make things is what results in what your art becomes. Tools and technology can shape what that thing ends up being, but they (traditionally) don't replace the process of creating it, and the feedback loop between who you are and the decisions you make along the way. Stripping all of that out, and jumping to a "finished" product, is, well very product focused, but to me completely devoid of art or musicianship. Some people seem to compare this to sampling, but anyone who's ever actually worked with sampling in a creative way will realize how hollow that comparison is. Almost all good sampling still requires a good deal of active feedback, between the person working with it and the way THEY hear what's going on. Remove the person from that loop, replace the decisions with a general vague notion, and you end up with something that sounds "like" music, but that feedback loop is broken. I see the same thing with all the AI UI design that's coming out. It's all generally quite competent, and exactly the same. Great for a business tool, where maybe the velocity and an acceptable MVP is the only point, but terrible for actual design and novel thought. TL;dr: Why do it? Because you want to, and you think that with enough time engaging with something you'll change, just as it does, and the result isn't something you could have ever predicted when you started. It changes you, and that's the point. Just like learning an instrument, or learning to code. It's not purely about the produced result, and that very result fundamentally is changed by you actively engaging with whatever the medium is.

wartywhoa23 6mo ago

You're not wasting your time, my friend. But you've got to be very certain and honest as to why you want to learn that. If your goal is being heard and appreciated, well, you better reconsider. If you're doing it for your own pleasure and pure love of art, absolutely do go on, without any expectations. It may or may not take off, but the samurai must not care.

vasco 6mo ago
Some people just never found what that thing is for them. And usually you find those things doing them the hard way while you suck. And then the reward is people will see what you do and recognize the work you put in. But if suddenly every person with a prompt does the exact same thing with zero effort, it does take away from the joy of doing it. At least if the joy of doing it is related to the feeling of liking to do "hard things" or liking to think of oneself as one that "does hard things". And I'd say that includes a lot of people and a lot of activities. I bet a lot of accountants in the old days were really good at basic math, and proud of being fast and accurate and now there's calculators and the amount of people that work on mental math just for the love of the game is probably super small in comparison to when it was a core skill of many more people's jobs.
TyrunDemeg101 6mo ago
I 100% agree with this and have found it to entirely be my own drive for learning and creating. For me it is beyond trying to make money or become famous, it is simply to enjoy the journey and the creativity that comes with creating music.
- strangegecko 6mo ago
  > For me it is beyond trying to make money or become famous, To clarify, when I speak of "approval", I'm not imagining a successful career or financial success. It's much more basic, i.e. having a few people tell me they genuinely like something I created would do that. > it is simply to enjoy the journey and the creativity that comes with creating music. It's unfortunately not simple for me (again, context of long term burnout / depression etc). If I only go by enjoyment, I will watch TV and maybe read and go on bike rides until the end of my days. But that is not fulfilling in the long term. I have a creative drive, but it's rather intermittent and not enough to consistently want to do the work involved. I'm trying to nurture it.

devindotcom 6mo ago

don't sell your work short. it has value because it comes from you, and struggling to finish is unbelievably common in the creation process - not to mention frustration and a lack of joy. if you're creating because you feel a drive to create, you are making art and that has intrinsic value to yourself and others. if however you are performing the act of musical creation as a means to an end, what you are doing may be better considered work and not art. the work of others can also be appreciated but it is different. keep at it though. you are asking good questions and unlike many you are also personally engaging with them.

mcmcmc 6mo ago

Step 1: ditch the DAW and learn a real instrument Step 2: find a local jam group or community band/orchestra Step 3: have fun playing music with friends

