PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Suno AI first experment

https://soundcloud.com/planobilly/midnight-train?si=1ffd3366683d4014b8304168dfead6dc&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

[Verse]
Underneath the silver moon so high
Harmonica whispers a lonesome sigh
Leather boots tapping on the old wood floor
Shadows dancing like they've danced before

[Verse]
Raindrops on my window paint the night
Whiskey in my glass feeling just right
Guitar strings crying out my soul
Lonely heart singing in this smoky hole

[Chorus]
Midnight train's a-calling my name
Roll on out and escape this pain
City lights fading in the rain
I'm on that midnight train
Oh that midnight train

[Verse]
Lady luck gone and left me dry
Cards and dice they made me sigh
Empty pockets and a heavy weight
Searching for a sign nothing but fate

[Verse]
Echoes of a past left far behind
Memories in the fog hard to find
Suitcase packed with dreams long gone
Hoping that train brings a brand new dawn

[Chorus]
Midnight train's a-calling my name
Roll on out and escape this pain
City lights fading in the rain
I'm on that midnight train
Oh that midnight train

I found this pretty amazing. This is the second AI song generator I tried to use. I put it in my DAW and played over the track. It may not be very complex but it certainly was logical.

I look at some info on the use of this software and I think it is possible to integrate parts of the song into BIAB and other software.

I did not change anything in the generated lyrics. While they may not be world-class, they are also not stupid.

I also upgraded my Studio One DAW to the current version 7 which has some useful stuff.

What do you guys think about the state of the AI?

Billy

Billy, completely agree (again) that this is amazing. The backing track is certainly nice enough, and I like the used of pushed chords (something I can never get to sound natural in BiaB). Lyrics are fine, too. The vocals have a modern country sound that I don't care for much, but that's me. Your guitar fills are cool. Just don't know who's music it is. Maybe I shouldn't care. But I'm still not highly interested in this type of AI for doing something that I enjoy doing myself. Not a criticism of you, just where I'm at...

AI is not a something to be ignored. Like it or not. The individuality between who/what composes songs is becoming less distinct.

I'm interested. Just how long did that take, from start to finish?

OK. This is my first experiment with SUNO AI, a song about "creating" music with AI:

https://suno.com/song/357a2dd6-a50c-4329-9fe3-afdb42dfc09e

Seriously, this is is disgustingly good, not only the music, arrangements, mix, etc, but also the lyrics. And at the same time, I find it sad, really sad

Lots of sentiments - in two short sentences.

That is brilliant, Ai is coming along in leaps in bounds, give it another 50 years and with similar progress in hunanoid robots, on a night out with friends, someone will remark to one of our descendants, "Hey your Wife (Husband) is unbelievably cool is he/she human or AI"

They may well answer, "I'm done with humans a long time ago, from here on it is AI"

"What do you guys think about the state of the AI?"

Hmm... Billy would you go on a fishing trip catching some robo fish? Might be fun for a while but I think you'll get bored fast. I mean, I am sure you will appreciate some AI in your boat electronics or even fish finder, I don't think actual cyber fish will bring you lots of joy.

State of AI... I think it's breeding like March rabbits.

My take is this. If you want to see original art, you go to a museum or an art show, you don't go to Walmart to look at colorful posters at $9.99 a poo. Sorry a pop.

I am sure there will be plenty of masters and classics of AI prompt typers after certain amount of time passes. But as of now, I think it's bringing a huge tsunami of mediocrity to already heavily saturated place. Mediocrity which is poached (likely not in a very ethical or legal fashion) from something that we already had before.


P.S. Billy, looks like you had a fun fishing trip!

A guy walks into a bar.
He walks to the jukebox.
He drops in a quarter.
He pushes 2 buttons.
Music begins to play.

He turns around and shouts to the world..."Look what I have created!!!"

The prompts I put in Suno did not do anything remotely like I intended. "Classic Blues from 1950" It took less than three minutes from start to finish, and less than 30 seconds to generate the song.

I had a big laugh about the "Robofish." Imagine a world without humans and only machines, with "robot" people driving around in a "Roboboat" chasing "Robofish!" I am sure I would get tired of catching mechanical fish, but then I get tired of catching the fish I catch and go looking for new varieties of fish. Here is an example. A long tail bass from 800 feet deep.


Any change with a negative economic impact will be met with disdain by those affected. I see the economic issue for the music business to be a serious problem. So has been the change from the days of Vinyl records to the current status of affairs.

If human-generated music is truly superior to what will come with AI there will always be a market. That market will likely be much smaller because because of the difference in cost. I think that will be true for the same reason we have Walmart, MP3, and other cost-based products and services.

How AI-generated music software develops will have a huge impact on how real musicians will use it. I assume most of us here on this forum have no issue using BIAB to generate songs. That is definitely not the same thing but neither is it Abbey Road Studios with live musicians.

I have little interest in randomly generating AI music other than to see what it will produce and the state of the technology. I would like to have an "AI" band in which I could control the individual parts and be able to import those parts into my DAW.

I personally would buy a PG Music product of that nature and be willing to pay somewhere between $2000 to $3000 for such a program if it operated in a classical musical way with all the things that are available in standard notation.

My guess is that no matter what we think or feel about AI-generated music, it is here to stay and will only get better. We are already competing with machines in almost every job there is and there are economic winners and losers as a result of that.

