Aerosmith removed from roller coaster preshow at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Lord Gonchar:

It just sort of turned into "What you do sucks" on this last page and at that point I have to figure there's no other retort.

I know what that feels like and I am sorry. I took it too far.

LostKause:
Everything will come from what has already been created, just changed.

You could say it's no different than what's happening now. Every pop country song sounds the same right? But truly great music is inspired by other people, it's not copied. I have a lot of conflicting ideas about A.I. in music it's a bit like sampling in 90s hip-hop. The truly great producers took other people's work and made it their own to the point that you couldn't even recognize where it came from. It takes a lot of skill and musical ability to do. Then Puff Daddy came along and just stole hooks from other songs wholesale.

I use AI at work. I see the use case for prototyping ideas, being more productive, filling in for instruments I don't have at my disposal, etc, but using prompts to create a song bristles me. We would never accept someone submitting a photograph created with prompts to the coaster db. "In the style of Ansel Adams take a photo of Millennium Force at Cedar Point from the main stage midway." I know it's not the same but I think the comparison makes some amount of sense?

Also, I love the artist I linked to above. They're using A.I. tools to do a lot of what they do and I think it's really creative and funny.

LostKause:

AI mimics real music so well that it's difficult to tell the difference, but it's still counterfeit.

This post has SO much to unpack. I literally can't give you all of my thoughts (that novel I mentioned) except to say, I'm not sure you fully understand how to use AI creatively and not lazily.

eightdotthree:
I took it too far.

Not at all. I'm a big boy. (and it really wasn't you) It was just a terrible argument. AI doesn't suck because I do and the thread didn't need to go there.

The rest of your post has so many great thoughts that I'm a little overwhelmed with it as well. I agree with it all right up until:

but using prompts to create a song bristles me.

Clearly, you're not the only one. I'd love to know why. And that's not just a question for you.

Is the song less valid? I don't think so.

A good song it a good song. I literally don't care how the sausage is made. (Most people don't - it's the earlier discussion that the average person doesn't even understand what they're listening to anymore)

Is it the idea that someone takes 'credit' for 'writing' a song?

This I get a little more. But it still feels a little like (and I'm repeating myself here) "I had to go uphill in the snow to school - both ways!"

The tools and technology have advanced to the point where spitting out a perfectly serviceable song requires little more than a rudimentary ability to describe it.

Beyond that? I don't know why we'd care - we already listen to highly processed, transformed, produced 'music' that is so far from the pure "instrument to ear" experience that we have to have banks of processors and computers help fake it live to even get close.

We would never accept someone submitting a photograph created with prompts to the coaster db.

I'm going to be very 'CoasterBuzz' on you here. I apologize in advance.

No, but I'd absolutely enjoy it as an interesting image. And I think it'd fit on a site full of interesting roller coaster imagery/art. The db is documentation. Generation is not.

That's why that comparion falls apart for me.

An AI song generated by a toddler accidentally mashing the keyboard in the prompt box on Suno is still a song in the end. That AI generated photo is not documentation of real life, but it's likely a great image that is worthy of view.

It does make some amount of sense as an argument...and I only partially disagree.

LostKause:
The urge to write a song is sometimes unignorable. Sometimes I wake up in the morning humming a song that does not exist.

You do understand you can hum that to AI and create a song? Or parts. Or whatever.

In fact, now we're touching on what my latest stuff does. (again, not self-promotion but I've been sitting on whole set of 10 more of those 'southern hard rock' tunes and the following is in reference to those)

You can absolutely put audio into these generators.

I can't play guitar or bass or anything at an effective level beyond drums. I can't even really sing well. But I understand how to write a song and put music together. (oh my god, I'm Lars!)

So I have lyrics written. And in my head the guitar should go "Dunnnn dun dadadaa dunn dunn dunnnn dada" (imagine me looking like an idiot air guitaring and singing that guitar part)

At this point, I give that to Suno with some prompt info. It'll spit back...something. Sometimes it's what I expect. Often it's not. Sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it's better than my original idea. Once I form, transform, remix, regenerate based on existing, playing with generation settings and stuff, I can rip the guitar stem and put it in the DAW.

At this point what I do is no different than if I (or a guitar player) and recorded that track. Now I can do that for every instrument.

I also have an electronic kit. I haven't gone for it and full replaced AI drum tracks with my own playing, but I have punched in fills and percussion things.