mschuster91 6mo ago
Multiple problems with this one. For one, acquiring an instrument is expensive - even secondhand, most instruments cost a significant amount of money. Learning it properly is even more important and expensive - fixing something in a DAW is easy, unlearning muscle memory is much harder. Keeping up said muscle memory also isn't easy. Sure, if you got a free-standing house, no one will care much about a drum set, trumpet or whatever. But most people don't have that luxury in urban sets any more, and typical residential building quality makes even some electronic instruments (e.g. kicks still cause some amount of noise passing through floors) a challenge. Building noise ordnances / HOA rules are a bitch on top of that - most allow only a limited time window in the afternoon, useless for working-class people. Local community groups... if your community has one, and they have some studio space where noise doesn't matter, great! Most, unfortunately, don't - space in urban environments is already rare and at a hefty premium, space that accepts noise and has adequate resources (in practice: a usable toilet is the most important) is even rarer.
- joenot443 6mo ago
  You can find really affordable used guitars or keyboards which are completely suitable for beginners. Beginner's electric drum kits are cheaper than real ones and hook up to headphones - there goes your sound problems. I definitely agree it is much harder to learn a instrument than it is to learn a DAW. Believe me, I've done both. There are lots of reasons to forego picking up an instrument, but living in an apartment or a modest budget are certainly not good reasons.
- gos9 6mo ago
  > never leave your computer because everything might be hard
  - 6mo ago

gmueckl 6mo ago

I have two answers for you: 1. All that AI really does is a (partially) randomized exploration of the space that has been spanned by existing music. AI creativity, as far as it can be said to exist, is limited by this. You, on the other hand, are human and not bound by any of these limitations. You are free to explore wild things that no AI can do. Just as a completely random example, you could go out, record noises your environment (even if it's just with the smartphone), grab interesting parts, chop them up, process them and turn them into unique new instruments. Bang on random stuff that has a nice ring to it. Record background hums, apply filters and envelopes to them etc. And there are so many other ways to produce unique creations. 2. Most importantly, music is a form of human expression. It is able to capture the human condition in a unique way. As a human, you can express these things genuinely through your own emotions, experiences, memories etc. AI systems can only produce hollow facsimiles of this. Regardless of whether you are conscious about it, every piece of music that you create is a reflection of you: your thoughts, your emotions, your process. And that imparts the true value on your creations.

epiccoleman 6mo ago
> Just as a completely random example, you could go out, record noises your environment (even if it's just with the smartphone), grab interesting parts, chop them up, process them and turn them into unique new instruments. I'm not sure if you already knew this, but this is actually a thing already - it's been called "Botanica" and there are a bunch of cool tracks floating around. Sample track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0QCBPnJz5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0QCBPnJz5w Obligatory Ben Levin video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-mK82gLkWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-mK82gLkWE

antinomicus 6mo ago

You are clearly just at the beginning of your musical journey. I am happy for you. Yes, music for me too makes no sense without other people. This means, I suggest, that you must go out and find other people to collaborate with. The more you do it the more you realize just how many people out there are in the same boat as you. And once you find that right person or group, it’s like nothing else. And let’s be clear, this will take you far far outside your normal social circle. The type of people who like the same music as you may be completely different in every other way. It is important to actively seek out the right people and along that journey, define exactly what that person is, as well as who you are. This is the thing I care most about and yes I hope that more tools, AI or not come out to reduce that work that you have to do to make something polished, so everyone can focus on being creative.

RankingMember 6mo ago

I'd wager most people who make music are making it for the sheer joy of expression. Like .001% of people who make music get any kind of meaningful monetary return on it, and I think anyone who goes into it looking for monetary return is doing it for the wrong reasons. In my view, AI changes nothing where it matters it music.

junon 6mo ago

> Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors can be therapeutic (I'm dealing with burnout/depression/cptsd). This is the reason why a lot of us make music. Writing orchestral pieces is my own meditation. I don't share most of them, and replacing them with AI would defeat the purpose. Please keep learning it! The world needs more musicians, even if we never hear them.

kaiokendev 6mo ago

There are still several avenues for this, and I imagine they'll continue to exist even in a mostly-AI-enhanced world. You'll need to dedicate time to finding them. For example, Battle of the Bits [0] is a community all about chiptune music. I'm sure you _could_ use AI to help you learn and produce some things, but the community is mostly about sharing ideas about what works at the electronic level, so even if AI became super capable, it wouldn't help you engage with the community in any meaningful way. There are several such communities across different domains and I imagine they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of how much improvement happens w.r.t. AI, since the focus is on "what you learned" and not so much "what you did". Similarly, I have seen communities focused entirely on Silicon Graphics workstations, or pc-98 internals. Human passion-based communities aren't going anywhere, Google just makes it incredibly hard to find them outside of word-of-mouth. [0] https://battleofthebits.com https://battleofthebits.com

