I feel sorry for the music industry

[tulamide]

I really do. How would you feel as, say Urs Heckmann, having yourself and your team develop a synth over 4 or 5 years, just to see AI slob flooding the market? And don't get me wrong: I am not against the general concept of neural network propability with LLM as access point in general.

But this "vibe coding" bs is just wrong on all levels. People let AI build 10 generic plugins with generic UIs in generic code within a week, then they make a YT channel pretending to test their own plugins ("This is the best synth ever!"). And the goal of course is to make some quick bucks. Give out for free to hook audience then charge for no work at all invested. But you get highly unstable code with little to no testing, resulting in a plugin that just does, what the "real" plugins already do. The usual sites are basically unusable currently, because you can hardly find anything that's not AI coded.

And all the knowledge that the AI generated code is based on, comes from the very same people who are now competing against AI slob. Uncountable bad Vital, Serum and pigments clones, unbearable "vintage" plugins that don't even come close to the hardware they lie to emulate.

But even in the area of serious development, the companies come up with extremely strange AI implementations. Newest example would be VSL with their Vienna Performer, basically a copy of Dreamtonic's Instrument X. Both based on the concept of you as a musician or composer placing notes with uninspiring placeholder sounds that then get rendered (which of course breaks your creativity, as you wait from like 10 to 40 seconds) into "real world" instruments.

This kind of approach is not the beginning, but the end of the music industry. Which makes me sad for those, who made a living out of quality software, and annoys me as a customer.

 

[Davey]

The cream will rise to the top and the reality is that AI-assisted coding is very much going to become essential for all but the simplest application.

But you need to distinguish between an inexperienced person just typing "hey, make me a reverb plugin" and an experienced dev using AI to speed up their work. The latter is going to become the norm, and is already well on the way to doing so. The end result can be better quality code in less time. An company that does not embrace that will get left behind. I have no idea whether Fender/Presonus are already using AI but I bet they do in the very near future.

BTW, home taping did not kill music and neither did Napster. Chin up dear boy!

 

[SwitchBack]

AI is here to stay and the music scene will change, once again, as it did many times before. Shifting from the live stage to the studio and back to the live stage, shifting from artists to producers/labels and back to artists, shifting from performers to writers and back to performers, and shifting from ticket sales to royalties and back to ticket sales. Bottom line: music will keep moving where AI can’t follow, yet.

 

[TimC340]

The core of music, live performance, is alive and well and unlikely to be seriously affected by the rise of AI. Whether we're talking pub singalongs, choirs, brass bands, organ recitals in the Albert Hall, or just picking up an acoustic guitar in your sitting room, none of these things will be in the slightest bit threatened by AI. Recording these things (however bad the source material!) will get progressively easier, as it has done for the last 100 years, and editing those recordings into something that barely resembles the original will also continue to be pursued. However, 'perfection' and 'music' don't actually sit together too well; the essence of performance is imperfection, character and interpretation. AI can't do that yet, and even when it can it will never have a supporting interaction with an audience - whether that's a 75,000-seat stadium or your kids in your sitting room.

AI will make some amazing stuff - it is already - but technical excellence isn't necessarily what we're looking for.

 

[Vocalpoint]

Home taping did not kill music and neither did Napster. Chin up dear boy!

Home taping and Napster didn't kill Studio Pro either - but enough Ai just might....

Let's revisit this thread in two years and see where we stand after enough "vibe" coding has gone under the bridge.

Lesson (via Mike Tyson): Everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched hard in the face..

VP

 

[Gerran]

The core of music, live performance, is alive and well and unlikely to be seriously affected by the rise of AI.

My son would like his music lesson rehearsals to be done by AI, that's for sure...

 

[Ken Morgan]

The core of music, live performance, is alive and well and unlikely to be seriously affected by the rise of AI.

Entering into the conversation is the centuries old debate of art vs commerce. Live music has been brutally affected in the last 20 years by everything from inflation, COVID, venue profit/loss statements, insurance requirements for everyone involved, only a very few musicians now can actually feed a family from live music income, live bands whittled down to solo or duets, etc...

There are LOTS of places to play..but the ones that pay enough to make it worth one's time are dwindling faster than wearing a suit just to board an airplane

 

[TimC340]

Yes, the perceived value of live music has definitely been diluted as access to recorded music and other forms of entertainment has become easier and cheaper. And the costs of running small live music venues (as with any other small business) have increased far more than overall inflation. But there is a groundswell of support for the remaining venues (at least in my country) and I feel that the political tide is turning slightly in favour of supporting the live music industry at a grass roots level. Not enough - yet - to make a big difference, but hopefully it will come. Maybe if musicians start doing covers of AI music (which can't legally fight back!), they might get some traction again!