Can machines make people redundant? Well, perhaps they can, but only if we let that happen.
To Rustyspoons point about " a huge tsunami of mediocrity," I think we are already there across the board especially here in the United States. Less quality products and services at a higher cost that we have come to simply put up with. Packaging, don't get me started on that rant...lol

One thing we have to consider is that there are thousands of people who would like to create music with absolutely no skills to do so and who are unwilling to acquire any. For them, AI may be perfect. Skilled musicians will likely not be enamored of the fact that any person who did not put in the work to be a musician can make plausible music. If Eddie was still around I think he would agree with that...lol

Well hell, looks like I am back to my inability to be succinct about anything...lol

Cheers,

Billy

Bet a Humanoid person with an AI brain (we have to call him/her a person because a law will be passed in the future to give the Humanoid equal rights with Humans) will learn to play a guitar in under a day or so, just like the old time tutor books used to promise.

You may think I have watched too many Star Trek episodes, but maybe it will really happen!

Nice job with the fish Billy. That guy is a beauty.

“One thing we have to consider is that there are thousands of people who would like to create music with absolutely no skills to do so and who are unwilling to acquire any”

I think this is one area AI music will come to the fore.
There are millions of people who would love to generate a personalised song for their aunties birthday, just to say “I love you” in a special personalised way. Up till now that has only been possible if you have a couple of weeks and a couple of hundred dollars.

The other is in soundtrack music licensing. I believe that when they have the copyright issue sorted (and they will), pressurised and cost conscious music supervisors will increasingly turn to AI to quickly generate the perfect song for a movie scene for their ever increasing Netflix type movie catalogues.

That idea just floors me.

How is it acceptable for someone who not only lacks the skill to create something, but is also unwilling to acquire those skills will then take credit for something they didn't create?

Certainly, people have the right to own the rights to something they purchased. But that doesn't mean they created it. Calling these people creators devalues true creators.

AI depends on someone else to have gone through the effort of learning their craft, playing instruments and singing, recording and distributing their work. It creates a fiction that because AI is able to duplicate the end result, it is somehow equivalent. But that without using other people's works as building blocks, AI wouldn't be able to produce anything.

AI generates music without having these things, only because it can copy source material that was created using those things.

In contrast, people can continue to create music with their voices and instruments, with no need for computers or AI.

Originally Posted by Planobilly
"How is it acceptable for someone who not only lacks the skill to create something, but is also unwilling to acquire those skills will then take credit for something they didn't create"


I think Joanne gave you the answer to that one David,

.....................................................................................................................................


"There are millions of people who would love to generate a personalised song for their aunties birthday, just to say “I love you” in a special personalised way. Up till now that has only been possible if you have a couple of weeks and a couple of hundred dollars*
.............................................................................

Whether you want to call the process a creation or a generation probably doesn't matter.
In a sense we accept the AI premise already in using BIAB, imagine if a a musician such as a steel guitar player said "how dare you create a song with my instrument in it, just by the push of a button when you haven't spent the hours learning how to play it"

There are plenty of folks who think using BIAB is cheating just as much as AI generation is cheating but here we are on the BIAB forum!

Just to play devil's advocate for a minute...isn't the entirety of human music and art, knowledge and achievement, incrementally built based on the work of previous humans?

William Faulkner: "Immature artists copy, great artists steal"
Igor Stravinsky: "A good composer does not imitate; he steals"
Steve Jobs: "Good artists copy, great artists steal"

Maybe AI just helps more people steal faster?

Variant A

Your aunt has a birthday. You go to a bakery and ask the baker to make a unique, personalize cake. You give clear instructions on what you want, accepting the choices offered. Everybody at the party love it.Guests ask:
-Where did you get it? Tastes and looks great!
You reply:
-Bakery makes it, but I gave them an amazing set of instructions.

---------

Variant B
Your aunt has a birthday. You bake a cake. Using a recipe from Internet and a few store bought decoration & topers. Aunt asks:
-Where did you get this cake?
-I baked it for you, dear Auntie.
-I love you!



JJJ interesting concept:
"Maybe AI just helps more people steal faster?"

I will "borrow" a line from a known band to try to answer this with yet another question:
"what you gonna do with all that junk inside that trunk?"

And another thought:

Painting of Mona Lisa at Louvre - Master piece
Your 8y.o. child's interpretation of Mona Lisa - Sacred
Hallmark birthday card with Mona Lisa on the cover- next morning trash can candidate.

David
I personally don’t think there is much difference between using AI and using BIAB to generate drums and using synth v to generate vocals.

Almost every abled bodied and able mined person can learn to play drums and can learn to sing. It is just a matter of whether that person sees the worth in developing these skills or not.

Is the opportunity cost of learning these skills worth, say, sending less time playing a sport or writing or painting or whatever other things the person want to do with their time?

"Is the opportunity cost of learning these skills worth, say, sending less time playing a sport or writing or painting or whatever other things the person want to do with their time?"

What??

If you don't enjoy music making process, than yes it likely is not worth it. I assume the app you are advertising is aimed at those millions who have better things to do with their time than to write / compose music themselves?

"Hallmark birthday card with Mona Lisa on the cover- next morning trash can candidate."
Stop it!. You're killing me with practicality

I see a difference between using BB and things like SynthV where you have to actually do things manually to create the music you want vs using AI which generates the lyrics, melody, music, and production in 20 seconds from a one sentence prompt.

In the online groups on social media that cater to AI generated music, people who can't sing, can't play any instrument, and have no clue about recording a basic track are considering themselves to be musicians now with the AI generator as their "instrument".

