6 ms·

For me, the point of making music is making it myself. If want to have something done for me I could just play someone else's record and pretend like I made it.

plastic-enjoyer 5mo ago
Welcome to the era of instant gratification.
brookst 5mo ago
The is the age-old music parochial thing. "Oh, he's just in a cover band, he doesn't write anything" / "Oh, she's just a composer, she can't even play the stuff she writes" / "Oh, he writes and plays his own stuff but knows fuck all about theory so it's not real music" / etc. Me, I'm having a blast with claude code, MCP, and Ableton. I'm directing harmony and asking for arrangements and variations in rhythm, mixing, and production. Don't know if that counts as "making it myself", but then I was writing music before I could actually play any instrument at all, so :shrug:
- tunesmith 5mo ago
  I think there's a way to define it without it either side feeling personally attacked. One of the things I like about using agents for programming is that if the spec is detailed enough, I can implement it in a number of different languages and still get the thing I intended. That means that the "art" is in the spec, not the implementation. I think the question with AI in music is when it gets to that point. What's the musical spec? What's the implementation? If the spec is supposed to be the pure distillation of my intent, then shouldn't that mean each time I engage AI to "implement" the spec, the musical output of the AI should be the same? At that point I'm all in favor of using AI for music. But when AI is used to replace a specific intent with vague intent, that's where I feel like something is lost in the human experience of human-created music.
brandonb 5mo ago
Previous generations might have said the same thing about Ableton itself, vs playing a physical instrument. In that regard, AI might become just another power tool for creative expression.
- tkiolp4 5mo ago
  Agree to some extent. At some point though we jump the thin line between creative expression and… magic? Like if at some point I can just say “Generate a song similar to Smooth Criminal, different enough to not trigger copyright claims” and it just works, and everyone loves it… well is that creative thinking?
  - PotatoPrime 5mo ago
    I think there is something to it. First, it would still need to be different enough from Smooth Criminal to avoid listeners just going back to the original. Then, if anyone could just type a simple prompt like that and get a hit, wouldn't we be flooded with 'sounds like' singles, which would turn the audience off of those, and now, you're not making hits... I think there will always be more to it then just a simple prompt, but having the vision to make a song that sounds pleasing, and unique enough is certainly creative to me. Of course, there's also a huge demand for generic, inoffensive music (think theme/intro songs, waiting room and elevator music). If we could make that more enjoyable to listen to, would anyone care if that's not creative thinking? You could make (and many do) the same arguments over covers of songs, even when the covers end up eclipsing the original. Where was the creative thinking in that?
    - rexpop 5mo ago
      > it would still need to be different enough from Smooth Criminal to avoid listeners just going back to the original Or just cheaper to license so that Spotify/Pandora promote it in your algorithmic feed. It's audio skimpflation!
  - Archer6621 5mo ago
    I think you can quantify the amount of creative expression you engage in by looking at all the decision points in the creative process where you are directly involved in making the decision. For an LLM prompt, that is going to be fairly limited by definition. I suppose the quality can be measured then by how novel and effective the output/approach of each decision is then, how much impact is made. The amount of creative expression does not necessarily correlate with impact. Something can be created with nearly zero creative expression, that ends up making a significant impact. In that case you are more of a director than an artist I suppose, in that you direct the high-level process and only make decisions there. You can call it creative thinking in the same way a good businessman makes smart high-level decisions and then delegates what is downstream to others, with decisions being optimized for impact. I think you can be creative "within a frame" in that sense, e.g. creative in the way you wield an LLM for instance, which is on a different scale compared to being creative on the piano roll with how you organize and brainstorm your melodies. It's just a different skill set at a different granularity altogether. But the one thing that I think holds, is that higher level methods have less creative expression by definition, because you are delegating more decisions to other faculties; you are seeing less of the "creator" in the work.
jrm4 5mo ago
I get why people make gut statements like this, and to me something does feel different about AI. But I realize I have not seen any criticisms of AI generated music that are meaningfully different from criticisms I've heard of other advances/changes in music technology, whether performance or recording. Sampling, scratching, drum machines, autotune, electric guitars even.
- Jtarii 5mo ago
  Well in "traditional" music production every individual component of a song has the creative intent of the artist in it. With AI you have no idea if there is any intent or if its just something an LLM spat out. If all you care about is the raw sound file created and you don't care about the connection you might feel with the artist behind it then maybe intent isn't relevant to you.
- windowliker 5mo ago
