Oh yeah, nobody spends years and decades mastering a skill set unless they hate it. Authors? They fucking hate books. Actors? They actually all want to work in finance. Teachers? You’d better believe there’s nothing they hate more than explaining shit to children. And there’s not an artist alive that wouldn’t give up their art in a heartbeat if it meant they could live their dreams of working in customer service.
JFC some people will say anything to justify being a jackass.
Why not both? We can enjoy starting a song with the help of AI, then add other instruments and effects to it to make it better.
He’s right, though.
People don’t want to spend all their time practicing instruments to improve their skills. This is already proven by electronic artists using samples and digital instruments instead of learning to play each instrument individually.
That doesn’t mean we should use AI generated garbage instead of musicians, however. To me, the electronic producer is still an artist, just a different kind.
What???
Can you not read?
Sorry what?
Electronic music is a different artform, but it’s still fun and satisfying for the people who make it. Plus, I’d argue that most people who make electronic music do it because they like that type of music, not because they don’t want to learn the violin or whatever.
No, he is wrong.
People of every age learn how to play music everyday.
Practicing is absolutely enjoyable.
Using samples and electronic instruments only prove that people who love making music will find creative ways to do it.
Just because you don’t like a certain type of music (there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of music) it doesn’t mean people making that music are lazy.
Oh? And what type music do i not like?
Apparently electronic artists using samples and digital instruments.
Lmao thank you for proving that you’re responding to assumptions you’ve made about me instead of my comment.
Various forms of electronic are among my favorite kinds of music, btw.
Nut Bleeding Dynamics by Mr. Bill is one of my favorite songs.I’m just going off based on what you’ve said. Nothing more, nothing less.
Please explain again how people making electronic music are lazy.
I think you meant people flipping purchased loop packs, and even then I disagree.
J Dilla made his music with samples. His rhythms are so complex that there are literal PH.Ds writing books about them.
Aphex Twin and Burial are another two artists that prove that it takes incredible skill and talent to cook samples and transform them into something new.
Also, if anyone is looking for more suggestions of amazing sample-based artists: Madlib, Avalanches, DJ Shadow…
It’s an entirely different genre than what most people think of when they hear “electronic music.”
You should go to a drum corps rehearsal or elite piano/violin recital. Shit or even an arcade hosting a bemani tournament. Like not one of the places where their parents are forcing them but somewhere where people are just doing it because they want to, even if it sucks sometimes to play for hours and hours and hours
I used to teach lessons and you do have a point, a lot of people want to be good without doing any work. That’s true of any endeavor that requires effort. A lot of people covet the reward without paying enough mind to the serious amount of effort that one undertakes to get to that point
But some people actually do want to achieve greatness, some people want a sense of accomplishment, some people want a deeper understanding of their instrument, etc
Even if you’re an electronic producer that only ever uses the piano roll you would still benefit from a better understanding of theory and improvisation. This doesn’t come from nothing; it comes from grinding. You don’t necessarily need to read theory books and practice piano of course, you will gain a sense of these from writing songs and getting feedback, but you still need to write and/or play a lot
The rise in electronic artists is arguably more to do with accessibility. literally everyone has a computing device and free music making software is relatively abundant, instruments are expensive and loud, practice space is hard to come by especially in urban environments. Additionally electronic music has a huge factor of cultural relevance in terms of trends from production styles being popular across genres.
AI music is a tool and it’s impressive but the results are mostly derivative, which makes sense given how it works. it would be really cool to see more resources invested into spaces for people who actually wanted to pursue the arts to be able to do so as this is likely the way music (and other art) truly moves forward and actually innovates instead of just hashing out the same tired shit
Your final paragraph proves you didn’t even read my comment. lol
Sorry you wasted your time writing that. :(
You a musician? I love playing around on instruments, it’s an end of itself not just a means to achieve some pre defined sound.
I used to be.
Then you took an arrow to the knee
And you don’t like playing your instrument? That might explain why you stopped.
Wtf? No, i loved it.
Why are you making assumptions?
Honestly I kind of get his point.
I fooled around with some basic beat making software back in the day and was having a lot of fun, so I stepped up to entry level producing software and HOLY SHIT there was a learning cliff I had to climb. It sucked all the fun out of it and I got bored really fast.
People do still want to create and make music not learn how to use a piece of software.
I think that a more accurate statement is that some people don’t enjoy using instruments. I mean, I don’t, but I’m sure that there are people who do.
Obviously. Kinda crazy you thought my comment was about 100% of people.