JodieBenitez 6mo ago

> I've always struggled to enjoy anything that doesn't involve other people in some way Well... play in band/orchestra ? You get to meet people, interact with them, build with them, etc. I've been making music solo using various machines and computers all my life and I love it, but it's probably not for everyone. Yes, you're alone. Yes, (almost) nobody cares, so if you can't enjoy the process there is no point really. () from time to time someone will show some interest but let's face it: there's just too much good music released everyday, competing with other distractions for the attention of the people. For people like me, AI doesn't change much, it's another tool. We've been abusing technology in music for decades.

deleted 6mo ago

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neonstatic 6mo ago

> I'm trying to learn music production with a DAW, sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time. Part of my reason for trying this was reading how creative endeavors can be therapeutic (I'm dealing with burnout/depression/cptsd). If you enjoy the process and its outcomes, then it's not a waste of time. If you are forcing yourself to do it or have another motivation for it that is not rooted in genuine interest, then yes, you are wasting your time. > I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent This is a spiritual question, so you will have as many answers as there are askers. I found my answer and am happy to share it with you. Why do it? Because I want to. What is worth doing? What I want to do or what gets me to the things I want. Wanting is a very important process, that is often damaged by conditioning. We are told that some things we want are bad and that some things we don't want are good. Or that ego is evil. So many ways this process can go wrong. I think fixing this in oneself is part of becoming an actual adult. Once you know what you want and what you don't want, you no longer are dependent on others telling you what to do or forcing you to do things you shouldn't be doing. Ego is not evil, it's there for a reason. Some people have an overgrown one while others have an underdeveloped one. What is needed is balance. I don't think the pattern recognition machine has anything to do with it. I suspect, that a lot of people who use music as a band aid for personal problems, i.e. people who build their identity around being special due to music making, are the ones who are afraid of AI, but if you just enjoy making music, then what does it matter if music itself is patterned and if a machine can exploit that? It doesn't take anything away from the joy of making music, if you experience it in the first place.

strangegecko 6mo ago
I need to force myself to do almost everything. Simply saying it's a waste of time because of that isn't practical unless I give up on life entirely. In practice, it's not binary. I'm interested because I want to make music similar to that which I like listening to. Sometimes I get enjoyment out of it, but sometimes I lose interest maybe because I'm facing a frustration. My question of wasting time is connected to "can I even create something worth listening to". If nothing I could make is worth listening to, then I guess I would feel the process of creation is pointless. I've heard others write about how what they produce is worth listening to, to them. I think that is enough, but I also think I lack confidence in my own judgement. Almost like I need someone else to confirm my validity. I have recognized that as a result of emotional neglect, but I haven't figured out how to fix it.

some-guy 6mo ago

A lot of people thought the same thing with everything going from analog -> digital. Or heck, even learning an instrument when MIDI was first introduced. Even before generative AI, there is a long-going debate in audio circles around simulated guitar amplifiers. The truth is, the simulations of them have gotten so insanely good that now one could simply purchase an all-in-one pedalboard and have basically all of guitar history at your toes. My rule-of-thumb is this: "does this tool I'm using in particular take away from the authenticity of my performance or songwriting?" Example: I am very keen on performing vocals and guitar at the same time, and I don't have an expensive studio setup, and my office has background noise. I use these tools, and yes even some open source AI ones, 1) remove background noise of the individual tracks and 2) do a final master against a recording I want to target (using something like Matchering or similar [0]). It still sounds like me, my voice isn't perfect, my beat isn't consistent, but it sounds like I rented some studio space. So for me it was a cost-saving measure. [0] https://github.com/sergree/matchering https://github.com/sergree/matchering