Yes... I think AI is a great tool and I have been using it in a number of songs. I rarely ever take it straight from the AI generation, choosing to edit the lyrics and often playing the parts myself on keys and guitars because, well, lets be honest, AI still has a way to go on some things. I also replace the vocals with one of the SV voices for the same reasons. Just like any advance that changes the paradigm, a lot of people resist the inevitable changes that are being instituted by the newer technology. How this all shakes out is yet to be settled. I think we're in the Model-T, Wright Brothers stage with AI right now. Look at the changes over the last 2 years. 2 years ago, I would never have used one of the vocaloid voices because they were horrible. AI music wasn't a thing yet. In 24 months, look where it has come. Wait another year or two. Suno, one of the many AI generators is dropping HUGE improvements to their platform every couple of months. We're just getting started. Even PG Music is integrating AI tools into the new versions that they are releasing.

I just watched a video this morning that took an interesting look at AI and the implications of what is happening now with AI and copyright and content rules.

Variant C
Your aunt has a birthday. You pick up a cake from the Walmart bakery that has no customization at all. Aunt asks:
-Where did you get this cake?
-I baked it for you, dear Auntie.
-I love you!

But I'll never travel to Louvre so to me the Hallmark card has *more* value than that original painting. And why is that painting special? Because we say it is! Does it feed the poor? Or clothe the refugee? Or cure my mom's cancer? No, it just hangs in a museum so privileged people can look at it and, apparently, enhance their boring lives with it.

(You make excellent points...I'm just expressing my contrarian nature!)

Like type in a few chord letters and click the export button?

Actually yes. It can be that simple. I've always considered BB to be kinda like Black Box Voodoo, just short of AI. Especially how it handles the real tracks.

However, You do have to spend more time and effort and thought as well as planning, to create the song in BB, especially if you're doing something more than a basic song. Breaks, pushes, pauses, modulations, tempo changes, selection of additional instruments, automation of solos and such things.... same with Synth V.... it takes more than a little bit of effort to dial in a good performance.

Unlike the prompt for an AI song: "Hard rock style with guitars and male singer about the girl that cheated on him. "

I agree with Herb.
I will add: learning about the structure of the song(s), experimenting with different chords, progressions, tracks, programming particular sections, partial regeneration, manual fusion of different styles, 3rd party instruments and elements, etc. etc.
To me BIAB was always more of a composing/learning tool, not a cover song generator, I only very recently started explore "Songs", just to learn how their structure is laid out in BIAB.

JJJ,
Stop lying to your aunt!
P.M. me, I will send you a Holiday card.

Why do we use BIAB to create songs? One, because it is fun. Two, it can provide instrumental tracks we can not play ourselves. Third, and most important is cost because we can not afford to pay live studio musicians to play for us. Which one of you would rather have Brent Masion on BIAB or Brent Masion live at your house?

When you post a song you made with BIAB, can you call it your song? When you go into the studio and create a song live with other musicians, can you call it your song?

I submit that the only way to say a song is your song is to play all the parts live and record it, including the vocal. Even then it is likely not very original because you based the song on what you learned from other people.

All you can truly say is this is a song that was created by the manipulation of a piece of software called BIAB which by the way took many hours to learn how to use. I was also embellished using several other computer software programs and generated through the collaboration of whatever other musicians or technicians you used both live and electronic.

Is there any "art" involved in computer software-generated music? Well, I say yes there is.

When and if AI gets to the point where you can tell it exactly what you want to hear track by track it will most likely supersede most human musicians for commercial music. Musicians may become like vintage cars. Greatly loved and super expensive.

I would not mind so much going back to horses and sailing ships but I'd be dammed if I would give up air conditioning...lol

I can say that I much preferred the days of not having all this computer stuff and having to play live and record in a studio on two-inch tape.

As far as typing two or three words and having a song come out and calling it my original work; let these genetically defective sub-humanoid lying, lazy "people" say whatever they want. They do the best they can. They just don't know any worse...lol

yes, I know, not a very politically correct statement. Anyway, I learned all this from Eddie, so it is you guys' fault for putting up with all his snide remarks.... I for one miss him!

Cheers,

Billy

I kind of agree with Mr Faulkner, Mr Stravinsky and Mr Jobs. However:
- Stealing something from a great musician (for example transcribing a Geoge Benson's solo to try to integrate some of his phrasing into you vocabulary as a musican) requires a lot of time, technique, effort and discipline.
- Even a trained monkey can steal anything from AI.

You make excellent points but you have to admit that using BIAB, even when you invest significant time and effort to customize the results, is still a LOT closer to AI generated music than it is to a group of musicians, engineers and producers executing their collective decades of experience in the studio, right? That group of musicians, engineers and producers almost certainly view us BIAB users much the same as we may be viewing those who simply use AI to generate everything.

Don't get me wrong, I love BIAB and it has enabled me to produce fully realized versions of my songs that would have never been possible without it but I also realize it has been a pretty big shortcut for me. I'm guessing AI is providing similar joy for others who cannot realize their music any other way.

My aunt was always mean to me. I'm gonna put toenails in her cake!

Ummm, toenails...
Crunchy!

Absolutely, yes. You wrote it, therefore it is your song no matter how, or who records the tracks. It's not a requirement for me to record everything myself to call a song that I wrote, completely, my song. Regardless of what I learned from other folks, my piano teacher as a child, the drum teacher in school, the musicians I have played with, and the music I listen to on the radio, unless I am copying something, if I thought it up on my own, it is fully my creation.

Well, those chaps from Liverpool got 99% of the credit, glory, fame, money, etc. even though Mr. Martin was the "AI" they used on most of those later albums! He was quite possibly my favorite Beatle!