I think people enjoy musical instruments. Digital music really hasn’t caught on much. There are and always will be plenty of musicians playing traditional instruments of all kinds.
Digital music really hasn’t caught on much.
I just found out that modular synths are a thing and it looks pretty fun to me! It’s like half music and half electrical engineering, LOL.
(Don’t get me wrong, I knew about keyboard synthesizers and whatnot, but the concept of making music with a bunch of oscillators and random voltage generators patched together is 🤯.)
(Also, shout out to !obscureinstruments@sh.itjust.works for putting me on the Youtube random walk that lead to that video.)
You will love the in-browser modular synths i found a while back. i think i bookmarked the page.
I’ll see if i can find it.Edit: Found it immediately!
Here is a page with some virtual instruments and there are a couple modular synths down the page:
https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/virtual-instrument-web-browser/I’ve been messing around with VCV rack recently, which is an (open source!) software that simulates modular synthesis, with a library of modules from different vendors. It’s been delightful :)
After watching that video I ran across Cardinal, which is apparently a wrapper around VCV Rack that adds back the ability to be run as a plugin that VCV itself locks behind the “Pro” subscription. It can also run straight from your browser, so that’s how I’ve been trying it out so far.
Digital music hasn’t caught on? Since when?
Boomer take. I’m a musician of two decades, got my degree in music. Sampling is as much an art and practice as playing a “traditional” instrument—I do both.
Are there lazy samplists? Sure, just as there are lazy guitarists. But watch this and tell me this isn’t musicianship. https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=sKMDP-vDsTU
Gen-X with forty years of guitar here. I 100% agree. I recently picked up a NI Maschine and it is like learning to play a new instrument and far more difficult than I ever expected.
non-musicians …
AKSHULLY, AS A MUSICIAN
lol
Dude, you’re the one drawing the lines at who gets to call themselves a musician and who is just a “different kind” of artist. As an “akshul” musician, by your definition, I think you’re mistaken and parroting some reactionary takes.
You’re taking that in a negative way for some reason.
I just think of most electronic music artists as producers vs musicians because they control the entire production instead of only a part—it’s not a negative thing, just an attempt to organize it internally.
Invidious link didn’t work… Do you have the youtube link?
Was wondering what you chose as an example.
I was thinking Avalanches. Or maybe Madlib. Or J Dilla.
Or maybe just RZA. Or DJ Shadow…
Man, I wish I could do the shit those people do. I know how it works in practice, but I just don’t have the brain to do it. And yeah, anyone who denigrates it as an art form is clueless.
People who use instruments or computers to make music get full control, which is good and bad. You get to do exactly what you want, but your skills and creativity put a limit to what that might be. Also, doing that takes time.
Using AI to generate images and music puts you into the shoes of a producer. Now, you’re trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, but you don’t really have very much control over what the AI generates. It can be really frustrating, since you may have a vision, but the AI just doesn’t follow orders very well.
Having the money and space for each instrument is a task itself.
Also for most instruments, the ability to practice without bothering others.
Though honestly never having the option to even try many instruments is probably why many people don’t play an instrument. Digital is completely open, though I’d also say composing music is different than performing it.
Add restrictions to time/energy/mood, learning resources being paywalled, music theory being daunting, personal difficulties with certain instruments etc.
If you don’t have much space (and/or money) i would recommend getting an inexpensive midi keyboard. They’re extremely versatile.
It’s a blanket generalization; those are almost always wrong.
Sure, there are SOME people that don’t want to learn how to play an instrument; just as there are some people who vehemently oppose the usage of any AI. I guess because there’s SOME people that vehemently oppose AI, everyone should learn how to play an instrument (see how blanket generalizations don’t work).
Yeah, that’s me. I vehemently oppose AI and i don’t even care about the use-case.
more like it’s one of the few things people still can enjoy.
For now…
That’s disingenuous and fucking dumb.
Granted, I personally no longer enjoy playing music, but I did it for about 22 years. It got old for me because I realized it was a hobby that was costing me money, and health.
I no longer desire to spend Friday and Saturday nights at bars, lugging gear around in order to play songs for a few drunk people. Like… when you break it down, it’s incredibly depressing.
Nothing kills the joy of a hobby faster than trying to make a living out of it.
It’s one of the symptoms of the SYSTEM when a kid shows talent and/or strong interest in a thing, it could be most anything, the adults that this child looks to for guidance push them to make this interest and/or talent into a career. And as soon as that suggestion takes root in that child’s head then it just time before the hobby/talent is abandoned with regret and sadness.
This may not be universal but it’s not rare either - as you know first hand.