And you guys both mentioned rap music. Rappers are benefitting most from this, I think. Know how easy it is for these guys to pump out top-notch backing tracks to work over? Stupid easy.

Useful innovation usually increases accessibility and reduces work required to complete a task.

AI music generation does both.

Lord Gonchar:

I'm not sure you fully understand how to use AI creatively and not lazily.

Those who use it as a tool, and not simply write a prompt and post a completed song, are not what I feel is threatening to me.

Is it the idea that someone takes 'credit' for 'writing' a song?

That might be a part of my concern. "Look what I wrote!!!" then you realize that they didn't really write it. They told a computer to write it for them.

You do understand you can hum that to AI and create a song? Or parts. Or whatever.

That's very interesting to me. Because like you, I'm not the greatest guitar player, and although I have a bass, no matter how hard I try, I'm not good at playing it.

Lord Gonchar:
So I have lyrics written. And in my head the guitar should go "Dunnnn dun dadadaa dunn dunn dunnnn dada"

That's how I collaborated with past band mates. "No, no! I think the drums should go Da-dat-DUUDut-duuuu!" LOL

Lord Gonchar:
...and put it in the DAW.

I do recall you saying sometime, somewhere, that you do more than just write a prompt and tell it to spit out a completed song. You just won me over in the argument. I totally understand now. I still feel icky about it, but I understand.

I mean, it's to the point that I might even try it out myself sometime. Damn.

Sorry for the double post.

I see those metal songs covered as soul songs by AI on Facebook sometimes. They are awesome! I wish all Soul songs were that cool. But I never re-post them because it might offend my musician friends. Listening to them makes me feel icky too, because AI.

Those song were mentioned in this conversation, so I felt I had to comment about them.

Lord Gonchar:

Know how easy it is for these guys to pump out top-notch backing tracks to work over?

LostKause:
Those who use it as a tool, and not simply write a prompt and post a completed song, are not what I feel is threatening to me.

I just don't think it sounds good and the artists that may be using it are just not what I am into. So maybe it's just down to taste.

I don't think Kanye West is writing The College Dropout with AI. We’re not getting Low End Theory, Return to the 36 Chambers, The Chronic, The Marshall Mathers LP, etc, with AI especially if you take away all of the source material the model would have been trained on.

I also find autotune and pop country to be an abomination so again... taste.

I wrote a whole lot more but ended up deleting it all. One record I was going to mention is Soul Blind's Red Sky Mourning. They are obviously inspired by Alice in Chains, Hum, Helmet, all of that late 90s rock and shoegaze but they have their own modern take. That whole album has a quality to it that AI can't replace.

eightdotthree:

...with AI especially if you take away all of the source material the model would have been trained on.

Two things:

1. All music ever (and certainly the commercial music of the last 50-100 years) is influenced or derivative - no one plays an instrument or writes a song totally in a bubble. That's how music has been made forever - you watch others do it and emulate it in your own way.

2. You mentioned 90's rap as a great example of transformative work. They literally took someone's work and re-worked it. I mean, that can't exist without the original work. It's not just based on the original work, the core IS the original work.

What AI does is actually closer to #1 than #2.

LostKause:
That's very interesting to me. Because like you, I'm not the greatest guitar player, and although I have a bass, no matter how hard I try, I'm not good at playing it.

Here's some weirder grey arera to help twist up your grey matter a little more on this fine December afternoon.

We've talked about the idea of letting AI generate a song then recording/performing it as your own. But...

What if I take an entire song I wrote and recorded myself - but it didn't sound real great because...well, realistic limitations in skills, equipment and the recording, mastering process - and I run the whole damn thing through AI?

I can give an example.

A buddy's song from 2015:

I dug it. Though it had a real "Corrosion Of Conformity" vibe. The raw recording lends itself to the song, but I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if it were a little more 'studio'. So I made this (and he knows and thought it was cool):

I think it's incredible technology. A little like having that mythical "good" button. But at what point do you guys find it disingenuous?

Can someone upload the AI "fixed" version and call it their own work?

Is it really doing much more than autotune or other studio "tricks" do to make a performance more than it is? (I mean, we all know Lars has timing issues, so those studio tracks are 'creations' to some degree)

The moment you add any edit/effect to a performace, it's been modified.

You should have made that a blind test. His drums aren't great but the guitar tone and his vocals are really good. Your version just doesn't sound right to me, similar to how you said your narration experiments didn't. It doesn't sound real. But again. My taste is different so maybe it's just me.

