Suno ai

stickyfiddle

Evo said:

Don't argue over whether it should be used or not, debate how we can ensure that as A.I. takes over and the job market shrinks to a fraction of it's previous size, people are able to keep roofs over their heads and food on their tables. If we do it right, we could be heading towards a world where the 9 to 5 Monday to Friday is a thing of the past and we all have way more time to spend with our friends, families, and the things that make us happy. 

Best I can do is world war 3, a swift ushering in of techno-fuedalism (at best) and a vague hope that we don’t get Skynet 

digitalscream

thecolourbox said:

I can't remember the exact quote nor who said it first, but i read something like this before and it felt apt: AI art inadvertently shows us the importance of soul, by having none itself

The problem is that most human-generated art (music especially) doesn't have soul either - the overwhelming majority of it is by-the-numbers pap.

thecolourbox

digitalscream said:

thecolourbox said:

I can't remember the exact quote nor who said it first, but i read something like this before and it felt apt: AI art inadvertently shows us the importance of soul, by having none itself

The problem is that most human-generated art (music especially) doesn't have soul either - the overwhelming majority of it is by-the-numbers pap.

Oh yes absolutely, that is true

Danny1969

I think music was always doomed to AI because it's essentially maths really. Both in timing and pitch. I feel kinda sad for young muso's but grateful I was born and worked in the best years,  when it meant so much to people.  

At the moment there seems more value to me in going back and discovering old music I missed at the time. I've had many a conversation with other muso's after a late shift when we have finished and the DJ takes over and starts playing a lot of older music. It's human, it's real. You can listen again and again to these older records because they contain so much human nuances. The human brain is very good at working out repetitive patterns and once it knows something is not just the same pattern but the same performance it starts to more or less ignore it. But a lot of older recordings were off the floor, everything is changing all the time, sometimes  in small detail but enough to keep the brain engaged. This is an area of audio I don't think we understand enough about. It's not frequency response or amplitude, it's the quality of the information in terms of repetitiveness the brain responds to. 

What does interest me is whether AI can open up new frontiers in music. Different intervals, different timings, there may be a whole new world of music yet to come is we keep our minds open to it. 

Col_Decker

I'm using Suno Pro a lot at the moment. I'm a below average guitarist to be honest but I'm not too shabby at writing lyrics, so Suno is is a great tool for me to turn lyrics into songs for my own listening. Plus with a few prompts I can can turn my song from Psychedelic Blues to EDM or Big Band Swing. Its great fun.

Is it as satisfying as playing all the instruments myself? No of course not. But I'm over 50 now so haven't got the time to master guitar, keys, drums, bass, etc, and be an amazing singer. Also the production is brilliant.

Its far from perfect though ... editing a vocal because of a typo in the lyrics is a nightmare, its easier to do a 'cover' and start again. Also the vocals never nail all of the words correctly, there's always at least one mis-read of the lyrics per song, ie my last song has the lyric "now the chips are down and the shit got real" but Suno sings "no the hips are down". Silly Suno.

mudslide73

Danny1969 said:

What does interest me is whether AI can open up new frontiers in music. Different intervals, different timings, there may be a whole new world of music yet to come is we keep our minds open to it. 

This has blown my mind, @Danny1969 - maybe there are new frontiers. I like the “Weirdness” slider in Suno too, it’s given me some great electronica-stuff, the kind of thing I enjoy but wouldn’t know how to produce (well, not to that level). Maybe that’s where this is heading - non-musos making their own music for their own tastes rather than relying on artists. Personalised songwriting styles etc.

axisus

I saw a short video the other day, some very attractive lass who was good at guitar. She said that she used Suno as a creative tool to help her writing. She asked it to create some mad 80s style guitar solo with sweeps etc. It did the job. She then learned the resulting piece (pretty difficult!), and changed it by bending the last note. At that point she seemed to be taking credit for having produced it!

ewal

Evo said:

A.I. as a whole is a really interesting topic to me.