Well Herb we can agree to disagree. Even if you write the entire score, the musicians you use in the studio will interpret it differently. That is the reason we may chose to use one studio musician over another.

You can say that you created the song but the creation part was general in nature and did not only involve you. The lyrics are certainly yours to claim if they are not too derivative. If you wrote all the parts out in standard notation and the musicians tried their best to play as written it still will not come out exactly as it was imagined by you. The production engineers and other studio people will change the sound.

You may have impregnated the woman but she created the baby.

People who know who they are and are ok with themselves generally give credit to all who were involved in the creation of a song. Most people get left out of the credit because of money.

If we are talking about a BIAB song or other similar types of software the "creation" part has already been done by others for the most part and we normally indicate this on this forum. But the moment you upload it to Soundcloud and do not indicate it was electronically created it is more or less impossible to tell who did what.

This is all about ethics and telling the exact truth. The legal implications have little or nothing to do with ethics or telling the truth.

Omitting the facts is just another form of evading the truth.

Well, this is my take and no one needs to agree with me. This is just my thinking on the matter and not a post to try to convince anyone to agree or disagree.

This whole AI discussion rapidly becomes about the concerns related to who owns what and who will get paid, plus the whining about all the years of work I put in to learn how to do what you can now do with zero effort.

I spent a huge amount of time, money, and effort learning how to use woodworking hand tools. I now do that work with computer numerically controlled electric tools. Not to say I never use hand tools or that I don't enjoy working with hand tools. The CNC machines produce much better results than I can do by hand.

As military pilots, we have spent zillions of dollars learning to fly and we love what we do, only to be replaced by computer pilots who are not subject to the g force with the latest aircraft. The latest discussion is around do we allow those "AI pilots" to have full independent control of who they kill.

If Ai takes your job there is not much that can be done about it. Get over it and go to number next. What other choice would you have? As we have seen of late violent action in an attempt to change things besides being stupid and barbaric simply will not change the state of the medical insurance system.

What people often fail to understand is that music creation software is not so much about creating music but about creating profit for the makers of the software.

Cheers,

Billy

I see a lot of difference.

First, there's the ethical dimension. With BiaB and SynthV, the people whose instruments and voices are used willingly entered into a contract to have their instruments and voices used for the creation of new works, and were compensated for their work.

At its core, BiaB is automated loops. I've got a number of bass and drum loop construction sets. Similarly, SynthV is based on concatenative synthesis. For both products, there's a direct correlation between the source material and the end result.

That's not the case with AI. There's no way to know where the guitar riff, the drum groove or the vocal came from. The people whose songs AI learned from never intended their music to be used as raw materials for someone else's song. AI classifies and reconstructs, but doesn't know where the source material for the songs came from, or how much might be infringing. The developers can only hope that the process of using lots of source material will end up hiding where AI took the ideas from.

AI has never sung, never held a drumstick, fretted a guitar, bowed a string, blown a horn or reed. AI has only seen the end result. Every sound that it's produced has been derived from someone else's work.

Second, I'm talking about what it means to take credit for the creation of something.

If I tell someone that I "wrote" a song, I mean that the words a melody were created by me.

If it was co-written by someone else, it would be dishonest to claim full credit. If I only suggested ideas for a song, but I didn't actually write the words, it would also be dishonest to claim credit for the creation of the song.

Just because AI won't tell others that we didn't do the work ourselves doesn't mean we should give ourselves any more credit than if that work hadn't been done by a person.

And that's their right. There's no requirement that someone learn to play drums or sing.

I can play drums and sing, but use BiaB and SynthV. If you check out my songs, you'll see that I credit BiaB for the backing tracks, and SynthV for the vocals.

I'm not saying that people can't use these tools.

I object to people taking credit for work done by others as if it were their own.

Thanks, David. That's all I have to say on this topic.

In my teen / college years I've done some sculpting. Instructor would bring a model and give us couple of hours to do a clay sketch. You would have to set up armature and work clay fast to grasp as much detail as you can. Then at your own time we finished work from memory. Instructor and model were paid, studio was paid for, clay and armature and knifes were bought in the store.
Who gets the credit? Instructor for arranging the model? Model - the subject? Studio space / art department? Clay manufacturer - because it was made "ready to use"? Armature maker because it defined size and motion limit of the wire? Can they all potentially be credited?

Before BIAB partial regeneration, in my head, I imagined RT's as "snakes", because like a snake it would swirl if you try to pinch it modify (chords, etc) at any place. It was driving me nuts as it would generate material that didn't fit my song idea well enough. When PGM rolled out partial regeneration, it somewhat reminded me of clay, as you can almost literally "sculpt" the track piece by piece to shape it pretty close to your liking.

I am wondering, how many of participants of this thread use BIAB's partial regeneration? Raise your hand.

P.S. If you do, thank JJJ as he was one of leading voices to promote & lobby for it. If you don't use it... you really should give it a try.

I use it for every song! I wish they would take it further...instead of having to click regen a bunch of times just have a popup with all possible options available to preview.

"I use it for every song!"
That's FANTASTIC, Sherlock! You fought hard for it.

"I wish they would take it further...instead of having to click regen a bunch of times just have a popup with all possible options available to preview."

Lets wait till the dust from 2025 settle and discuss it in wishwell. I have a couple of suggestions too on the subject. I like the fact that PGM took the feature seriously and done several ways you can do this, but I agree, it still needs a few improvements.

I've used it on occasion - really useful.

It's one of those things that in retrospect seems so obvious you sort of wonder why it wasn't there from the beginning.