Lord Gonchar:

They literally took someone's work and re-worked it

I know it seems contradictory. I don't really know how to articulate it. Someone had to experience that work in their life then isolate it and create something out of nothing. It's gritty and real. It's the opposite of what I've heard AI models produce.

Cue the "make this more gritty and real" prompt...

But it is a hard contradiction to talk one-self out of. Take one of the latest "pop" examples; Gotye wrote "Someone I Used to Know" and (per AI, ha) recorded it in his parent's house. Won all kinds of awards. He also has a sense of humor.

But that award-winning "music" was a total "inspiration" from 1967.

So he wrote the lyrics, applied it to something someone else wrote, and was praised with countless awards.

Just 12 years later, "Anxiety" is released by someone named Doechii. That song also nominated for awards (including a Grammy). She won best rap album at the Grammys.

Buy maybe pop is a bad example of your point, because I agree that currently, there are raw/unique things that non-pop bands do that AI does not seem particularly good at churning out; but what is amazing is how far it has come in an extremely short period of time.

Virtual therapy has not replaced one-on-one therapy. Online teaching doesn't hold a candle to the in-class experience. I think this is along the same lines; it's an incredible tool that the public just happens to have access to, but I don't see the death of live musicians, because the human element is always required....even when using AI to "create" something.

But I'm not a musician, just a professor who has to work with students using AI in other ways on a daily basis.

eightdotthree:

Hum

If AI were a thing back in the day, You'd Prefer an Astronaut came out, it wouldn't have came out, and I wouldn't have become the person I am today. I'd go ahead and say it is one of my favorite albums of all time ever, maybe my number one favorite.

Which makes me want to check out Soul Blind. Never heard of them.

...And now that I've listened to that album a little, the riffs and production are good, and I hear a lot of AI stuff coming up with riffs that good, and production that sounds that good. It this AI?

Lord Gonchar:
I can give an example...

Wow! You mean to tell me that all that suckass music me and my buddies recorded (and still record sometimes) on a budget can be improved that much? I can upload those songs to AI and it will make it sound like a record company spent lots of money to help us record it?

Damn. Stop it! You're winning me over.

The guys in my bands wouldn't go for doing something like this. I wouldn't even dip my feet in the water without their knowledge and permission. We take pride in our work, I guess, and doing something like this would tarnish that pride.

It still makes me feel icky, and I still think it's cheating. But I get it now. What might be cheating to me, might not be cheating to someone else, so no judgement here.

Edited to add- Compared them both again, and I'd be a little pissed if I were the original human singer. I'd work hard writing those lyrics and the melody and vocal rhythms, and then a computer replaces my vocals with a version of a singer who can sing better than me, and has the money, time, and know how to make its vocals sound more professional and more enjoyable than mine.

Makes me wonder how the guitar player would feel that his guitar parts were re-recorded by a computer and sound that much better too. (And the Bass player and drummer. And so on...)

The whole AI argument is turning into apples and oranges for me. AI is more like a toy that can sound better than the real thing. I'm real, and even if I don't sound as good, that makes me better.

Still, no judgement. Just my opinion.

(I love CoasterBuzz. Pages and pages of off-topic discussions.)

LostKause:

I'm real, and even if I don't sound as good, that makes me better.

I'll forward this quote to Jason Newsted. He was totally f$#@ed over by actual humans before AI.

But yea, love our conversations here :) And honestly, mad respect for you still going with your bandmates, Travis.

OhioStater:

but what is amazing is how far it has come in an extremely short period of time.

Absolutely.

And video isn't far behind.

eightdotthree:
Your version just doesn't sound right to me

That's straight out of Suno with no post. Not sure if that would make a difference. But I feel like you can hide some of the 'fakeness' with effects.

EDIT - now that it's been bouncing around my head a moment, you could strip the original down to stems and simply replace the parts you wanted to with the generated ones. For instance, keeping that original guitar, but swapping in the vocals or drums or whatever.

LostKause:
You're winning me over.

Just trying to express how far it can go beyond, "pop song about heartbreak."

A few years ago a friend and former bandmate and I remixed and remastered a few songs we’d originally recorded in the mid to late 90s. My original drum tracks sounded pretty bad—mostly audio quality but also there were some mistakes here and there—so we replaced most of the drums with samples (I think we left the mic’d cymbals alone), quantized a lot, and digitally edited some of my fills to make them sound better and/or what I’d meant them to sound like when I originally played them (paying for studio time on our budgets back then meant keeping a take that was “good enough”). Comparing the remaster to the original was crazy similar to Gonch’s AI remix of his friend’s song.

