[AxEy]

(This is not meant to be an anti-ai-generated-art rant. It's coming whether we like it or not. But some of the motives in this thread confuse me.)

Music producer here with an honest question to those saying "this will provide me with a simple soundtrack/background music for $PROJECT"

Have any of you checked out / made offers on music production subreddits? Or other music subreddits? various music production discords? Elsewhere on the internet?

If so, could you say what your experience has been?

I ask because the music production scene is like...ridiculously saturated, and it's almost a meme in the producer community how hard it is to make even a buck producing. I suspect that there are a significant number of producers who would be happy to take your "prompt" for a small fee. Yes, I understand 1) free and 2) immediate is convenient, but isn't 1) relatively inexpensive and 2) whatever advantage intent in construction gives good too?

I'm willing to admit that I'm missing something here, but I'd love it if someone could enlighten me.

While I'm asking follow ups, to all the folks who love digging for new music so much that they're considering turning to prompting AIs, I'd be seriously surprised if you've really checked out all the stuff that is coming out from new producers (again, reddit, soundcloud, etc). Another meme in the producer community is how one spends hundreds/thousands of hours perfecting ones craft, and dozens of hours working on a track, only for that track to get like 5 plays on soundcloud and negligible engagement elsewhere. Are music consumers really that desperate for new tunes? Frankly a lot of us just aren't seeing it....

[bityard]

It's not that there isn't enough electronic music being made, it's that every new track that lands on soundcloud is a drop in the ocean of mediocrity. There is _too_ much, and 99.9% is just boring to listen to, because it sounds like everything else. I listen to a LOT of electronic music (and have, since the mid 90's) and just don't have the patience anymore to sit through hours of average material to find one or two truly inspired artists.

I doubt I would turn to AI much for anything other than background noise while focusing on work. In fact, that sounds like a perfect use case for me. "Dear GPT, please compose a four-on-the-floor downtempo progressive track with soft pads, no vocals, and zero goddamned fake vinyl noise that runs for two hours straight..."

[mjr00]

> It's not that there isn't enough electronic music being made, it's that every new track that lands on soundcloud is a drop in the ocean of mediocrity. There is _too_ much to listen to, and 99.9% is just boring to listen to, because it sounds like everything else.

Yep. this is why I don't feel like AI used in this manner moves the needle for music: people only actively listen to the best 0.1% of music anyway. The ability to create music that is firmly in the other 99.9%, as this stuff very clearly is, just means that the ocean of mediocrity has more water dumped into it.

[wwweston]

> It's not that there isn't enough electronic music being made, it's that every new track that lands on soundcloud is a drop in the ocean of mediocrity. There is _too_ much, and 99.9% is just boring to listen to, because it sounds like everything else.

To the extent that sounding like everything else is a problem, how is ML generated music not going to have it?

And in general this isn't going to be a qualitative improvement in experience. ML algorithms for recommendation are searching the preference space in much the same way ML generation would, they're just doing it over existing stuff. If you really find 99.9% of existing material boring you're probably going to find a similar order of generated material boring.

Though I suspect 99.9% is hyperbole. My rate of "this is listenable and interesting and I'd like to come back " on Soundcloud is better than 1 in 25 on the worst day and better than 1 in a dozen on most, and the rate is often north of 1 in 6 for curated platforms like Pandora. It's never been easier to discover good new music to listen to with not much in the way of effort.

[pmoriarty]

"To the extent that sounding like everything else is a problem, how is ML generated music not going to have it?"

AI generated art has explored all sorts of weird spaces that few humans have touched.

It's not difficult to make computers create unusual, original, bizarre work. The difficulty comes in making it both original and enjoyable/interesting.

Also consider that AI-generated music is often going to actually be a collaboration between a human and an AI. The human will be acting at least as a curator, because not everything created by AI is going to be pleasing, so some selection and catering to human taste will be required.

[mjr00]

> The human will be acting at least as a curator, because not everything created by AI is going to be pleasing, so some selection and catering to human taste will be required.

Yes, and keep in mind humans are already doing this! It's very common to do tweaking of knobs on a synth/VST while recording and create a 10-20 minute audio file, commonly called a bass jam or mud pie, then select the best bits to use in a song. And of course, people use randomization tools to tweak the knobs for them. IMO use of AI to support this type of workflow is far more promising than going directly to the finished product.

