AI in music, like it or not, it's there!

What is music? Or what is it, that makes music what it is? We should ask these questions today, because AI is also a part of music creation already, if you like it or not.

I've made an experiment

I wanted to know what AI in music can do yet. Therefore I used several AI tools to create a complete southern rock song. 

• At first I used an AI chat tool and explained what I want to do and what style of music I want to create. So the first AI tool could generate a prompt for an AI music generator.
• Now I've used the AI music generator with the prompt from the first step and the result it came up with, wasn't that bad actually.
• In the next step I've used another AI tools to split the AI song into its parts like vocals, drums, guitars etc. This way I could work on each element separately.
• In the final step I rerecorded the vocals and replaced the AI vocals with my own vocals to make it 'my' song. 
• To go even more crazy I've then used another AI tool, to turn my vocals into several different voices I could then import as background vocals into the song. 

I'm going to release this song to find out how it performs next to other music on streaming platforms. If you're interested it's called 'Saddle Soul' and will be out on Friday Oct. 18th.

AI music quality

The quality of the songwriting and arrangement depends on the prompt you give the AI music generator. The more specific the prompt is the better the result can be. It helps to give it examples like 'create a genre XYZ song in the style of XYZ'. It also helps to give it a detailed description about what the lyrics should be like. 'Don not play obviously with cliches' or 'use metaphors to paint pictures', things like this help to make the lyrics more interesting. 

The sound quality is not that good, at least for a trained engineers ear. The AI music generator gave me just a low quality mp3 file. But I really don't know if the average music consumer can even hear the difference. Especially on streaming services and low quality devices like smartphones and such. There were a lot of artificial noises in the background from the AI music generator itself and from the splitting tool. These type of noise can't be removed because it's digitally printed into the audio files itself. What I've done to make it sound a little more 'natural', I've destroyed it even more. I used some analog tape emulations, analog audio gear and stuff like that to give the song some kind of a vintage analog vibe to hide the digital artificial noise. 

If you have a trained ear you might hear that there is something going on that's not natural or organic. But on the one hand we are so used to digitally created sounds like auto-tuned vocals and such that it sounds kind of normal these days. On the other hand, as I mentioned, I think the average music consumer can't hear the difference. Especially not on streaming platforms and smartphones. 

If you like it or not

AI will be a part of the music production in the future. I'm using some software in my studio based on AI technology to improve sound quality and things like that for a while now and it really helps to increase the workflow. But I've never created a complete AI song before. I was surprised how good and how fast it worked. And that's the point. Workflow and speed.

Especially upcoming artists need to release music regularly to gain traction. That means a new song every 3-6 weeks. Therefore AI can help to create music quickly and cost efficient. Artists who use these tools definitely will have an advantage over artists who don't use this tools. 

Is AI music still art?

And there we are at the beginning again. What makes music what it is? Is AI music still art and will AI music last? These are the questions I have to figure out the answers for and your opinion could help. Feel free to share your thoughts down in the comments. I'd really like to know what y'all think. 

I feel like as long as an artist can really stand behind the music he is releasing and it's connection on an emotional way, it's still art, even AI was involved in the creation process.

If it's just music solely created from an AI music generator and get's released as it comes from the generator without any personal touch, it's not art in my opinion. Then it's just an asset without any emotional connection. 

AI in my personal music creation workflow

I think there is more than just black and white. I will use AI tools in the future when it helps me to come up with new ideas or it speeds up my workflow. But I'll not rely on AI that much. I still love to record my own instruments and vocals and that's what I'll keep doing in the future. If I release new music, at least I feel like, it has to be a part of me. It has do go through my body, mind and spirit before I can release it to the world. My music will still be 'handmade by a craftsman - straight, real, simple & with passion' in the future 😉