I have to tell an AI related story. I was demoing LyricLab at an AI expo a while back and 99% of the people there were not musicians and not interested in creating music until I learned a trick.

I would ask them a few questions like their name and the name of a loved one, the nature of the relationship etc. I would then type in “give me a love song about Craig the brave (or kind or loving or whatever) and Belinda his beautiful wife” (daughter, etc).

The AI would spit out some personalised lyrics (to which of course they said “that’s us”, no matter how corny or generalised the actual lyrics were). To really blow them away I would paste the lyrics into a suno like tool and play them an actual song.

Before AI, if a person like even thought of creating a personalised song like this he would have to go to a lot of trouble and expense.

AI (and BIAB for that matter) is democratising the process of music creation. Just like Canva has democratised design , Shopify e-commerce, Amazon publishing , Robinhood investing, etc.

But that person isn't creating a personalized song.

They are having a personalized song created for them.

In the past, it would have had to be created by a person, who would have some set of expenses. With AI, the expenses are entirely different, and far less.

AI has made personalized songs accessible to everyone by removing the traditional costs. Music can now be created by AI cheaply, and on a mass scale.

AI music differs significantly from Canva, Shopify, Amazon publishing, Robinhood investing, etc. These are all web-based applications that have leveraged the UI, making it possible for ordinary users to interact with the applications in a way that doesn't require them to be experts. Cost reduction has come about by generalizing a process, and then spreading those costs over many users.

With Shopify and Canva, the tools like templates and widgets have been created by the company. Users choose templates and then customize them. You can't just tell Shopify that you want a website that looks like some other website you've seen on the internet. They are basically iterations of similar layout applications that have been available for decades. This is also true for Amazon publishing, Robinhood investing, and so on.

In contrast, cost-reducing democratization in AI has come about because AI has mined millions of songs on the internet without regard to ownership. It has played, analyzed, deconstructed, and stored that analysis in a format that allows reconstruction of the material in a new configuration. The sounds that AI generates aren't an imitation of the instruments and voices, they are a literal amalgamation of those instruments and voices, down to fret noises and vocal tics.

The people whose music is used as raw material for AI have paid the cost of purchasing, learning, and recording instruments. AI bears none of these costs, because it doesn't compensate the people who paid those costs. While there are licensing agreements, they reflect the clout of the licensed artists, not the percentage to which those artists contributed to the AI's training.

So while these are all tools that have reduced barriers to entry, the means by which they've done this are entirely different.

AI..... it's already killing some aspects of original music.

I was, for a period of time, one of the writers for the biggest of the custom song companies. It was income that was much better than streaming income, and faster than my BMI income. They would send me jobs for writing a custom song for a client. The client would include the details.... their story, and I had a couple of days to write, record, and submit the song. It was fun. I had to write quickly and meet that deadline. Early on, a couple of years ago, I was getting quite a few jobs. Then, as AI started to be a thing, I noticed the jobs dropping off to nothing. This drop-off was noticeable this year.

Why would someone pay $100 or more for a song, wait a week, and then get the song which may not be exactly what you want, when you can get a free, or low cost AI account for a month, input the prompt info, and have a really good quality song that includes the information you want, and get it in 20 seconds?

“why would someone pay $100 or more for a song, wait a week, and then get the song which may not be exactly what you want, when you can get a free, or low cost AI account for a month, input the prompt info, and have a really good quality song that includes the information you want, and get it in 20 seconds?”

Exactly my point. And if you don’t like what is generated just tweak a few prompts and regenerate in another 20 whole seconds.

How this thread got started.

I left the guitar, piano/keyboard, tube amplifier building, PG Music forum, and most everything else to rebuild a boat I bought.

Shortly before I left, I had acquired some new software to produce vocals. David Cuny was very well-versed in the software, so he helped me get started. Thanks, David!

Around that same time or a little before I found ChatGPT. That was the first AI I had anything directly to do with that I was aware of.

As the boat is more or less finished I now have time to get back to music and this forum. Well, there is the issue of spending more time with my wife before she changes the locks on the front door...lol

One of the first things I wanted to know was what had changed in the last year.

I have never been able to sing very well. That never stopped me but you guys have had to endure my vocals so you no the issue...lol

That is why I started looking for a software solution to produce vocals.

I had never heard the word Suno, had no idea what it was or could do. I logged on to the site, put in a three or four-word prompt and what I considered very plausible music was generated.

At that moment I was not giving any thought to the wider implications of AI-generated music.

I certainly have empathy for those among us who have been negatively affected economically by AI.

On any controversial subject, we tend to discuss all the problems. We rarely have in-depth conversations about possible solutions.

The economic realities of the music business have been seriously problematic all of my lifetime, and I suspect forever.

For me personally, I decided when I was very young to engage in ways to make money that supported my desire to play music and forgo the riggers of trying to make money playing music.

I also had a love for flying airplanes but knew the same general conditions existed for pilots, unstable working conditions. So I never depended on flying to make a living. Same for boating.

Yes, I play music and sometimes spend stupid sums of money doing so. Yes, I have a multi-engine instrument-rated commercial pilot licenses and type ratings that I paid ungodly sums of money to acquire and yes I have a US Coast Guard Masters Ship license. And yes I have occasionally made a few dollars doing all three things.

So, I solved the issue of being a slave and working for peanuts in the music business by working my butt off in my own businesses and at times working for corporate America. I am pushing 80 and I am still working.
That answer may not work for others.

We should discuss how we solve the economic issues caused by AI for people here who are actually being affected on this site. And further how we deal with the emotional issues of having to deal with AI.