[underlines]

I generated a 1:20 sample using your prompt "four-on-the-floor downtempo progressive track with soft pads, no vocals" using the audiocraft-webui fork, which allows for longer generation by overlapping generations.

https://sndup.net/njs2/

[AxEy]

It was not super discerning listeners (like it sounds like you are) that I meant to address in that second question. Sorry if that was not clear. Rather it had sounded from some of the comments that people were desperate for original tunes (and maybe not necessarily the most highly produced). But I didn't point to a specific comment, so maybe that's my fault.

We may also disagree on how much good stuff there is coming out, but I agree there is a lot of noise.

[courseofaction]

Nothing has replaced physical music scenes and communities for content discovery. They filter brutally.

[electroly]

There is an absolutely massive gulf between "free (or fixed list price) and immediate, just use these apps" and "locate a musician, bargain with them, pay, collaborate with them, wait for revisions, eventually get something usable (but not be 100% sure if I own the rights or not)." I wouldn't even know where to start; I'm too far out of my league.

Tackling the latter would likely exceed the entire effort I spent writing my little hobby game in the first place. I don't think it's even close; it was never a serious consideration. Some of these games I write in a single sitting. I do my best to piece background music together using a chord progression app, descriptions of keys and the notes they contain from Google, and premade drum loops and instrument samples. It comes out worse than if a real musician had made it, but getting a real musician was never really an option.

It's the same for the art. I don't have the time or money to pay an artist. They deserve to be paid fairly for their work just like musicians, but I don't have it and it's just a stupid hobby game. But even stupid games need art and music. So, homemade programmer art and music it is. The availability of better tools to help non-musicians hack something together is greatly appreciated. I haven't tried any AI stuff yet but I will next time.

[Andrex]

It's not that hard, you find an email and you basically do a cold call. I was doing it in high school off Newgrounds (which is full of royalty free stuff too!)

If your project is small and free, you're not going to land The Eurythmics. But all those people posting their music online hoping to get noticed? Emailing them, even a cold call, immediately tells them you've listened to their stuff and you like it. Honesty is the best approach.

I think OP is onto something.

Edit-

> but not be 100% sure if I own the rights or not).

That's also really easy: stipulate it in writing. Preferably a proper contract but an email agreement is defensible too (IANAL).

[electroly]

> stipulate it in writing ... proper contract

When it's just me and some apps, I'm writing the background track in an evening after coding the game earlier in the day. If I bring someone else in, now I'm writing contracts (something I'm completely unprepared to do correctly myself, as a non-lawyer). It's too big of a jump for a one-day zero-budget hobby game that isn't very good and only my friends will play. Not when I can quickly cook up something myself using readily available tools.

For a more serious project with a budget, absolutely you find a professional producer, just like you get professional coders and artists. But this isn't that.

[Solvency]

Dude I've literally offered to design entire websites for up and coming music artists for FREE because I love their work and am rebuilding a portfolio to have more music sector work.

I've offered this to like 15 people. Some respond in utter confusion and blow me off. Most don't even respond.

This isn't 2005. The vast majority of people, especially "music artists" are not corresponding over email and are not exactly professionals either.

[dooraven]

> It's not that hard, you find an email and you basically do a cold call. I was doing it in high school off Newgrounds (which is full of royalty free stuff too!)

You are missing the point, most programmers are introverts and absolutely deplore doing cold calls and cold emails.

[jasonm23]

> Just write a contract

... this is almost TOO convenient.

[SanderNL]

Instead of turning to pre-made corporate software, you could just hire me or one of my developer friends? We’ll crank out something fine for you in no time flat. All you have to do is just:

- Find me, which is easy, just become an amateur developer yourself and scour the various places I frequent

- Think of and propose in great detail what you want. We will go back and forth over this, over the course of several days/weeks. Bonus points if we don’t speak the same language.

- Sign some form of agreement, really easy, just read this 5 page document and maybe hire a lawyer if you are unsure. All very easy.

- Fork over the cash

- Get deliverables in a few weeks, hopefully.

Now when you compare that with just firing up some website/app and getting on with your work, is that really better? I’m not seeing why you would just go to gmail.com if I could have just made you a very nice, very special email reader.

I have perfected my craft over thousands of hours you know. You should pay us the respect we deserve.