Hope one day you can, if you want, get back to what drew you towards playing music in the first place and I hope you find joy in it for nothing more than that.
What you’re saying makes a lot of sense and seems to add up.
Also, thank you for the kind words.
Glad you filled in what the health risk was on the second paragraph because I immediately thought “What risk could you have playing music? Are you drumming with your head?”
Gradual hearing loss is ironically a huge risk/side effect of playing live music. You can get specialty earbuds now that reduce db while not loosing too much frequency range, but it is still noticeable.
SHIKAKA
Why stop playing music tho? Surely there is more to the world of music than just playing other people’s music in a dive bar?
Expand your horizon.
I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of it, and I no longer feel any emotional or psychological reward from playing music. I was originally not talking about playing other people’s music though. I wrote my own, toured in a band playing our music, and sold my music in other countries. It was all relatively small scale though; not enough to supplement a normal job or anything like that.
You never even listen to a song and want to play along with it? Or do you not even listen to much music anymore?
I’ve never had much commercial success with music, and it’s probably more brutal now than it’s ever been, but I still love writing, recording, and jamming out with my favorite songs, so it’s hard to relate. I’ve known people who gave up on the dream of “making it”, but I’ve never known someone to stop playing music altogether.
Not anymore, no. I used to, but for the most part, no… not really. I’ll pick up my acoustic maybe once every 4-6 months for a 5 hour session but then I won’t pick it up again for another 4+ months. When I play that acoustic, I play the shit out of it… then it goes back into the box and I go back to my desk and write some more IaC. 🤷♂️
That’s hard to believe. Are you sure you didn’t just go down the wrong road with it and get burned out?
Playing bar gigs isn’t exactly a thrill and it’s no wonder it feels depressing.
I’ve always been of the opinion that if you’re not producing your own music and finding your own path then it’s largely a waste of time. There’s nothing interesting about being in a cover band.
Fair enough with where you are coming from; but I’m not trying to prove anything. I can only speak to my experiences but I want to clarify that I’ve never been in a cover band. I’ve done covers of songs, sure… but never been in a band with the sole intent of playing other peoples’ music. I agree with you, that’s a bit more soul crushing than what I did though.
There was undoubtedly a huge aspect of burnout involved - so you nailed that one. It’s fucking exhausting going to band practice 3-4 nights a week after work, eating bullshit food (if you could afford it that week) that you got through the drive through on the way from the office to the drummer’s house. It’s exhausting carrying a 4x12 guitar amp cabinet up three flights of stairs to play some bar in Philadelphia.
I was playing progressive metal back in 2009-2012, and prior to that was a punk band 2006-2009. I’ve played at venues as large as the House of Blues, comic cons like Supercon in Miami, and Megacon in Orlando. I’ve played in bar basements in Manhattan, garages in North Carolina, run down music venues that share the strip-mall with strip-clubs, the 2600 club in Detroit, Ground Zero in Spartanburg, TN and biker bars in places like Mt. Dora, FL (just to give some examples of the vast span of different types of venues I may have ended up playing in). I’ve also played in festival shows similar to Warped Tour (but not Warped Tour). Non-signed bands during those years that I was active would have a pretty unpredictable set of places we’d be asked to play.
I stopped doing band stuff when I hit about 30 (or maybe it was 29 or 31… somewhere around there). I’m 41 now. When I was a kid picking up guitar for the first time at age 10, I never had the aspiration to make it as a “rockstar,” largely because people told me it was unrealistic and unlikely; but I did have an intent to do 3 things (more attainable goals): I wanted to play at a big venue like HOB, I wanted to tour, and I wanted to have music that I wrote sold in a country that I hadn’t been to yet. Those three goals were achieved.
I really disliked touring. It’s uncomfortable, and I hate being in cars / vans / suvs for long periods of time. I hated hoping to rely on the kindness of stranger that would allow the band to sleep on the floor in their living room. I hated that I was putting roughly 10-15% of my income from my shitty (day) job that was paying me $27k a year into things like buying gas for vans with no efficiency whatsoever, getting stickers and t-shirts printed, trying to make my band successful, and to get more exposure, etc.
Getting on stage was always a little bit scary; so I drank more than I should have. Then I was drinking to be able to socialize after the shows. Then there’s this whole aspect of “always being on” when you’re at shows; like, constantly trying to sell yourself, your band, your music. There’s an unspoken obligation to go to other local bands’ shows too… so when I wasn’t playing, I was going out to hear other music, drinking too much, and largely not using my limited time here very wisely. Not to mention, this too gets pretty expensive.