Many of us have been around here for years and know each other pretty well. Some of us have sat down and eaten dinner together. We should try to support each other.

Cheers,

Billy

Well said Billy!

I've long had a wee side-dream of being a successful singer-songwriter. "Successful" meaning making a living at it or maybe even making a fortune! But I've never managed to realize more than a few thousand $ a year.

And to be fair, I was never willing to take the big risks, put it all on the line, bet the farm to achieve that success. So I chose another hobby, computer programming and web design, and turned that into a mighty lucrative career that more than pays the bills and also supports my music hobby!

I still sometimes dream of one of my songs getting the attention of someone "big" but I am realizing the chances of that keep getting smaller and smaller. The democratization of music tools with stuff like BIAB, VST3i, DAWs, etc. have meant the competition is more fierce than ever before. And it was already fierce before!

And now that AI has arrived I'm guessing everything is going to change. The big corporations that control the music industry will certainly embrace AI if they can convince their customers to embrace it. I would imagine they are already thinking about how to shed those disruptive musicians and songwriters and replace them with a stable stable of AI writers, singers and musicians!

But will music customers embrace or even accept such a transition? Well they already accepted pre-fab "bands", lip-synced "live" performances, autotuned vox and similar compromises. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure enough people will accept one more step, AI, in this music experience.

I guess there may still be live music opportunities but I could see how they could get downgraded as well. I recall 20 years ago seeing a Beatles cover band that was pretty dang good. During the first 3rd of their act (early Beatles) I started wondering how the 4 musician/actors on stage would be able to replicate the strings of Eleanor Rigby or the sitar, tambura, dilruba and tabla of Within You Without You. Then I noticed the 5th "Beatle" upstage right, almost in the dark, with his synthesizer and playback equipment. I still enjoyed the show.

So maybe, just maybe, the dystopian music future has started? Music and lyrics will be generated by AI and performed "live" on stage by low-paid actors.

And maybe the AI will mean the complete democratization of music creation and production?

Now everyone can create songs that no one will listen to!

Or, as local synth vocal expert dcuny says,

"Now everyone can have AI create songs that no one will listen to!"

Cost savings comes in many forms. This article talks about how Spotify has gamed their music list by directing users content that Spotify owns.

What looked to be over 650 artists turned out to be a single musician. And by having users unknowingly listen to music they owned, Spotify was able to pocket the money that would have gone to some other musician.

Mind you, this was all done without AI. Imagine what can be done with AI. While major artists will continue to be in demand, how will an unknown artist compete when a streaming service actually loses revenue every time a user listens to someone new?

   Now everyone can have AI create songs that no one will listen to!

Fixed that for you.

Thanks David!

“Now everyone can create songs that no one will listen to”

I have to say that this statement might just sum up the creator’s curse. Our egos push us to want others to like our creations. Most of us (myself included) don’t create purely for the sake of creation. We crave validation. We want people to listen to and like what we make.

Maybe AI will make it easier for anyone to create, but the real challenge stays the same: resisting the urge to measure our worth by external validation.

Perhaps the real growth as creators comes when we learn to create for ourselves, whatever tools we choose.

If I had to make up a simplistic and unscientific equation of what Human art (including music) stands for, it would go something like this:
Reflection of "X" (memory, imagination, thought, feeling, concept, etc.) + talent and skill = (Human) Art.
I would also add: randomness intentional, unintentional, or combination of two, but I am hesitant, as all three are closely falling under "imagination".

Joanne,
"Perhaps the real growth as creators"... I am sorry, typing a sentence or two in the search box and pressing enter is not "creating".
Lets be clear for the sake of this argument / discussion. You can't be neutral in judgement (for both sides) by default, as there is an evident conflict of real interest.

“I am sorry, typing a sentence or two in the search box and pressing enter is not "creating". Maybe by your definition. By other’s definition, typing a few chords and pressing generate may not be creating.

Only highlights the ongoing philosophical debate about where the line is drawn. And one that I do not think we are going to solve here. Each to his own.

"Maybe by your definition. By other’s definition, typing a few chords and pressing generate may not be creating."

Of course NOT. Same way as sticking frozen dinner in a microwave doesn't make you a chef.

I think it's clear where the line is drawn. Herb gave an example, performing work for hire for clients:
Without the details supplied by the client, there would be no song. And as work for hire, the client owned the song after it had been created. The inputs and outputs of the process are the same as with AI. But look at the words that Herb used:

• I was, for a period of time, one of the writers
• They would send me jobs for writing a custom song for a client.
• I had a couple of days to write
• I had to write quickly

It's clear that it was Herb that created the song, isn't it?

Even though the client is legally right to say it is "their" song, they aren't legally right to say they "created" it. The creation of the song was done by Herb. As an entity who is able enter into legal contracts, Herb was able to assign away the rights to the song he created to someone else. This is an important point I'll get back to.

AI acts in exactly the same way, in terms of inputs and outputs. The client creates the request as a written prompt, but the request itself is not a song. The prompt the client supplied has to be transformed into a song.

That transformation - the "creation" of the song - is done by AI. Without AI, there would be no song.

The line of song creation is clear - on the side of the line prior to Herb, there client has a request with details, but no song. It's on the other side of the line, where Herb is - that the song is created.

Back to that bit about Herb's ability to sign away the rights to something he created. That's important for a number of reasons.

First, it's legal acknowledgement that the creation of the song was performed by Herb. As the creator, Herb has legal rights to the song, which he allowed to be reassigned by entering into a work for hire contract. If Herb hadn't been created the song, he wouldn't be able to reassign those rights.