  The main unconsidered criticism that used to come from old-school musos was that 'you press a button and the synthesizer/drum machine/whatever does it all for you'... Only now is that perhaps coming to be true. There's a difference between technology/technique that adds a new sonic palette to the canon, and one that takes away the necessity to have any direct input in the process of production. I guess we'll find out which this is if there's a wave of novel AI assisted genres that emerge, or not, as may be the case.
windowliker 5mo ago
I will caveat my first comment by also noting that I am well versed in computer music history, and read many many papers in CMJ[1] and elsewhere about generative and automatic composition tools such as Emily Howell[2]. I do NOT have a problem with generative, algorithmic and automatic composition in this sense, as an extension of the creative intentions of the human composer, in the right context. See also Autechre[3] for what can be done with Markov chains and good taste. What we are discussing here is the musical equivalent of a dishwasher. [1] http://www.computermusicjournal.org/ http://www.computermusicjournal.org/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope#Emily_Howell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope#Emily_Howell [3] http://autechre.ws/ http://autechre.ws/ Addendum: I would highly recommend the Margaret Boden book referenced in the wiki on David Cope/Emily Howell, which is an absolutely fascinating read and was incredibly far-sighted in its enquiries on this topic.
- jrajav 5mo ago
  Can I ask what the specific markers / qualifiers are for you to consider (let's call them) 'classical' generative and algorithmic techniques fair game in creative composition, but LLM agent based techniques not so? To me, it seems like the "do it for me" aspect is similar, just at different levels of abstraction.
  - semolino 5mo ago
    The main difference is tweakability: With classical generative and algorithmic composition, the human can change parameters in real time and more closely guide the shape of the piece.
    - windowliker 5mo ago
      This as well. Most 'classical' algorithmic music had an element of expressiveness allowed to the composer in the moment.
  - windowliker 5mo ago
    Firstly, they all came to the use of those techniques after having been through years of work the 'hard way', often being able to play to a conservatoire standard, and had a very extensive grounding in the tradition that came with that. Then they owned* or designed the thing they were asking to 'do it for me' and could modify it at their discretion, effectively making it an integral element of the composition. The prior training was crucial in getting anything good out of any of it IMO (high level reflection based on canon knowledge and deeply considered personal sensibility, etc.) * I suppose in the early days, running on an mainframe would belie the definition of ownership per se, as it required access and was limited to that specific machine/institution, but then we are talking about a time where personal computing wasn't available.
PaulDavisThe1st 5mo ago
When we recently added MCP to Ardour (a cross-platform FLOSS DAW), the goal wasn't to get the machine to make the music for you, it was to provide alternate ways of interacting with the DAW (particularly for those with visual impairments that make voice control preferable).
ollysb 5mo ago
Each genre has a fairly tight envelope within which to operate. Regardless 90% of tracks never make it to the finish line because hobbyists haven't learnt them well enough to groove them out. If with a little help these tracks were all finished then bedroom producers will over time learn what works and be able to explore more.
- moritzwarhier 5mo ago
  I think the parent comment was saying that the problem is not quantity, but quality. Warping my mind back into a hobby-enthusiast music producer mindset: an MCP that generates presets for a limited pipeline with many sweet spots sounds... interesting? To me, the idea of being able to have, say, a chain of a simple VA synth + delay + compressor and a very simple step sequencer, combined with prompting and a genAI model that spits out patches, sounds very endearing and interesting. Much more interesting than Gemini or Suno for example. Depends on the training and input space of course. I deliberately described a limited setup, the controls of which could be described in less than a kilobyte. Many dance music synth patterns could be described by simple means (tracker/step sequencer, looping, a few knobs). That's what makes a lot of music interesting. I can easily imagine a producer creating very individual and interesting output by unleashing the right models. I think, just like with human producers, constraints liberate. An AI controlling a very limited synthesis chain is more interesting than a very complex synthesis chain controlled by a human with no musical "vibe".
treebeard901 5mo ago
> I could just play someone else's record and pretend like I made it How many "DJs" today could even find two records that they could key and beat match? Then physically mix them on the turntables with no software or sync buttons? AI is just going to make this worse...
- Mashimo 5mo ago
  > How many "DJs" today could even find t A lot of them. The barriers to entry have been lowered, which also means there are way more DJs around. And some of them will start to expand their horizon. I don't know, but I would not be surprised if the total amount of people who can mix without sync increased. Though the percentage of DJs who need sync is probably higher. I started DJing with 'rona and now somestimes mix vinyl. And I also hosted open deck nights with CDJs where a lot of beginners did not use sync, unless they where only a few month into the game. I don't think it's a negative.
bschoepke 5mo ago
I agree! I made this mostly so I could stay in the flow more in Ableton without getting lost spinning knobs and pressing buttons. Although I do enjoy spinning knobs and pressing buttons. With this I can keep my hands on my keyboard or guitar and direct Codex to make a quick backing track.