basisword 6mo ago
>> one could simply purchase an all-in-one pedalboard and have basically all of guitar history at your toes And this is actually a problem. Great art usually comes from constraints, real or artificial. These things are a lot of fun to tinker with (a really fun hobby) but one amp, one guitar, and a small number of effects pedals will probably lead to you actually make more and better stuff.
- ironman1478 6mo ago
  I have an all-in-one amp / pedalboard and it's just more practical, even though all I do is just pick an amp, plug in my guitar and play. They take up less space and cost less money in the long run if you actually do want to use many pedals. I get what you're saying but in general this specific case I think the all-in-ones win for most people.
- some-guy 6mo ago
  This was definitely true for me, which is why I write everything acoustically and ensure the song is "good" before going in my later age. If I want a specific effect, I then google what pedals were used in a particular song or artist, then I try to recreate the chain, and then tinker with that on top. Ultimately I spent so much of my time worrying about "what crazy expensive equipment should I buy" when I was younger and more into this stuff, and I should have simply just played my shitty instruments and recorded on my shitty equipment. That's on me, but I also find it empowering as an artist that I can clean up my recording in the way that replaces my need for expensive equipment while maintaining (in my humble opinion) a sense of authenticity of my performance. I agree there may be too many knobs, but finding the knobs that I want has never been easier and I would rather live in the now than in the past.

Lucasoato 6mo ago

I’ve asked an artist if they should be worried about the newest generative AI capabilities. This is his (translated) response: > Artists? Pencil laborers, more like.. I am in favor of using AI in visuals. It will eliminate a lot of mere decorators, and won’t even slightly affect the artists. I hope AI as a technology has the same effect on the world of ART as the invention of photography had: it got rid of a lot of empty landscape copiers. Impressionism was born shortly after that. See, I believe many cursed photography, but Monet never saw it as a problem.

MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago
> I hope AI as a technology has the same effect on the world of ART as the invention of photography had: it got rid of a lot of empty landscape copiers I like this analogy. Maybe this time around is different, but I like to hope it's not.
- api 6mo ago
  The anti-AI discourse is almost identical to anti-photography diatribes from more than a century ago. Artists will also learn to use AI to make art. I don’t mean slop, which is low effort stuff and I tend to use that term regardless of whether AI was involved. I mean real art where the AI is used with painstaking care the way a photographer uses their camera.
coldtea 6mo ago
Wishful thinking. What it will do is it will spoil it for 99% of small time artists that still managed to make a living out of it. It will drown audience with slop and make them not care for new releases even more. That "artists" idea is that the Monet's will survive, but art is not a rat race where just the Monets need apply. A healthy art scene needs all kinds of creators, at different levels, and needs to be able to sustain a decent above-average quality chunk of them. Not just the Monets. Not to mention it seems like the pretentious artist in the discussion sees themselves as some outlier Monet type that will be fine.
- 6mo ago

basisword 6mo ago

Is it therapeutic if it relies on the approval of someone else?

jackyinger 6mo ago

Just pick up your instrument and make some noise. DAWs are time sinks. Music is about the “feel” first and foremost. Playing music on a physical instrument or singing is a feel thing. DAWs are tools for polishing what was created with feeling into something “produced”. If that’s what you want to end up with, that’s ok. Just be clear with yourself on which you’re trying to do.

djaro 6mo ago
I had this exact realization. Taking chords from a chord progression generator, putting it into FL studio, adding a random melody that stays in the key from a cool synth preset, some random drum loop, and end result? I guess it could be called music. Its a combination of sounds that doesnt sound actively bad. I noticed the problem when I realized I couldn't make music in a specific mood or genre. Sometimes I'd finish my song and think "oh wow, a happy rock song" or "a sad edm song" or whatever but it was always just random chance where I ended up. With music theory knowledge I could always add more instruments or notes that could exist in that place but with 0 direction, whatever I made was always listenable but never more than that.

nazgulsenpai 6mo ago

I just recently setup a very simple home recording studio after picking up drums again at 40. I had the same thoughts, but I'm going it for me and it is extremely therapeutic. Plus, given the genre (extreme metal), I've gotten into much better shape. (Also picked up an 8 string guitar. I never grew out of my edgelordiness. No real point to mentioning this but just wanted to tell someone :) AI music may eventually satisfy the masses and you can't stop that speeding train, but the process of creating something yourself will always have value if it's something you're interested in creating.

