Digital innovations and digital disruption happen in many industries. Previous disruptions can be recognized, such as the dawn of the internet or the use of smartphones. However, is there also an ongoing disruption in the music industry? For this post, I have explored music production with generative AI. For now, I focused on AI producing an EDM track, without any creative implementations from myself.
Giogio Moroder dreamed of electronic sounds and is seen as one of the grandfathers of electronic music by introducing the synthesizer. With the use of the synthesizer, electronic music bursted into popularity, which can be seen as a disruptive event in the music industry (Giorgio Moroder, n.d). But now, with a new age of generative AI, will AI be also the next innovative disruption?
Following Nicholas Lynn, AI makes music production more efficient and will automate repetitive tasks like editing, mixing, mastering etc. However, Lynn states that AI should be seen as augmentation rather than displacement, unlocking new possibilities and enriching the creative process. A parallel could be made for synthesizers: new sounds and new possibilities only open more ways to pave a path for creativity. (Lynn, n.d)
For me, I have enjoyed and made music my entire life. From my teenage years I have played the piano, and made some simple electronic tracks using DAW’s (digital audio workstation). To see if generative AI could create a music track, I have asked GPT-3 to generate a plain electronic dance track. First, I asked for a drum sequence, followed by asking for a chord scheme and finally a lead melody. The goal for now is to completely let GPT-3 decide how the production will turn out, hence replacing my own creative process. However, for the next post, I will try to use AI rather as augmentation!
If you want to listen to the result: https://soundcloud.com/k4as/blog-post-1-ai
Giorgio Moroder. (n.d.). MoogMusic. Retrieved October 4, 2023, from https://www.moogmusic.com/news/giorgio-moroder
Lynn, N. (n.d.). AI disruption in the music industry: Harmonizing creativity and technology. www.linkedin.com. Retrieved October 4, 2023, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-disruption-music-industry-harmonizing-creativity-technology-lynn-1c/
Well done for writing an article about AI in relation to music. This is also a topic which affects personally! It’s easy to see how AI can create music, especially electronic music! However, I do think AI still has a very long way to go when it comes to music. Sure, it can come up with melody ideas. But I’m definitely not impressed by AI generated songs, especially those where they are trying to replicate voices of real singers. One can definitely hear that it is AI generated and at most times the songs just sound weird and horrible.
However, I do think that we are still at the early stages. It will be very interesting to see what AI can do to music creation. In my opinion, AI will become a facilitator in music production, but it will definitely not replace human artists!
Being fan of EDM and Techno music, as soon as I saw your post I had to read it straight away. I know that there are some software that can leverage GEN AI to create music melodies, but I have actually never thought that chatGPT can be one of them. I listened to the outcome of your experiment and I must say that is quite impressive, but it is still has a long way to go, that’s for sure. I think that at this moment it can definitely be an useful tool to speed some aspects for music composition, such as creating simple bass drums or giving some hints on melodies, but not an entire EDM track. However, I must say that I enjoyed way more those songs that try to replicate singers’ voice; even if they still sounds very weird and horrible, it’s so hilarious. Drake singing a Katy Perry’s song or viceversa, funny isn’t it?