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

MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

ai.honu.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 340 posts

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#131

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

This is still pretty deep in the uncanny valley. None of the rock examples for example even sound very much like guitar. One sounds more like trance, the others seem more like metal than rock(though interestingly trance is a lot more similar to metal than you might think. It's just hard to notice at the surface level due to very different instruments).

Then again, in this case I don't mind. I'm sure someone like Simon Posford could do some really wacky sampling based off of this.

Don't see myself using it to make music just for my own listening though(not much of a composer). That's still a long ways off.

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#132

Post by jsheard »

bottlepalm wrote: post #93
jsheard wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really could have super dynamic music in a video game for instance that changes based on the time of day, environment, situation, mood, etc.. all combined. Games can and do already do this, dynamic sequencing of music from a pool of stems has been common practice for a while. Maybe this could let you do it cheaper, and AI could go more granular by creating new stems on the fly, but the onus is still on the AI d…

Like I said, cynical/jaded internet commenter - I don't need Mick Gordon's dynamic compositions, I just need some background music for my game that's good enough. And no you can't do this already: const musicSpeed = inFightSequence ? 'intense' : 'chill'; const musicPrompt = `drum and bass beat with ${musicSpeed} percussions`; playMusic(musicPrompt);

I wish you luck with your game which constantly oscillates between https://youtu.be/dLkFh9Kn8AU?t=60 and https://youtu.be/gQktj-WkgEo?t=75 because you didn't put any thought into the music beyond telling the computer to make "chill DnB" and "intense DnB".

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#133

Post by tumult »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #125
tumult wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like some force of nature is causing this to occur. These things exist because people are making them, despite there no longer being a healthy reason for doing so. (I’m not saying there’s reason for AI development in general to stop, but these generative things that are designed to slot neatly into the role of human artists specifically have no reason to be developed further beyond proving it was po…

The force of nature is that our society will utilize any technology before even considering its ramifications. "Touchscreens in cars? Let's do it!" I think you might enjoy Neil Postman's book "Technopoly", which discusses the subject of weighing the pros and cons of a subject instead of just diving in headfirst every time some new technology is developed. His YouTube talks are also great.

I think that’s more of an emergent behavior, not a force of nature. But I agree that enough people might do stupid stuff to create this kind of emergent behavior, which seems to be happening now. Like maybe 90% or more of people think these art AIs are distasteful, but enough people can’t stop themselves from filling in the blank square where something is possible to create but hasn’t been created yet, so people keep trying to make it. Even though there doesn’t seem to be any upside or goal, since I’ve never gotten an explanation of one.

And I think if you’re going to create something that has a little bit of potential to harm at least a few people, you should at least have a decent goal or reason for creating it.

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#134

Post by cutler »

jimbokun wrote: post #106
yantrams wrote: post #53

I'm just weirded about the fact that conversation about something AS EPIC AS THIS is so boring and rudderless here on hacker news of all places. I mean like YESTERDAY I did not have this superpower to summon something as majestic as say https://fb.watch/l4ssOD40M4/ with a simple 'A quirky and skronky Aphex twin sample that just hits you' Edits: I woke up to this news delivered from Yann Lecun himself in the morning o…

Because we like music for the fun of making it, and the shared emotional connection felt with the artist (whether it's real or not, knowing a human wrote and performed a piece allows you to imagine this connection). I don't know what the point of machine generated music is. Just destroying one of the few remaining ways for people to make a living doing something creative, I guess. The promise of automation was to hav…

You said it for me. Muzak lives on.

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#135

Post by wooque »

yantrams wrote: post #53

I'm just weirded about the fact that conversation about something AS EPIC AS THIS is so boring and rudderless here on hacker news of all places. I mean like YESTERDAY I did not have this superpower to summon something as majestic as say https://fb.watch/l4ssOD40M4/ with a simple 'A quirky and skronky Aphex twin sample that just hits you' Edits: I woke up to this news delivered from Yann Lecun himself in the morning o…

Because that doesn't sound a bit like Aphex Twin and sounds like some generic filler music.

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#137

Post by bluefishinit »

jimbokun wrote: post #106
yantrams wrote: post #53

I'm just weirded about the fact that conversation about something AS EPIC AS THIS is so boring and rudderless here on hacker news of all places. I mean like YESTERDAY I did not have this superpower to summon something as majestic as say https://fb.watch/l4ssOD40M4/ with a simple 'A quirky and skronky Aphex twin sample that just hits you' Edits: I woke up to this news delivered from Yann Lecun himself in the morning o…

Because we like music for the fun of making it, and the shared emotional connection felt with the artist (whether it's real or not, knowing a human wrote and performed a piece allows you to imagine this connection). I don't know what the point of machine generated music is. Just destroying one of the few remaining ways for people to make a living doing something creative, I guess. The promise of automation was to hav…

> I don't know what the point of machine generated music is.

One point is that music fans can now make their own music. I think it's great that people can express themselves and it's not limited to those who put in 10k+ hours to master a single instrument. More people creating is a good thing.

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#138

Post by polytely »

SeanLuke wrote: post #24
satvikpendem wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting older. Every generation thinks the same, that media is getting worse, discounting the survivorship bias that occurs when they look back on their favorite music and discarding all of the bad music that was present back then.

This is no doubt true, but there are a number of studies which suggest that, at least in the case of music, things really have gotten rather worse over the last two decades, thanks to corporatization and consolidation of the production model.

This is only if you listen to the most mainstream, general audience top 40 pop content-sludge.

There is an overwhelming amount of good music out there. Pick an album top 50 list from 2022, for example fantano's, or pitchfork, check out bandcamp's staff picks, listen to other musicians that are on the same label as your favourite band, keep an eye on things like NPR Tiny Desk, KEXP, la blogothèque on YouTube.

Just start listening. You are almost guaranteed to stumble upon something you like. It won't come to you algorithmically but the effort required is really low.

My favourite new album I discovered last year was Immanuel Wilkin's The 7th Hand [1], I stumbled upon it by going through a top 20 jazz albums of 2022 list to see if I had missed anything, and it immediately jumped out at me as being exactly the shit I'm into.

1: https://youtube.com/watch?v=141y8ikOsyE

Re: MusicGen: Simple and controllable music generation

#140

Post by bluefishinit »

skrebbel wrote: post #82
rubicon33 wrote: post #7

Maybe I'm just getting older but I feel like the quality of both music and film has seriously declined over the last 5-10 years. Maybe the good stuff is still out there but lost in a sea of average garbage that has surfaced to the top. Something tells me AI isn't going to rescue us either. I just sampled a bunch of these generated tracks and they immediately remind me of the average, mediocre, soul-lacking content th…

Sounds to me like you've simply stopped trying. When I was 20 I was a music snob into Aphex Twin and weird IDM. I thought all pop at the time was crap, like you seem to. But then I heard, I mean like really heard, "Bye Bye Bye" by *NSYNC and seriously that is a good song! I'm 40 now and I think it got way better even since then. Pop is so varied now! I really don't think music as quirky and weird as, say, Billie Eili…

> hey invent new genres for every song, they wear Metallica t-shirts in 2023, and they mix 80s disco with 00's Brit rock like it's just what people do.

If this appeals to you, it's worth checking out Japanese music from the Showa era to present. They've long mixed styles in a way other music markets have not. You can hear city pop songs from the 80s with metal guitar solos, jazz progressions a samba beat and synths, all in the same song.

Post reply on HN