Rekindle8090 6mo ago

"it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself." AI is forcing art to return to having no meaning or purpose beyond itself and thats a good thing. It's how things used to be

orsorna 6mo ago

Just remember that AI has lowered the skill ceiling to produce a lot of things. But it hasn't lowered the bar for taste :)

poulpy123 6mo ago

If you do it for money it is maybe a waste of time, because the chance to win the race were already low and now you have to compete with a tsunami of AI generated music. If you do it for your enjoyment, nothing changed and nothing will change

comprev 6mo ago

I have little interest in doing a DJ set in public but I'll spend hours crate digging for new music and mixing circular black slabs of vinyl for nothing more than the love of the craft.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

tmountain 6mo ago

I’ve been involved in one music project or another (bands, albums, solo projects, etc) for the past 25 years. During the pandemic, a friend and I decided to make a record together. We labored over it for almost two years and finally “released it” on bandcamp to very little fanfare. A few friends and family had nice things to say, and one random stranger reached out with positive feedback. I get a monthly stream report from bandcamp, and it almost always says zero. I am so pleased with this project and have such great memories of making the album that I had two lathe cut vinyl copies made (one for me, and one for my friend). I put a big part of myself into the project and was able to convey ideas and feelings that I couldn’t express effectively via other methods. I listen to the recording about once a year. It’s a part of me now, and I couldn’t be happier with my journey in making it. To me, this is the purpose of the creative journey. Knowing yourself better, and enjoying all of the steps involved in arriving at what is always a surprising destination. If someone else feels something as a result of your work, that’s a nice bonus, but not something I focus on at all.

Projectiboga 6mo ago
It isn't in your profile. Why not post it there or here?
- croon 6mo ago
  I'm happy they shared it on a further request, but I feel not having it in GP or profile is consistent with and further strengthens what they wrote in the post.
cyclopeanutopia 6mo ago
Please share your bandcamp page!
- mettamage 6mo ago
  I'm curious too now
- tmountain 6mo ago

serial_dev 6mo ago

1. None of this should matter if you do it because it’s therapeutic. 2. If it turns out it’s not therapeutic for you, try something different. Play piano. Learn chess. Learn MMA. Go for a run. Heck, vibecode something silly. Music production is not the only way, if you have it a good try and it just frustrates you, try something else.

estetlinus 6mo ago

I have ~40 demoes from a music career that never took off. Now I am feeding little Suno with this demoes, turning them into afrobeat with oboe, deep house with harmonica, etc, and reliving the creative joy. You can make a decent demo in a DAW and run it through AI for a nice production. The art of writing songs is still equally hard IMO. And a good song is still good, no matter what costume it wears.

throw_m239339 6mo ago

Learn an instrument (guitar,keys,drums...) if you haven't already and go jam with friends and do concerts instead. That's the best part of making music. The age of music production is almost over, the age of the music industry already is. I wouldn't want to be in the DAW/VST business today though, because a lot of potential customers are thinking exactly as you do...

pojzon 6mo ago

AI makes or will make everyone question doing „any” creative work. The real question you should ask yourself is „Do I care?” If you do it for yourself - do it. If you learn that to make money - forget about it.

coldtea 6mo ago

>I'm at the stage where sometimes I make something that sounds good (to me) but I know it requires work (in the "not fun" sense) to finish it and even then, it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself. That's true of 99% of very polished finished work too. Amazing bands and artists in Spotify with sub 1000 streams/month. >None of these problems are "new", but I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent. Kind of wondering how others are affected by all this, if at all. Absolutely. One big concern is that even if you do it and you're proud of it, many will think it's AI anyway. Plus the over-inflation of AI generated shit. It could all die in a fire.

