Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AIVA – Music Engine

aiva.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 21 posts

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#11

Post by pierreb-aiva »

maximp wrote: post #9

I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click…

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :)

The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo

Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA.

The value we are trying to add for composers is by giving them an original, 2-3 minutes long theme in seconds, that they can modify however they want in their own creative workflow (Digital Audio Workstation or Notation program). You could think of this as a composition assistance that gives you a sketch, as opposed to starting out with a blank slate, and potentially having to face writer's block.

FYI, our closed beta is going live in early January, and we'll be on-boarding new users on a regular basis from there.

Hope that clarifies!

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#12

Post by pierreb-aiva »

zozbot123 wrote: post #4

Note that the orchestration on the available AIVA tracks is (at least as far as one can tell) entirely manual. Even the music itself may well be more like the result of a process involving both the 'AI' and the human producer, than something truly generated 'end to end',[1] free of manual intervention! (Not that there's anything wrong with the former; it might be the best way of ending up with a truly compelling and…

Hi there! :)

Indeed, up till now, all of the orchestral tracks we released where orchestrated by humans.

However, we've just finished automating that part of the process as well; our Beta will allow users to generate scores that are orchestrated for a wide variety of ensembles.

And regarding our database, we have over 30.000 scores right now, digitized in MIDI format. :)

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#13

Post by neurotrace »

pierreb-aiva wrote: post #11
maximp wrote: post #9

I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click…

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add…

I had a similar experience and seeing that video made things a lot more clear. I'd recommend putting that on your website. Anyway, looks like a great tool!

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#14

Post by zozbot123 »

pierreb-aiva wrote: post #11
maximp wrote: post #9

I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click…

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add…

> The value we are trying to add for composers is by giving them an original, 2-3 minutes long theme in seconds, that they can modify however they want

I actually like this a lot compared to AIVA's most obvious competitor (Jukedeck). Jukedeck promises a finished product in seconds, and their output always ends up sounding really, really tacky as a result. And I actually mean that it sounds really, really tacky for royalty-free music, so that ought to tell y'all something! Now, say anything about AIVA's existing output, but tacky it is not. In fact, it seems to show quite a bit of the "true", weird, serendipitous creativity that also occurs in openly-available, verifiably end-to-end systems (and that makes their output musically interesting), so there's clearly some real achievement here.

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#15

Post by pierreb-aiva »

neurotrace wrote: post #13
pierreb-aiva wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add…

I had a similar experience and seeing that video made things a lot more clear. I'd recommend putting that on your website. Anyway, looks like a great tool!

Thanks for the feedback, we will improve the website’s presentation!

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#16

Post by pierreb-aiva »

zozbot123 wrote: post #14
pierreb-aiva wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add…

> The value we are trying to add for composers is by giving them an original, 2-3 minutes long theme in seconds, that they can modify however they want I actually like this a lot compared to AIVA's most obvious competitor (Jukedeck). Jukedeck promises a finished product in seconds, and their output always ends up sounding really, really tacky as a result. And I actually mean that it sounds really, really tacky for ro…

I think that’s a great summary of our competitive advantage. We spend a lot of time making sure that we get the right balance between quality, personalization and serendipity, to ensure that we’re actually helping composers write interesting music

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#17

Post by cronix »

Does the AI get the music award now? The art is then the AI algorithms and not the human. I wouldn't value an "artist" who "created" their "art" this way. It's not really them.

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#18

Post by yellowapple »

pierreb-aiva wrote: post #11
maximp wrote: post #9

I spent 5 minutes going through your website, and am still confused about what you do. > Music Engine / AI at the service of Composers > The most ambitious composers create memorable and uniquely personalized scores. Our Music Engine was built to scale and supercharge your creative process. This made me think that your tools would help me compose. However, the demos seem to show music just being created at the click…

Hi! I'm Pierre, one of AIVA's cofounders :) The tool we are developing is indeed aimed at composer. Have you seen this video which walks you through the interface? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU3UI7iJSo Basically, you can select an influence (either stylistic, like Modern Cinematic, or using an existing piece of music), create a piece, and download the MIDI file generated by AIVA. The value we are trying to add…

I kinda think this'd be useful the other way around; after coming up with a primary melody/theme/motif, I'd want to feed it into some sort of AI that automatically handles generating variations on that melody/theme/motif.

I don't do as much composition as I'd like to anymore (mostly due to a lack of time and due to writer's block), but a lot of my writer's block doesn't come from the initial blank slate (I have no problem doodling about on an instrument or with my voice or on FLStudio/LMMS/Rosegarden/etc.) but rather from fleshing out ideas into full songs (I'm especially terrible at endings).

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#19

Post by zozbot123 »

cronix wrote: post #17

Does the AI get the music award now? The art is then the AI algorithms and not the human. I wouldn't value an "artist" who "created" their "art" this way. It's not really them.

> The art is... the AI algorithms ...

To the extent that this is a common POV, it is a bit of a problem for AIVA, in contrast with open systems. Because how do you assess the "art" that might or might not be embodied in AIVA's algorithms, when those algorithms are not in fact available for scrutiny? Where's the compelling expression, the impressiveness, that is supposed to be a defining feature of "true" art? It's nowhere to be seen, really - all we have is some "magic" and we can at best surmise about what it might be doing under the hood. The developers of, e.g. BachBot, DeepBach and other open systems seem to be in a rather more enviable position as "true" artists!

Re: AIVA – Music Engine

#20

Post by cronix »

zozbot123 wrote: post #19
cronix wrote: post #17

Does the AI get the music award now? The art is then the AI algorithms and not the human. I wouldn't value an "artist" who "created" their "art" this way. It's not really them.

> The art is... the AI algorithms ... To the extent that this is a common POV, it is a bit of a problem for AIVA, in contrast with open systems. Because how do you assess the "art" that might or might not be embodied in AIVA's algorithms, when those algorithms are not in fact available for scrutiny? Where's the compelling expression, the impressiveness, that is supposed to be a defining feature of "true" art? It's no…

It's basically like Antares Autotune in music, to correct "singers" who can't really actually sing, which is most in the top charts today. There are few current top-chart artists who can truly sing (Gaga, Sheeran are some who can actually sing - with 0 effects). I'm not talking about using it as a vocal effect, but as it was originally intended - to correct pitch of singers who can't really sing. Although I think many using it as an effect also can't really sing and hide behind the effect to mask that fact. It's just a crutch for sub-par singers.
Post reply on HN