Is it me playing? Sure, it is…and it isn’t. But I’ll tell you this: I honestly can’t remember the last time I listened to the original 90s recording.

I had a shower thought. Joy Division opens Unknown Pleasures with a drum synth and it’s one of the most influential records from that era. It’s essential to their sound. Maybe someone will use AI in the same way.

LostKause:

I'd go ahead and say it is one of my favorite albums of all time ever, maybe my number one favorite.

Give Trauma Ray’s Chameleon a listen as well. They have a powerful layered guitar sound not unlike Hum. The first 2 songs are bangers. The rest take a few listens until they hit.

Vater:
so we replaced most of the drums with samples

I don’t have an issue with this and I don’t have an issue with using AI to fix lines of dialogue.

LostKause:

If AI were a thing back in the day, You'd Prefer an Astronaut came out, it wouldn't have came out, and I wouldn't have become the person I am today. I'd go ahead and say it is one of my favorite albums of all time ever, maybe my number one favorite.

I owned "You'd Prefer and Astronaut" on CD and I think I listened to the entire thing maybe 5 times. The gem on that album (and really the entire band) was "Stars", and the main reason for that was the guitar tone. There are two songs I can point to that had the most unreal, huge, wall-of-sound distorted guitar tone, "Stars" by Hum, and "Enjoy the Silence", the Depeche Mode cover by Failure. Both songs give me chills like no other when the guitars come in...every single time.

Tangent. Sorry, back to AI.

I think my main issue with AI is not the AI itself, it's when someone puts an AI creation out and doesn't claim it was done by AI. But it's mostly stuff that's attempted to be passed off as real. For example, songs don't really matter to me because that's just art...but when I watch a video that tries to dupe me into believing that what I just saw actually happened, I get pissed. The rate AI is improving make it more difficult to discern the difference between it and reality, and that scares me.

"Stars," holy crap, I haven't thought about that song in decades. I remember when it came out, the dude working the AM station in the next room (I was on the FM) came in and was raving about it. We just started playing it at the college station too. Good times.

Vater:

"Enjoy the Silence", the Depeche Mode cover by Failure

Just listened to it. It's really good. Sounds like Failure doing Depeche Mode which I know is what it is but it sounds like Failure, not Depeche Mode.

This got me thinking about Imogen Heap. People kind of know her, especially for "Hide and Seek," but Speak For Yourself and Ellipse are two of the best albums ever made, to me. She wrote, recorded and engineered those albums herself. She's a savant. She's also written for Tay Tay and Ariana.

On her 2010 tour, she took a melody from the audience and improvised songs on the spot, then sold them online to benefit a local charity. I've never seen anything like it (I saw her in Seattle). And it was a pretty cool souvenir, too.

This year she released this 13-minute... thing. It uses AI. I admit, I don't get it, but if anyone is going to figure out how to use it as a tool, it's her.

After watching the video Gonch linked, YouTube started recommending a bunch of AI music and video creation videos. That’s how I discovered that DaVinci Resolve now has AI tools, and ...WOW!

One video showed a transition between two different clips, one being a shot out a fourth floor window, and the other down on street level. The AI transition makes the “camera” fly out the window and down to the street, where the creator walks into frame. Another effect rotated the camera around him as he walked. He just clicked a few buttons and described what he wanted.

I wouldn’t call it cheating. He didn’t fly a drone or build a rig. It’s basically CG, but created in seconds. Kind of exciting.

I’ve been using DaVinci Resolve off and on for many months, ever since CapCut changed its terms to claim ownership of anything made on their platform. I hadn’t opened Resolve recently, so I missed the AI additions. Now I’m genuinely looking forward to playing with them.

I also didn’t realize Suno has a full DAW. Watching how a song is built there helped me understand it more, but I’m still on the fence about AI music. Music comes from the human soul; it's one thing unique to us and makes us humans. I’m not sure where AI music comes from.

I have realized lately that the argument for and against AI music creation is currently a hot topic, and that our discussion here hasn't even touched the surface of other discussions.

What’s interesting is that I’m comfortable with AI in video effects, but uneasy about it in music. I’m not sure why I see a difference in the two.

Resolve's AI tools are cool, but it still won't edit my documentary short for me.

It would be nice if it could analyze my GoPro footage and make a rough cut for me. GoPro’s software kind of does it but it’s meant for sharing a clip to Instagram.