plastic-enjoyer 5mo ago

Welcome to the era of instant gratification.

brookst 5mo ago

The is the age-old music parochial thing. "Oh, he's just in a cover band, he doesn't write anything" / "Oh, she's just a composer, she can't even play the stuff she writes" / "Oh, he writes and plays his own stuff but knows fuck all about theory so it's not real music" / etc. Me, I'm having a blast with claude code, MCP, and Ableton. I'm directing harmony and asking for arrangements and variations in rhythm, mixing, and production. Don't know if that counts as "making it myself", but then I was writing music before I could actually play any instrument at all, so :shrug:

tunesmith 5mo ago
I think there's a way to define it without it either side feeling personally attacked. One of the things I like about using agents for programming is that if the spec is detailed enough, I can implement it in a number of different languages and still get the thing I intended. That means that the "art" is in the spec, not the implementation. I think the question with AI in music is when it gets to that point. What's the musical spec? What's the implementation? If the spec is supposed to be the pure distillation of my intent, then shouldn't that mean each time I engage AI to "implement" the spec, the musical output of the AI should be the same? At that point I'm all in favor of using AI for music. But when AI is used to replace a specific intent with vague intent, that's where I feel like something is lost in the human experience of human-created music.

brandonb 5mo ago

Previous generations might have said the same thing about Ableton itself, vs playing a physical instrument. In that regard, AI might become just another power tool for creative expression.

tkiolp4 5mo ago
Agree to some extent. At some point though we jump the thin line between creative expression and… magic? Like if at some point I can just say “Generate a song similar to Smooth Criminal, different enough to not trigger copyright claims” and it just works, and everyone loves it… well is that creative thinking?
- PotatoPrime 5mo ago
  I think there is something to it. First, it would still need to be different enough from Smooth Criminal to avoid listeners just going back to the original. Then, if anyone could just type a simple prompt like that and get a hit, wouldn't we be flooded with 'sounds like' singles, which would turn the audience off of those, and now, you're not making hits... I think there will always be more to it then just a simple prompt, but having the vision to make a song that sounds pleasing, and unique enough is certainly creative to me. Of course, there's also a huge demand for generic, inoffensive music (think theme/intro songs, waiting room and elevator music). If we could make that more enjoyable to listen to, would anyone care if that's not creative thinking? You could make (and many do) the same arguments over covers of songs, even when the covers end up eclipsing the original. Where was the creative thinking in that?
  - rexpop 5mo ago
    > it would still need to be different enough from Smooth Criminal to avoid listeners just going back to the original Or just cheaper to license so that Spotify/Pandora promote it in your algorithmic feed. It's audio skimpflation!
- Archer6621 5mo ago
  I think you can quantify the amount of creative expression you engage in by looking at all the decision points in the creative process where you are directly involved in making the decision. For an LLM prompt, that is going to be fairly limited by definition. I suppose the quality can be measured then by how novel and effective the output/approach of each decision is then, how much impact is made. The amount of creative expression does not necessarily correlate with impact. Something can be created with nearly zero creative expression, that ends up making a significant impact. In that case you are more of a director than an artist I suppose, in that you direct the high-level process and only make decisions there. You can call it creative thinking in the same way a good businessman makes smart high-level decisions and then delegates what is downstream to others, with decisions being optimized for impact. I think you can be creative "within a frame" in that sense, e.g. creative in the way you wield an LLM for instance, which is on a different scale compared to being creative on the piano roll with how you organize and brainstorm your melodies. It's just a different skill set at a different granularity altogether. But the one thing that I think holds, is that higher level methods have less creative expression by definition, because you are delegating more decisions to other faculties; you are seeing less of the "creator" in the work.

jrm4 5mo ago

I get why people make gut statements like this, and to me something does feel different about AI. But I realize I have not seen any criticisms of AI generated music that are meaningfully different from criticisms I've heard of other advances/changes in music technology, whether performance or recording. Sampling, scratching, drum machines, autotune, electric guitars even.