Firstly, I don't see any point in debating "Should we be using A.I?" because it makes zero difference what anyone thinks on that matter. The cat is out of the bag now and there's no putting it back in, A.I. is now out there and it's being used whether people like it or not. There's open source options, it's too far out there now for it to be reigned back in so it's absolutely not going to go away.

What I see a lot of are professionals in areas like music, writing, graphics, editing, and creative positions getting scared, and quite rightly so in my opinion. A.I. has made things which usually require years of specialist training and knowledge accessible to virtually anyone, which means people no longer have to pay an expert to achieve the results they want. These people are scared that their jobs aren't safe, and quite honestly more people should be worried about this because whilst people can look at A.I. now and say "yeah, but I can still tell it's A.I." it's only going to improve from here, and if you compare A.I generated content from 5 years ago with content being produced on the latest models you'll see the kind of progression we're dealing with.

So what do we do?

Nothing.

There's nothing we can do, as I said earlier, the cat is already out of the bag and the horse has bolted. 

What we need to accept is that everything is now much more accessible to anyone, because that's what A.I. is really. A.I. is not accomplishing anything which was unable to be done before (yet), it's just putting these things within the reach of anyone that wants it.

My singular hope for A.I. is that the world realises the impact that it's going to have and gets ahead of it rather than playing catch up after it has decimated employment levels across the world. If we waste time trying to legislate and put the cat back in the bag, then picture what napster did to the music industry applied to EVERY industry at the same time. 

Don't argue over whether it should be used or not, debate how we can ensure that as A.I. takes over and the job market shrinks to a fraction of it's previous size, people are able to keep roofs over their heads and food on their tables. If we do it right, we could be heading towards a world where the 9 to 5 Monday to Friday is a thing of the past and we all have way more time to spend with our friends, families, and the things that make us happy. 

Lots of great points and interesting perspectives here. But you say there's been a lot of progress over last 5 years, inferring progress will continue at a similar rate. That's not a given. That progress has come at humongous cost which can't be sustained.

You also say your singular hope is we get ahead of AI before jobs are lost at scale. Laudable but the history of technical advancement is that it always comes with losers. I think it's more likely that jobs will not be lost, because AI as we current understand it is not actually as transformative as it's financial backers would have us believe.

TheOtherDennis

I get all the comments decrying AI - they’re correct. It’s automatic, it’s not human, it’s both literally and metaphorically soulless, but as has also been said, you don’t need AI to do that.

The reason I’m considering using some form of AI is because I have no musical talent whatsoever. I can write lyrics, but my tunes are basic at best, and because of that, my lyrics all seem to have the same metre - all that changes is the subject. I’ve tried stealing from other songs by writing my lyrics to their tunes (I’ve done that a few times now) and while it sounds good, it’s very unsatisfying because it’s clearly not mine, either.

So what to do? I’ve used a couple of free sample ai generators, and they’re almost as bland as I could do myself. Yet I read that ai can generate a potential hit within a matter of minutes (maybe my lyrics are rubbish too then?).

I really don’t know where to go next. I have no plans to ‘make a living’, I’m just trying to entertain myself, my other half and the people I play to at the bi-monthly singarounds I go to. All I want is a tune, not a full track to be recorded, and I’ll play each song maybe twice a year, so I’ll never be prepared to pay someone else to write a tune as it's simply not worth the cost, and so I’ll never have to worry that I’m taking someone’s job.

But it’s still not a particularly satisfying way to do things. So I feel a bit between two stools, as it were.

Leisceoir

Danny1969 said:

I think music was always doomed to AI because it's essentially maths really. 