Tanoc 6mo ago

Art is a form of communication. You turn to the arts when the other methods to communicate something either do not feel as if they fit, or feel that they will not encompass the idea you wish to convey. Art is a dialogue with other people, not a commodity. The point is to help yourself understand what you want to say, not to say something that is valuable in way that can be exchanged for goods. So do not become discouraged by the machine generated sounds. They are only sounds, not a message.

chickensong 6mo ago
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley

999900000999 6mo ago

I've been making music as a hobbyist for 18 years. It's fun. That's it's own reason. Even before AI you statistically will never ever ever make money. Not only that, but legions of scam artists want to rip you off in some manner. 'Cool music , for 400$ I can get your listeners '

poolnoodle 6mo ago

Making the art changes you. Don't do it with the goal of having produced 'content' in mind.

BoredPositron 6mo ago

Mhm... it sounds like the main problem is that you like the result more than the actual process. If you start a new hobby, you should enjoy the time you spend doing it. Of course, every hobby has its chores or tedious parts, but doing it just for the end product or for the validation you get from others will never work in the long run.

DesaiAshu 6mo ago

Fear not, a few of us are building in the direction you're hoping. Leveraging AI to make it easier to stay in a creative headspace with music rather than getting caught in a spreadsheet with endless settings Sharing is definitely a core part of "why do it", but that can be sharing with friends/family or a living room performance Some preliminary ideas here: https://songbird.studiocollective.xyz https://songbird.studiocollective.xyz

kypro 6mo ago

I recently wrote more or less this exact comment on another platform recently (although I've been making music for a while). I was told that I should make music for myself, but I guess I don't really understand that perspective? It's like with code – I used to enjoy writing code in the past, but these days if I want to build something I'll just generate it with AI because most the time it will be quicker and better than me hand cranking it. I used to enjoy it but coding just seems pointless now. I don't really get why the average musician would bother recording there own stuff anymore either. If you want to create music then the AI is really good and you should just use that. It took decades to get half decent at playing instruments and producing my own songs, but today a kid can put out a song that sounds far better than what I can do in just 10 minutes with AI. For the last two decades of my life all my free time was basically spent coding or write music. I can do neither now. I'm trying to learn more practical skills like wood work because that's the only way I've found I can still get that feeling of accomplishment which I got with coding and music, but it doesn't come as naturally to me unfortunately. Definitely lost a big part of myself over the last year or two which I'm trying to come to terms with.

8note 6mo ago
why are you learning to do woodwork when working wood was already automated away decades or centuries ago?
- kypro 6mo ago
  Maybe I should have been more precise – I'm trying to learn how to physically manifest things in head. Woodwork is part of that, but I'm just generally manufacturing skills from CAD design, electronics & PCB design, metal work, 3d printing, etc. You should 100% buy a cardboard table from Ikea if you just need a table that sorta does the job for 5 years, but if you want something made of solid wood that's a certain shape and style, you might be better off building your own depending on your product & price requirements. Similarly there are just little things that I know can be built but there's no real demand for the product because my specific requirements are niche. For example, I have chickens and sometimes we get foxes snooping around their coop at night. I have an alerting system for this, but I'd quite like to be able to trigger gun shot noises and my sprinkler if there's indeed a fox in my garden to try to deter them from coming back. No one's going to sell stuff like this, but I can make it. I'm also an AI doomer, so feel I need to learn basic skills like this which might help if things start getting bad and I'm somehow still around.

prawn 6mo ago

What about finding game creators or similar who could make use of a musical collaborator. Your music gains an extra purpose, you mix with other creatives and those others get their soundtrack sorted before they head to Suno as the easy option.

qotgalaxy 6mo ago

[dead]

hacknewsburner 6mo ago

I used to make a lot of music in FL, mostly beats. I would make beats similar to whatever I was listening to at the time, try to get a little weirder with it every time. Like making Memphis style beats with crushed drums and warped samples running through PS1 reverb until it's drowning. It was never for anyone, I would send my songs to my group chat with my buddies for feedback. Kind of fell off just because I got into other hobbies. It doesn't need to be for anyone else. A re-mix of a song I did got 2M on YouTube though, the real catharsis was beating the botted 300k views the shitty rapper from my grad class had though. That video is copyright struck so I don't make any money from it, but that was never the goal, I just uploaded so I could send my songs to the boys/listen on my phone to do the 'ol car test.