—

Seriously: cranking out tunes through some prompting vs hiring people through shady channels like reddit? Are you serious?

[AxEy]

Yes, I'm quite serious.

You give an analogy of software. I suppose I feel that art differs from this in some ways. E.g. originality, creativeness.

Reading many of these responses I'm gathering that perhaps I have too strong a notion of what kind of quality of music might be in demand. While the loops on the original article are impressive given their generative nature, I suppose I felt that there may be a demand for something more (Better sound design, more long term structure), but maybe I'm naive.

But thanks for giving me your perspective.

[SanderNL]

I came off like an annoying neckbeard. I guess that’s expected of me and my type, but sorry for that.

You hit a nerve because software development is also art and highly creative. I have given a significant part of my life - basically my youth - to it and I feel “creatives” think they are somehow special and that their work is fundamentally different and I don’t think it is.

It’s just that we have been cornered earlier than you guys. My skills are now only profitable as boring building blocks in corporate settings because nobody else will pay for proper work. Everybody expects easy access for free instantly to whatever digital service they can get their grubby hands on. If I talk about “craftsmanship” I get laughed out the room. Nobody gives a shit.

Now I’m like, yeah guys, that’s how it feels to have your skills commoditized. Deal with it. That’s kind of childish though.

[Folcon]

Personally I think you underestimate access, I've on several occasions while developing small games wanted to collaborate with someone who has a musical bent to put something together.

The problem I feel is that I have an expectation of being able to front the cost of engaging someone to work on a project with me.

Working out navigating a working relationship on a smaller project seems fraught with issues.

I'm rarely inclined to spend dozens of hours listening to soundcloud when I have other things to work on.

I mean yes people create interesting music, perhaps it's a search problem? Knowing someone creates the kinds of music I'm interested in would help. But as someone making things, I'm trying to find someone who I can collaborate with who has an overlapping interest in what I make. Solving for that is not straightforward.

I've had much more luck with graphical art than music.

So yes, even though these systems are fundamentally worse, I can at least "collaborate" with them on producing something. Going from zero to one can be enough.

[crabkin]

Music is abstract. When we talk about visual art we can almost always be on the same page. If I say I need garden gnomes parading around a Bavarian village, the amount of variation between my internal idea and what a visual artist returns will mainly come from the lack of terms I use regarding aesthetic sensibility. Will they return something abstract or neoclassical? I would then be more specific etc...

For music we could present such an image but it would then suggest I'd argue much more possibilities. We could narrow down by genre you would suppose but even then there are too many possibilities: genre's are not as strong categories as are the stylized "era's" of visual art, I would also claim. Moreover, we can "port" a fundamental structure like a melody over all sorts of strains of music. In visual art, any motif is bound to be changed depending on the era and the style we'd put it in, that is, I think that in music, there are elements that are stronger in visual arts and elements that are weaker in music, and vice-versa, with regard to a description we could give in English. It's probably more natural and more possible to ask about what a sort visual representation should be than what a piece of sound should be.

It's interesting how we can generate images I'd argue in stunning faithfulness to some prompts but we don't seem to be very close to the same standard, for some prompts, at generating music.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

My first reaction to this wasn't "cool I can make the novel music I desperately crave", more along the lines of "this thing is making some wacky sounds that I'd love to see a producer craft into something more". Because I definitely agree with you that there's an abundance of fantastic music to check out, and realistically I'll never be able to check out even half of it throughout my lifetime.

The guys in Infected Mushroom will have a field day with this stuff. Their whole thing is finding weird ways to create new sounds you never heard before.

Just another instrument, really.

[AxEy]

Honestly what I'm most excited about is how this technology can be used, not to arrange parts or even loops but rather in new plugins (VSTs) that implement novel approaches to digital synthesis. Think of all the awesome sounds.

If anyone knows anyone working on that, ping me. :)

[post-it]

> Have any of you checked out / made offers on music production subreddits? Or other music subreddits? various music production discords? Elsewhere on the internet?

When it's 3 am on a Saturday and I'm in the zone on a passion project, I'm not about to spend the rest of the weekend going back and forth with a music guy on Reddit.

I want a music robot that cranks out music on demand and responds to my every whim, and a real human being isn't going to want to fill that role no matter how impoverished they are.

[pcthrowaway]

If I need a background track for something, and I commission someone else, then I believe the standard contract for the commissioned work would still leave copyright with the producer (though not always), and changing it so that I have exclusive rights to the work would potentially make it more expensive.