This. There was a computer program developed back in the late 90s that could compose Bach pieces accurately enough that Bach experts couldn’t tell the difference. And it was remarkably simple- it just looked at the current notes being played and the previous two measures in order to predict what the next note should be. 
.

flying_pie

I wouldn't use AI for music. It defeats the whole purpose for me

I have used it for artwork for tfb cover challenge but have decided to stop that and go back to doing my own stuff. It's come to the point where I detest AI, especially the making up any old shit up while insisting it's right

I'd prefer we continue to saturate SoundCloud with humam slop 

Supportact

TheOtherDennis said:

I get all the comments decrying AI - they’re correct. It’s automatic, it’s not human, it’s both literally and metaphorically soulless, but as has also been said, you don’t need AI to do that.

The reason I’m considering using some form of AI is because I have no musical talent whatsoever. I can write lyrics, but my tunes are basic at best, and because of that, my lyrics all seem to have the same metre - all that changes is the subject. I’ve tried stealing from other songs by writing my lyrics to their tunes (I’ve done that a few times now) and while it sounds good, it’s very unsatisfying because it’s clearly not mine, either.

So what to do? I’ve used a couple of free sample ai generators, and they’re almost as bland as I could do myself. Yet I read that ai can generate a potential hit within a matter of minutes (maybe my lyrics are rubbish too then?).

I really don’t know where to go next. I have no plans to ‘make a living’, I’m just trying to entertain myself, my other half and the people I play to at the bi-monthly singarounds I go to. All I want is a tune, not a full track to be recorded, and I’ll play each song maybe twice a year, so I’ll never be prepared to pay someone else to write a tune as it's simply not worth the cost, and so I’ll never have to worry that I’m taking someone’s job.

But it’s still not a particularly satisfying way to do things. So I feel a bit between two stools, as it were.

In that situation I'd definitely see if there are any musicians who go to the same singaround who would collaborate.  There are normally some musicians who struggle with lyrics so there might be someone who you could team up with. Maybe they have a bit of music in need of words, or they could write music around your lyrics, or a mix of both?

The other thought I had is maybe you're a poet rather than a songwriter? There are a couple of folk club type events near me where spoken word poetry is encouraged alongside songs. Nothing wrong with doing what you do, if that's just words then it's still valid. 

Grunfeld

I've been having a re-think recently because AI is part of life now.  And as someone pointed out, "today," is the worst it's ever going to be.  It will create good music.  And while we are always likely to value authenticity, we'll still actually enjoy AI music.  

Making music is no longer going to be difficult or require graft.  

Performing music; that's different.

If people continue to value live performance then that's gonna be the job for musicians.  

Get practicing I guess.

Sporky

Evo said:

If we do it right, we could be heading towards a world where the 9 to 5 Monday to Friday is a thing of the past and we all have way more time to spend with our friends, families, and the things that make us happy. 

That would require the techbro billionaires to hand out enough money for us to live on once they've eradicated all creative jobs.

Such a thing is entirely against everything they believe in.

thecolourbox

Sporky said:

Evo said:

If we do it right, we could be heading towards a world where the 9 to 5 Monday to Friday is a thing of the past and we all have way more time to spend with our friends, families, and the things that make us happy. 

That would require the techbro billionaires to hand out enough money for us to live on once they've eradicated all creative jobs.

Such a thing is entirely against everything they believe in.

Yeah the only reason they'd allow that is cos it makes them money (or rather saves them money on employing people), they wouldn't do it do make our lives nicer. We'd have all the time in the world to do whatever, but no money to do it with

roberty

Of course it's a way for Spotify to pay even _less_ royalties. They've been quietly squeezing real artists out of their playlists in favour of generative slop, ambient background music and stuff like that 

Andy Edwards had a great take on generative AI music yonks ago. He said John Cage demonstrated with 4'33 that sometimes things that don't sound like music are music. The piece is whatever incidental ambient noise occurs during the performance framed by the intentions of the composer and performers. AI is the exact opposite, there is no intention and so it shows us that sometimes things that sound like music are not

A third point comes to mind, that AI can only threaten a culture if it is commodified. It can't replace a culture of participation. The antidote therefore is to do stuff, and find other people doing stuff. And stop paying for bloody Spotify lol