Fancy having AI Elvis singing on your next record? Getting an AI Lennon and McCartney on your album? Incredibly, you can. That’s how fast AI has moved. In this feature we’ll learn how it can transform your music production toolkit and become your dedicated creative co-pilot
The world of artificial intelligence is shifting so rapidly that, by the time you finish this feature – which could have been written by AI (but wasn’t!) – another cuttingedge app will be grabbing the headlines, promising a revolution in human society.
In music, this advancement of artificial intelligence has been so rapid that we get news every single day telling us about some new piece of software promising that its machine learning will benefit our and your lives.
In reality, this rapid advancement can be seen in extremes; if you look at recent developments it would be all too easy to read the headlines and believe that AI is absolutely terrifying. You can now, for example, visit websites and either get an algorithm to create an emulation of your own voice, which can sing anything, or use one of hundreds if not thousands of ready-made voices, many of which are unashamedly recreating famous singers and using their voices in your songs.
There are also many websites that claim to – and many can, because we have tested them – create entire pieces of music for you in any genre. Want a piece of dubstep/ambient/country for your next corporate video? A five minute online journey later, and you can download it… usually for a fee.
Then there are the many apps you can use to create beats, chords, melodies, mixes and masters. It’s frankly bewildering what you can do. But terrifying?
We understand that it’s easy to be scared by all of this rapid advancement in AI, but we’re here to show you how you can use it to your own advantage. As musicians we have been here before. Remember when the Musicians Union tried to ban synthesisers in the early ’80s? Remember when sampling threatened to undermine creativity? Or when Napster ended money for musicians?
These chapters in music technology ended up (mostly, anyway) as forces of good for music. Synths became their own instruments as opposed to classical instrument emulators and sampling became an art in itself. Downloads? Well that particular tech minefield is still unravelling, but our point is that musicians have generally used technology for the creative good, and that is where (we are hoping) AI will lead us. Not necessarily to some kind of musicians’
‘Hollywood-style’ strike but to even better music and greater opportunities.
In this feature, then, we’ll look at how AI can assist with song creation and explore the many creative AI apps that help you make better melodies, beats and more. We’ll have some thoughts on the future, for sure, but mostly we will find out how A