Add to that, if I don't like something, want it tweaked, want something completely redone, or just flat out change my mind about some direction I provided later, I have to go back to them and negotiate a new contract, or find someone else to do the work. The costs add up over time, and there's an additional benefit to immediate feedback (or cost of delayed feedback, as anyone who has worked on a software project that takes forever to compile/check can attest)

I haven't used the music AI tools yet, but having played around with Dall-E a bit I can say that it's pretty enjoyable to be able to give direction, and bound it, then roll the dice and see how things turn out. I definitely feel some ownership of, and pride in, the resulting creation

[comfypotato]

Free and immediate. You answered your own question.

All things equal, people are happy to support local businesses. The value prop here is far from equal.

[yieldcrv]

the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment. because that was true for the pre-AI world, as you essentially described, and its true-er for this current-AI world.

the real meme is about how artists have always been grasping for financial respect in every market condition ever, and yet nothing has changed. people were never going to commission you, they were never going to book you. While they do appreciate the content. But for the few that would ever actually try to commission something, they encountered friction after friction after friction and collectively artists have been disinterested in solving. Because they're starving and preoccupied with fighting for scraps and modicums of respect at all.

The world’s has now solved many of these frictions.

The frictions were:

1 hoping they found the right artist to begin with

2 hoping that artist is reliable and has any work ethic or structure in their life

3 not bruising that artists ego in however communication style is preferred

4 dealing with how completely segregated many artists are from contract negotiations and any aspect of the business world, but needing to secure rights properly

5 ego in securing rights properly without the artist overplaying their hand

6 waiting for the commission

7 revisions

8 circle back to 1

9 if you ever get past part 8, you have the issue of whether your new license can be used in an unforeseen way and medium in the future

getting burned in altruistic commissions of living artists is simply over now. all these frictions are solved with the free and immediate way.

[mjr00]

> the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment. because that was true for the pre-AI world, as you essentially described, and its true-er for this current-AI world.

> the real meme is about how artists have always been grasping for financial respect in every market condition ever, and yet nothing has changed. people were never going to commission you, they were never going to book you. While they do appreciate the content. But for the few that would ever actually try to commission something, they encountered friction after friction after friction and collectively artists have been disinterested in solving. Because they're starving and preoccupied with fighting for scraps and modicums of respect at all.

For anyone trying to make money off of music, they should have already been aware that most of the effort in making a living is the non-music work. Once your music reaches an acceptable level of quality it's more about finding and managing your fanbase, industry connections, getting booked at the right shows, promotion and marketing, maintaining professionalism, etc. than anything else. Which this particular AI doesn't help with.

An extreme example is Fred Again, who came out of nowhere and is now one of the biggest names in electronic music. His music isn't bad, but it's nothing revolutionary. As it turns out, though, he grew up in one of the richest neighborhoods in England, with Brian Eno as a neighbor, and went to the most expensive private school in London.

So no, AI music generation doesn't change anything here. It's similar to the startup mistake technical people make of focusing on picking the right tech stack instead of focusing on sales and finding product-market fit. The software/music is only about 10% of the challenge of making a successful business/career.

[yieldcrv]

absolutely, great contributions.

I did want to clarify that I was posting from an angle about those us who need music produced for our products, but were never going to commission it.

I think its important to understand that user story because a lot of artists don’t seem able to empathize with it. People are excited because they were never going to commission artists, and were also turned off from stock music licensing websites too.

[AxEy]

>the simple answer is that your motivations for being an artist need to change to be exclusively personal fulfillment.

Mine are and the same goes for most of the artist I indicate. The point wasn't that they were in it for the money, although many dream of being able to at least one day pay the rent with it (or maybe just groceries).

The rest of your response makes sense (although I think much of it could be said for all of hiring someone to do work). Anyway, thank you for providing your perspective.

[raincole]

Humans are just naturally hard to deal with, especially humans who you never met face-to-face.

As anti-social as it sounds, it's the conclusion that I've reached to after years of working with freelancers/contractors. I've contacted with >50 artists (>300 if "they send me a propose on Upworks" count) and worked with ~10 of them.

Don't get me wrong, I still choose human artists over Stable Diffusion. For now...