Jtarii 5mo ago
Well in "traditional" music production every individual component of a song has the creative intent of the artist in it. With AI you have no idea if there is any intent or if its just something an LLM spat out. If all you care about is the raw sound file created and you don't care about the connection you might feel with the artist behind it then maybe intent isn't relevant to you.
windowliker 5mo ago
The main unconsidered criticism that used to come from old-school musos was that 'you press a button and the synthesizer/drum machine/whatever does it all for you'... Only now is that perhaps coming to be true. There's a difference between technology/technique that adds a new sonic palette to the canon, and one that takes away the necessity to have any direct input in the process of production. I guess we'll find out which this is if there's a wave of novel AI assisted genres that emerge, or not, as may be the case.

windowliker 5mo ago

I will caveat my first comment by also noting that I am well versed in computer music history, and read many many papers in CMJ[1] and elsewhere about generative and automatic composition tools such as Emily Howell[2]. I do NOT have a problem with generative, algorithmic and automatic composition in this sense, as an extension of the creative intentions of the human composer, in the right context. See also Autechre[3] for what can be done with Markov chains and good taste. What we are discussing here is the musical equivalent of a dishwasher. [1] http://www.computermusicjournal.org/ http://www.computermusicjournal.org/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope#Emily_Howell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope#Emily_Howell [3] http://autechre.ws/ http://autechre.ws/ Addendum: I would highly recommend the Margaret Boden book referenced in the wiki on David Cope/Emily Howell, which is an absolutely fascinating read and was incredibly far-sighted in its enquiries on this topic.

jrajav 5mo ago
Can I ask what the specific markers / qualifiers are for you to consider (let's call them) 'classical' generative and algorithmic techniques fair game in creative composition, but LLM agent based techniques not so? To me, it seems like the "do it for me" aspect is similar, just at different levels of abstraction.
- semolino 5mo ago
  The main difference is tweakability: With classical generative and algorithmic composition, the human can change parameters in real time and more closely guide the shape of the piece.
  - windowliker 5mo ago
    This as well. Most 'classical' algorithmic music had an element of expressiveness allowed to the composer in the moment.
- windowliker 5mo ago
  Firstly, they all came to the use of those techniques after having been through years of work the 'hard way', often being able to play to a conservatoire standard, and had a very extensive grounding in the tradition that came with that. Then they owned* or designed the thing they were asking to 'do it for me' and could modify it at their discretion, effectively making it an integral element of the composition. The prior training was crucial in getting anything good out of any of it IMO (high level reflection based on canon knowledge and deeply considered personal sensibility, etc.) * I suppose in the early days, running on an mainframe would belie the definition of ownership per se, as it required access and was limited to that specific machine/institution, but then we are talking about a time where personal computing wasn't available.

PaulDavisThe1st 5mo ago

When we recently added MCP to Ardour (a cross-platform FLOSS DAW), the goal wasn't to get the machine to make the music for you, it was to provide alternate ways of interacting with the DAW (particularly for those with visual impairments that make voice control preferable).

ollysb 5mo ago

Each genre has a fairly tight envelope within which to operate. Regardless 90% of tracks never make it to the finish line because hobbyists haven't learnt them well enough to groove them out. If with a little help these tracks were all finished then bedroom producers will over time learn what works and be able to explore more.

moritzwarhier 5mo ago
I think the parent comment was saying that the problem is not quantity, but quality. Warping my mind back into a hobby-enthusiast music producer mindset: an MCP that generates presets for a limited pipeline with many sweet spots sounds... interesting? To me, the idea of being able to have, say, a chain of a simple VA synth + delay + compressor and a very simple step sequencer, combined with prompting and a genAI model that spits out patches, sounds very endearing and interesting. Much more interesting than Gemini or Suno for example. Depends on the training and input space of course. I deliberately described a limited setup, the controls of which could be described in less than a kilobyte. Many dance music synth patterns could be described by simple means (tracker/step sequencer, looping, a few knobs). That's what makes a lot of music interesting. I can easily imagine a producer creating very individual and interesting output by unleashing the right models. I think, just like with human producers, constraints liberate. An AI controlling a very limited synthesis chain is more interesting than a very complex synthesis chain controlled by a human with no musical "vibe".

treebeard901 5mo ago

> I could just play someone else's record and pretend like I made it How many "DJs" today could even find two records that they could key and beat match? Then physically mix them on the turntables with no software or sync buttons? AI is just going to make this worse...

Mashimo 5mo ago
> How many "DJs" today could even find t A lot of them. The barriers to entry have been lowered, which also means there are way more DJs around. And some of them will start to expand their horizon. I don't know, but I would not be surprised if the total amount of people who can mix without sync increased. Though the percentage of DJs who need sync is probably higher. I started DJing with 'rona and now somestimes mix vinyl. And I also hosted open deck nights with CDJs where a lot of beginners did not use sync, unless they where only a few month into the game. I don't think it's a negative.

bschoepke 5mo ago

I agree! I made this mostly so I could stay in the flow more in Ableton without getting lost spinning knobs and pressing buttons. Although I do enjoy spinning knobs and pressing buttons. With this I can keep my hands on my keyboard or guitar and direct Codex to make a quick backing track.