pbreit 6mo ago

If no one hears them, do they really exist?

tills13 6mo ago

I know this is kind of at odds with this thread in general but > but I know it requires work (...) to finish it If you're like me and, when you get to this stage, you tend to burn out and abandon the thing, have you tried using gen AI to get you over that hump? I love coding and still do but I often reached a point where all the fun, easy things were done and I'd be stuck at 90% with only difficult and boring tasks. I've been using Claude recently to just get me over that hump and finish my projects. It can still be fulfilling if you do it right.

sovietswag 6mo ago

Hey friend, if it helps, every “song” you make will eventually become a symbol and memory of a time in your life. It doesn’t have to be good. Sometimes these sounds have even more fidelity than text when it comes to capturing your emotional state and thoughts at the time. I didn’t realize that for a while but in retrospect all of the “it sounds bad” and “I didn’t finish it” didn’t matter

rf15 6mo ago

> I wonder if I'm wasting my time Art is strictly not about efficiency. Go do the thing instead of thinking about optimising everything. > it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself. So? Not everything you create needs fans or monetisation. It should still elevate your sense of accomplishment, like a kind of Type 2 fun.

wazHFsRy 6mo ago

But you will end up with something where you can say „this is mine, I did that“ for the rest of your life. Even if no one ever cares. I come back to some of the things I did in the past through hard labour (coding projects, skateboarding videos) and even if it is nice if others appreciate this, they are still always there for myself as sign of what I achieved.

smithtech 6mo ago

I agree, the question of “why should I bother to do x/y/z when AI can do it so much better/faster/easier?” will become more prevalent and urgent as time goes on, resulting in a sort of creative and intellectual nihilism that will be harder on bright, intelligent people. It was already difficult in the pre-AI age to engage with some activity in a meaningful way for the love of the process. AI now serves as the ultimate temptation away from doing the process yourself, getting the reward with much less of the effort. At work this may be appropriate, but life is not your work. We must be wary of using AI for activities that reduce the texture of our lives, making it less rich experientially. Bold claims to AI changing the world is reducing human activity to that which is readily generated on computing devices, and with it collapsing our sense of self to those few activities.

Slow_Hand 6mo ago

Few things are as satisfying to me as seeing a musical idea realized and executed well. It is immensely fun to write, play, and record with friends. In a good session there's usually a moment where something falls into place and suddenly the record feels awesome and the path forward is clear. The whole room will jump up and say "That's it! Do that again!" and shout and high-five and get a second wind to keep going. It is invigorating and it never gets old. Even if the records aren't any good, it's so. much. fun. to make dumb shit. Whether by yourself or with a friend. Don't underestimate the fact that music is pure play. It is one of the most plastic mediums available to us and you can sculpt it endlessly and continue to surprise yourself with the things that you can make. Have fun and do it for it's own sake. This is all to say, the reward of making music (for me) is doing the work and being creative. Even if that's all you achieve it's valuable and priceless. You've already won. Great work. All secondary rewards (adoration, financial success, etc) are a cherry on top of that thing you've created. You did that.

ntlk 6mo ago

I find the process itself a balm for the soul. It’s the one part of my life where only my vision matters, and I am free to completely disregard what others want. That includes some kind of imaginary audience. I have a bunch of friends who also make music for fun and we share demos and build each other up. Sometimes we make stuff together, send each other inspo, discuss how to improve something in a song, etc. But I have to say, the end result is completely irrelevant here. We’re all doing it for the fun of making, not for the finished product. Given that you said you get the energy from the social element and approval, you could build a social network that will be a source of that approval for your creations. Otherwise you could find a hobby that gives you what you’re looking for without the less enjoyable parts.

ChrisRR 6mo ago

If you're learning for your own enjoyment then you should keep learning. But regardless of AI, the music industry has always been notoriously difficult to get into

7bit 6mo ago

It's process vs end result. If it's the end result important to you, use whatever tool brings you there fastest and makes you the most happy about the result. But often it's the process that's important to people. In both cases, it's very clear what the answer is.