Got out of all that - went hard into upskilling my IT skills around 2010, and now I’m a Sr. Cloud Engineer earning a good living. Most of the music that’s new and popular today, doesn’t do it for me… except for some Rap, and reggae every now and again. In all, I think of the “music” part of my life as being in my past; and I’m totally ok with that.
Sounds like you gave it all you had and found out the hard way it wasn’t for you. Respectable. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out. I know I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the personality for all that stuff and I would be beyond exhausted.
I can’t blame you for feeling that way and wanting to rather be done with it all.
It’s a shame you can’t find any enjoyment out of it anymore. My original point being was that you can still accomplish a lot in the hobby space, producing music on YouTube, something small time that has no pressure. But that still requires motivation and inspiration, something that doesn’t come easily. But maybe one day it will come back to you.
Know that us drunk people love you and people like you for it. Can imagine it gets old for a lot of folks though.
Maybe if he could make it subscription-based and monetize peoples’ creativity…
I totally suck at the piano/keyboard but I still enjoy it so much
I used to keep a piano keyboard next to my computer for loading downtime, and it was the least depressed days of my life.
Why not do it again then? Even a small keyboard might do.
I gave it to a relative that wanted to learn piano and I was too busy with work to sit at the comp/piano station, then never got around to getting another. I have a second hand seaboard now but I haven’t looked into setting it up or if it even works under linux
seaboard
This? That is… holy shit, really cool! I didn’t think there was anything beyond velocity and polyphony in terms of expanding the capabilities of what a keyboard controller could do. I kinda want one myself, now.
Also, LOL at the the other thing they sell that looks like a Theremin but actually uses computer vision to turn your hand gestures into MIDI commands. I don’t know what drugs that company’s product designers are on, but it’s the good shit.
or if it even works under linux
the midi definitely works, the firmware updates was the mystery. worst case I have a shitbook laptop in the closet with windows for doing such updates
edit: I remember what i thought might not work. the original board and the minis of the same time period can connect over bluetooth but it sounded like it worked fine on mac os but windows was nearly unusable, and no linux users even knew about the thing. No idea if the seaboard 2 or the current minis have that fucntionality.
How long do you think it would take to set up?
realistically probably a month or two. I’ve been in renovation limbo and parts of the house are incomplete, and I still need to redo some of the parts that are done.
just setting it up though, maybe like 30min of research on the clock at work when nobody is looking and maybe about the same for the actual setup.
If it’s a midi keyboard, it should be pretty easy to get working. No problem if you got a DAW definitely, but I’m sure there are enough programs that can play piano sounds at midi input.
And midi is mostly just USB nowadays, so connecting should be easy enough.
If it’s not a midi keyboard, it should have its own speakers, otherwise what’s even the purpose?
I swear I wish I wasn’t so stupid.
I have Roland electric drums and I couldn’t figure that shit out to save my life. I finally plugged them into my old Mac and Logic Pro just did it for me.
Electric drums are not a piano though. Getting drum pads (or pads in general) to work correctly can be a bit weird.
I seem to recall that it was convention for all drum pads to always be on midi channel 11, so even if your device normally outputs in channel one, it does that. Maybe try to set it to that? But it’s a long time ago that I’ve worked with that so don’t quote me.
I don’t have a Seaboard, but FWIW it shows up as a valid controller in the menu for Bitwig Studio under Linux, so it might not be hard to set up at all. Bitwig also has great MPE support, and if my Linnstrument is anything to go off of, you’ll have a ton of run with MPE on the Seaboard. :)
I can’t believe I’ve never heard of the seaboard before. Just looked it up and have straight up cartoon heart eyes about it. What a cool instrument! I’m used to playing on a regular keyboard and then spending hours editing the expression in my DAW (for things like synth, strings, brass, wind, etc). The concept of playing it that way to begin with is kinda blowing my mind.
I demoed it before I took it home. Its super cool. Its the original 25 key model which I suspect will end up making me want the bigger one fairly quickly. Hopefully I’ll have time for it soon.
I hope so too! It can be so challenging to find time for what makes us happy in this day and age, but gosh is it important.
A Yamaha Reface is a lovely thing for just that.
Suno was what radicalized my stance on AI, and I refuse to use any of it.
As a solo hobbyist game dev who struggles with art, I had a pretty reserved approach for AI for stuff like art, animation or most notably voice acting, which makes the game a lot better but is really hard to do if you’re not a native speaker or don’t have a budget. My plan was to start with AI filling in places I couldn’t do, but then pledge that 100% of the first sales will go towards paying an actual artist/VA and replace the assets as soon as possible. That felt like a fair compromise.