But there's another element required for assignment of rights - Herb is a legal entity. If he wasn't, he couldn't reassign rights to the song.

Unlike Herb, AI is not a legal entity that can enter into contracts. As a result, AI can't assign the rights of its creation. That's one of the reasons that using AI in song creation is legally problematic. It's not central to saying who "created" the song, but it is central to saying who can say it's "their" song.

Back to your earlier analogy of AI being akin to using BiaB to create a song. There is a similarity, in that my input into the process is minimal. I enter chords and other information into BiaB, and that input is transformed into audio tracks. The bulk of the work is performed by BiaB.

But unlike using AI, the level of input that that I had over the process is much greater. It's more akin to providing a band with a chord chart. So I can say that I wrote the progression, although people can't legally own a chord progression. If I then supplied the notes, I can say that I wrote the melody, and so on.

An important legal difference between AI and BiaB is that I'm on strong legal ground when I say that I own the backing tracks that BiaB created. That's because the original creators of those tracks are legal entities that assigned their rights over to PG Music, which then assigned them over to me. I may not be the "creator", but I am the legal owner.

The same can't be said for AI, because again, AI is not a legal entity. The source material on which AI was trained was likely not legally transferred to the AI, which is an issue currently in the courts, likely to be resolved through licensing.

And unlike BiaB, it's possible that AI could generate copyright infringing output by cleaving a bit too closely to the source material. In contrast, all the source material in BiaB is safe to use.

As mentioned before, AI isn't a legal entity, so the rights to the final song can't be transferred to the client. Again, this is in contrast with BiaB, where there's a clear legal transfer of ownership. Even if there's no legal claim on the source material, and no legal claim that it's infringing, there is strong legal doubt of ownership.

So even if AI's input into the process was the same as BiaB, there are plenty of legal reasons not to use AI in song generation.

All that aside, I think the line is very clear where the creation of the song happens.

I think David has nailed this pretty solidly with the legal angle. The current batch of online lyrics and music generators have effectively stolen words and music in huge amounts that they can then regurgitate in a "song" that cannot be easily detected as based on unlicensed (stolen) IP. Clearly BIAB and Synth V 1) have NOT stolen their source material and they 2) HAVE licensed it to me to freely use in my own songs. So, from a legal perspective, what I create with BIAB and Synth V are mine while songs created from current AI are NOT mine!

But what this perhaps does not resolve is the ethics of creating songs that are either expressly or implicitly presented as "mine" when, in fact, BIAB and Synth V did the majority of the heavy lifting to turn my rough idea into a commercial quality piece.

But when you start down that rabbit hole you have a myriad of possibilities. Is a drum VSTi valid or should I learn to play drums? Or should I hire a drummer? Are drums with polyester heads OK or should I only use heads made from animal skins? Is it OK to buy animal skin heads online or should I raise my own goats, skin them and make my own heads? And on and on!

One final thought on David's legal argument...once the corporations get a handle on AI they will of course negotiate license terms. Once they do that the exact same (or better) AI tools will exist and now they will be as legal as BIAB and Synth V. But what about the ethics of "creating" legal AI songs vs. BIAB songs?

Excellent conversation BTW!

Just assuming all the legal questions and answers provided by David and others are correct, are they enforceable?

Assuming that AI-generated lyrics can not be copyrighted, how could it be proven in a court of law?

ChatGPT returned this line "KIller at the gate, they're hungry for more" at my request.

I say/swear I wrote that line. Can anyone prove in court that I did not write that line and it was written by an AI?

If there is no way to prove in a court of law that I did not write the lyric and that it was written by an AI then any legal issue relating to lyrics is meaningless. Obviously, if my lyrics said " On a dark desert highway" it would not matter who or how it was written.

Will Sapling and Copyleaks or others stand up in court as it relates to lyrics? I am not talking about copyright infringement issues.

If I get an idea from AI and then rewrite the lyric is it then my original work? How could it not be?

There are millions of musicians who write millions of songs. Who will check to see if they are legal or not as it relates to AI?

For better or worse, there are zillions of people who could give a damn less about questions of ethics. They are quite ready to lie, cheat, and steal for a profit. Therefore we must try to have laws to try to prevent that. The laws have to be enforceable to be of any use.

It is highly illegal to possess and sell Cocaine/stolen guns for example. The fact is, they are for sale on a huge number of street corners, and the laws that are supposed to prevent it can not be enforced basically because it is not economically feasible to do so.

With sound recordings, it should be easy to detect AI generation due to certain artifacts created by AI-generated sound. There is currently a recognizable sound signature in AI-generated recordings.

My guess is that for the most part, very few people will ever be prosecuted for lying about the use of AI.

Part of where I am going with all of this is "Are there other ways to get the results we are looking for other than legal ways"?

It is pretty obvious we can not legislate morality. We have been unable to enforce "our view" of morality by use of force. Traditional religious methods of trying to control morality and in decline.

Somehow we need to come up with a better plan.

About the idea that AI has effectively stolen words and music in huge amounts. Is there any possibility that statement is incorrect? ( I am not saying that statement is incorrect, just asking the question)

If I had spent the last seventy years listening to music and lyrics and used that information to create songs could it be said that I had effectively stolen words and music in huge amounts, small amounts?

Is it permissible to steal words and music in small amounts?

I think most of us would agree that the musicians who created the words and music have a right to own it.

Do they have a right to own the concepts involved and legally prevent AI from using the concepts?

Is Ai picking small parts of songs and sticking them together to produce a new song or has AI figured out the concepts necessary to create a song and is using that or both?