[redox99]

> I'm willing to admit that I'm missing something here, but I'd love it if someone could enlighten me.

It's basically the same as with Midjourney. Before Midjourney I'd have to spend quite some time organizing with some human, explaining what I want, licensing terms, etc only to have to wait a significant amount of time for an image that I may not like.

With MidJourney for just a very small amount of money I can instantly get images that are exactly what I want, iterating extremely quickly. Just the fact that I don't have to deal with another human saves a massive amount of time.

TL;DR

1) Faster

2) Cheaper

3) Often closer to what you want, because you quickly iterate and can get hundreds of variations

[thorum]

“Melody conditioning” as shown in the article seems both immediately useful and something that’s harder to find a human to do for you at the same level of quality.

[george_ciobanu]

I think it's about the ability of someone who perhaps has a great idea (imagination) but lacks time, resources or the skills (execution) to make it happen. Of course that a talented producer will create a more compelling song (at least for now) but if the tool is an amplifier it should also boost talented composers - their prompts or inputs to prompts might be much more detailed, more interesting, more creative than those of a neophyte. This of course makes some assumptions but I think the draw for most people is that they can "make" something that sounds cool with almost no effort. My belief is that someone who puts more effort in a GPT and has more expertise can get a lot more out of it as well. I could of course be wrong and GPTs might be the big equalizers, but I doubt it.

[tararara]

I want to do this but I'm scared of the backlash of "you're being exploitative!!!!".

I know the people who say that mean well, but it totally overlooks both how much the culture does (as you say) want to provide their art for projects to use it and create value together, and... reality. Shouting at everyone isn't the way to get them onboard, but shout they do, and it's one country in particular that seems to scream the most.

I'm in the UK and I can't walk down the street without tripping over producers, so maybe the way around the angsty people is finding them in person? Or... we just use AI. The robots solving our social issues is probably a thing.

[dsign]

Hmm, I was there right yesterday. I needed a track to go with a very particular side-project, and I was looking for somebody to arrange/design/sing the vocals. I’m 100% sure that a musician will always do a more musical job than me. The problem is that coaxing the exact work that I need from that musician is going to be a pain (that is to say, expensive and time-consuming), because the piece does not (can not) fall into any set genre (which tend to be cheaper to produce).

I’m not going the AI-route. It’s frankly easier, more fun and it sounds better to compose the music myself, and if the project takes off and makes a dime, hire a pro to improve things later.

[noam_compsci]

> 1) free and 2) immediate

This is an insurmountable benefit. Literally the two most important things when it comes to me buying music at scale.

I made a mobile game a while back and composing and licensing music cost me $30,000 for a free to play game. That was the same as 6-months dev salary (devs in Belarus).

If I can save $30,000 and have zero delay, I’m just going to do that 100% of the time.

The only factor that a real musician can beat on is quality. But let me tell you, with zero marginal cost of production, quality will inevitably be better with generative.

[1337biz]

Problem is minimal viable expectations and how fast these ar filled. In 90% of Reddit you will get flamed for offering money for anything. Wouldn‘t even touch my mind to go there.

[Kiro]

I don't want to involve other people in my project.

[theptip]

I think the promise that has already been demonstrated with language is that you can iterate really quickly. “Make it a bit more upbeat, ok try more synthwave, ok scratch that try darker electro, ok this is better make the bassline more pronounced? Great that’s what I was imagining”

I don’t think it’s going to displace a dedicated composer that gets the medium they are scoring for any time soon. But then that’s not what your comp was initially.

TLDR there are cases where “good enough” is going to be provided by generative music in the medium term. Unlikely for this to be anywhere adjacent to music connoisseurs.

[Aeolun]

I just don’t have a good source of people that are guaranteed to produce something sensible, I have a shortlist of artists I’ve encountered over the years, but it’s indeed a very short list. If I ask someone to create a track and it turns out it’s garbage, I still need to pay them, and I’ve wasted a week of my time.

[etrautmann]

Another framing of this is not based on demand. Presumably most creativity and art creation isn’t to fulfill a need or demand from anyone other than the producer. This could allow the creator and even users to feel some sense of originality and creativity.

[AxEy]

I get that. It was not those purposes that I wanted to question, but rather just the one near the top of my question, namely demand.

[seydor]

It s also a matter of ease of use. this is faster than searching or asking anyone online

[the-dude]

Define small fee.