And then I tried Suno. You see, as a programmer, my line of work isn’t really threatened by AI. Quite the contrary - it hinders the learning process of so many new programmer who will end up missing core skills, that it kind of increases my job security.
And since stuff like VA is something I don’t really understand, I mostly considered it as an asset that AI can temporally provide.
After trying Suno, which makes something I am passionate about - I’ve tried and failed for the past few years to learn instruments, and starting a band and making music is one of my so far unattainable dreams, it was so, so devastating. To see something you’ve actively struggled with, dreamed about, and made an effort for to overcome the challenges, unsuccessfuly so far, be overtaken by a literal three word prompt, making a better song I probably ever will - it’s so heartbreaking, demoralizing and awful. Which is something I haven’t realized when thinking about art I was not invested into, but now, thanks to Sunk, I see how it must feel for every artist, and I refuse to support any of it. It gave me determination and motivation to make the effort towards meeting people who do VA or assets I need, and collaborating, even if it postpones everything by a long time.
Fuck AI, and fuck this guy. The product may be useful and is pretty mindblowing, but it comes at a cost of making a lot of artists demotivated and miserable. Also, saying that “music is hard, people don’t want to” just adds salt to the wound, insult to the injury, and is really fucked up thing to say, after the product you’ve made affected and demoralized artists at large so much. Seriously, fuck that guy.
AI is also not very good at replacing artist or anyone if your standards aren’t in the Mariana trench. Best use of it is somewhat realistic clip art generation, otherwise it only generates a shitton of soulless stuff.
A version of generative AI with more human involvement would be closer to what I call “art”, but that is not what makes investors soyface over the tech, whose idea of art is “coming up with an idea”.
Its also terrible for originality. Itcan create a basic template, but that is all it will be. If you want to make music for your game, and you have a specific kind of theme and instrument in mind, you’d be hard-pressed getting that right with generative AI.
These type of stupid statements are meant to rile up people and generate free publicity. Don’t feed the trolls.
Gross
Music, even the boring practice, is one of the few remaining joys in my life
Tell that to the $1700 guitar I just bought
Or the $600 guitar, $600 baritone guitar and $600 fretless bass I just bought. 🥴
Ahh but you have both fallen into the guitarist’s blunder. They get you to BUY the guitars, and amps, and pedals, but you do not use them to make music. Hence the CEO is right! Mwahaha
Now excuse me, a package from Sweetwater just arrived.
Or the $200 guitar I’ve spent a small fortune to upgrade. Or the MIDI controller I’ve fixed and planning on turning it into a Jankó-style keyboard. Or the few software synths I’ve made for my game engine.
Suno… the app I use to send shitty personalized birthday songs…
or to play tacky bard songs for my DnD character, which is the perfect use case IMHO!
Tech bros’ lack of empathy means he literally can’t imagine anyone liking something he doesn’t.
Finally the actual reason he said this.
Stop listening to CEOs. They are fucking morons. And in this case I would argue his sentiment is corrupt and bias. He just wants to push his shitty product by down playing instrumentalists.
No AI will ever replace an artist like Prince. I’ll wipe my ass with any of this AI garbage.
I think people need to stop using the term ‘AI’ for everything a computer does to simulate thought or creativity. AI algorithms are basically large scale piracy machines capable of scanning the entirety of human art so that it can create a reasonable imitation based off the source material its consumed. Its strength is in its ability to internally pursue, and fail, billions of potential outcomes and come to one that meets the criteria its been givien within seconds or minutes. Instead of a million monkeys at a million typewriters, its like a quadrillion monkeys, and they’re all on adderall.
The truth is that it never understood the source material. It doesn’t feel anything from it, it doesn’t comprehend it. Everything that it does is derived from the material used for training and the instructions its received. If thats the case then we’re talking about Virtual Intelligence, not true AI or AGI, and I think thats an important distinction. I’m also surprised that more lawyers and copyright holders don’t feel that way.
machines capable of scanning the entirety of human art so that it can create a reasonable imitation based off the source material its consumed
I am counting the days until we see a tech giant’s legal team argue that this is how human artists work, and that the AIs must therefore be people with rights just like their corporate parents.
I would say I hate putting this idea out into the universe, but you know plenty of those ghouls are way ahead of me.
I wouldn’t wipe mine with AI Music. Using a hard drive to wipe sounds painful.
What about an optical disk? You can use it to scrape most of it off.
I wouldn’t want to risk it shattering, personally.