It appears that AI is becoming a big deal in the minds of many of us and causing a considerable amount of fear of loss and gain. Loss of music income for some and gain of music income for others.

I certainly did not anticipate the rabbet hole this thread has gone down...lol

Happy Holiday season to all,

Billy

Well, copyright law is enforceable. But usually it is only enforced in civil court when there is enough money to be made to make it worthwhile. I'd guess AI laws could be similarly enforced if they could be proven to have been broken.

Ah, that is yet to be determined I guess.

Maybe not but maybe so. I can prolly write some code to feed similar ideas into an AI and at some point it may spit out that identical line. If it does then that may be proof that somebody copied somebody!

But a different concern that could be raised (one that I already have with BIAB) is what if the exact same line (or melody riff in BIAB) gets delivered to a dozen or a hundred different people?

I think if you change what the AI gave you in some significant way you'd easily be in the clear.

I guess no one will check anything UNLESS there is big money at stake! Ask Led Zep how much it cost them to have to go back and give co-writing credits to the estates of the artists from whom they stole songs! Me, on the other hand, I could steal those songs all day long and no one would ever care. And the 3 listens I got on Soundcloud were my wife, my mom and my dog anyway (and they'd never rat me out!)

The laws often don't apply to the powerful, as we have seen recently. But that United Healthcare killer? He's going away for a loooong time.

Agreed. Some will be sued in civil court though. And that is still a legal matter. I doubt David was suggesting there will be criminal enforcement of AI usage.

That "better plan" will almost certainly be corporations find a way to license and control AI and we plebes will be charged $14.99/month (or $19.99 if we bundle with the Disney channel!)

An interesting question but it seems kinda clear that if you take IP and then charge others for it, even if you rearranged it, you've prolly broken the law.

It is an excellent conversation!

I hope David and Joanne and others weigh in again.

Careful what you ask for!

The AI "genie" is out of the bottle, and it's not going back. All the legal aspects will be ironed out, likely through some licensing agreement. It's already going that direction.

Unless you're a professional songwriter, those legal issues aren't likely to have any real impact on you.

People are already using AI create stuff, and I'm not telling them not to.

I'm just saying not to take credit for the work that the AI did.

My opinion, which nobody has to agree with:

As a consumer: if a song touches me, I don't care whether it was written by a human,
an AI or an extra-terrestrial hard rock God from Alpha Centauri.
Others may disagree, but I've heard AI-generated songs that were really good.

As a wannabee musician: Like most of you, I have this inner urge to make music to express myself.
To leave that to someone else would take away the very thing that makes me do what I do: creating lyrics, chords and melodies
and solve the puzzle to put it all together until it works or not.
This also includes the ever-present self-doubt:

• Can I even make the song work?
• Is it good?
• Will I ever be able to make a good song again?
• Almost no one ever listens to my music. Do I suck?

As an ethical/philosophical person: I'm fine as long as you don't claim: "I wrote/created this song".
No, you didn't. You told someone else to write it.
If anything, you could call yourself a producer.

As a lawyer (which I am not): If you write software that creates music, that's fine with me as long as all the sources you have used have agreed to be used.
You can't offer a sample player with uncleared samples.

Always learning something from David. I never heard of concatenative synthesis so I looked it up on the internet. Wikipedia described it +++ HERE +++.. You can look at the first reference footnoted in the Wikipedia article to find a really detailed explanation by the researcher that coined the phrase.

Hm, I've not heard that term before, though I correctly surmised the meaning. I was doing some very limited work with the principle back in the 70s and used it fairly extensively through to 2002, when I changed left the company. Ours were phrases, words and phonems ... no shorter, no pitch adjustment.

I have been patiently waiting for an extraterrestrial hard rock God from Alpha Centauri to drop by my house and play some stuff. I can assure you that I will pay attention and try to copy some of His/Her/Its licks. He,her,it will most likely laugh at me in the same way Clarence Gathmouth Brown used to laugh at me when I would sit on the edge of the stage and try to learn his stuff. He used to say come ride with me on the tour bus and perhaps by the time we get from Houston to Austin I can teach you two or three notes lol. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_%22Gatemouth%22_Brown) for all of you who would not know who is.
Perhaps the extraterrestrial hard rock God from Alpha Centauri would give me permission to use his/her/its stuff but permission or not I most likely would use it anyway and suffer the results...lol Who knows how the Alpha Centauri music cops would react...lol

If any of you encounter this rock god please inform her/him/it that they are welcome at my house and that I would also like to go for a ride on the space tour bus, especially if I can drive it for a bit!

This B.D. Thomas person of the above is in my less-than-humble opinion the most avant-garde person on this forum. Highly creative in the outcome of his songs and videos by whatever process he uses. He is technically extremely accurate in his lyrical portrayal of modern-day emotional states experienced by young women in today's culture.

Will anyone listen to music I am a part of creating? Yes, two or three at least. That should be good enough, for me at least.

For me, I have generated only one song with AI. It may be the only one. While it sounded OK it is not something I would enjoy doing other than to experiment.

Not everyone on the planet has the same concept of ownership. Taking things that do not belong to someone is a common idea. Large numbers of us humans steal music, software, and pens from the bank and the office. Crimes and misdemeanors both large and small.

I have wondered with how BIAB-centric the PG Music forum has been in the past, how we would allow any other software process on the site. Or how most of us traditional music creators would permit such modern-day nonsense as AI to arrive here...lol

Alas, sometimes kicking and screaming even the BIAB forum is moving into the future...lol

Cheers from the Bermuda Triangle,

Billy