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Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

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Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#51

Post by askafriend »

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe.

It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understand the music but lack the branding and persona development that gets people to actually stick to their music.

AI produced music will be like computer generated art - too distant for most people unless there is another component on top of the music.

That's my initial take. Curious to see what people think of my opinion.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#52

Post by sdflkd »

askafriend wrote: post #51

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe. It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understa…

> Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe.

A large part is the evolution of the persona too. Following his growth as an individual has been amazing (although House of Balloons is still my favorite project).

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#53

Post by drewsilverstein »

drawbars wrote: post #47
drewsilverstein wrote: post #33

Hey guys... Drew from Amper here. Thanks for the feedback!

Is the mixing automated too? At what points are humans touching these compositions? (Meaning your soundcloud entries)

Thanks for asking. The entire composition, performance, and production is done by Amper. The music on Soundcloud is Amper's direct output without any human intervention.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#54

Post by backpropaganda »

askafriend wrote: post #51

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe. It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understa…

While you're correct, AI musicians can easily have all the features of a real musician. Check out Hatsune Miku. Although the music and lyrics are written by humans, the singer is a completely fictional character who sings (generates) the music. Fans love her (it?). So, we've already solved the persona problem. Just need to generate good lyrics and melody as well now.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#55

Post by dcre »

askafriend wrote: post #51

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe. It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understa…

> too distant for most people unless there is another component on top of the music

That's exactly the point of this tool. This tool is meant to produce background music for commercials that's cheaper than what's currently available. The "another component" is the crap that music is in the background of.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#56

Post by franciscop »

askafriend wrote: post #51

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe. It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understa…

I totally agree, search for Vocaloid or Hatsune Miku for a similar thing. I even went to a live performance in Japan (probably as the only foreigner from what I saw) and it was amazing.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#57

Post by austinjp »

Retric wrote: post #42
SwellJoe wrote: post #36

$4M would pay for a lot of mediocre human composers to produce a lot of mediocre music. I understand the value proposition here and it's neat technology, I just think it might still be a little bit early for millions to be pouring into the field. Every example I've heard of "AI music" has been some level of failure. But, maybe they just need a few million dollars to throw at the problem, and it'll go away.

The real niche IMO is in game music. If you can get the music to respond in real time to players actions without becoming repetitive that's probably worth 100+M across the industry even if it's never 'great'.

In its day, Rez achieved this more convincingly than many games. It was a real ear opener.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#58

Post by midhunsezhi »

romaniv wrote: post #17

We can't automate filling out Excel spreadsheets, but investing 4 million dollars in automating music creation. Meanwhile there are plenty of CC-licensed tracks and plenty of aspiring composers/producers who would gladly work on creating tracks for "commercials or short online videos" for very reasonable price.

need for filling out excel sheets automatically is not greater or lesser than music automation. One field doesn't have to wait for the other to be solved imo.

Also, there are plenty of able workers ready to fill Excel sheet for a very reasonable price but that is not the point here either.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#59

Post by empath75 »

mb_72 wrote: post #15
empath75 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely formulaic by design so I think that it's maybe not that far off.

As a 'traditional musician' (i.e. I play a couple of instruments, read music, jam and write songs with real humans etc), I used to think this way, however actual 'good' club music takes a lot of time to produce in terms of selection and mixing and mastering of sounds. A friend of mine, who is a talented performer and producer, deconstructed some of these tracks for me, and pointed out just how much effort and talent…

I used to be a rave DJ and am friends with a couple of producers. The core of a dance music track is pretty well dictated by the sub-genre.

You can do a lot with a few wel chosen loops and generative music algorithms. What really sets off the best techno tracks is engineering and mixing, and I actually think that might be harder to get right with AI.

Re: Amper raises $4M to use AI to write music

#60

Post by ss248 »

backpropaganda wrote: post #54
askafriend wrote: post #51

Music, entertainment, and branding cannot be separated in the mainstream. Let me put it this way - a large reason I listen to The Weeknd is because of the interesting lifestyle and excess that he portrays through his branding, his music videos, and his whole persona/vibe. It's never just about the music, which is why you see a ton of amazingly talented SoundCloud producers that no one has ever heard of. They understa…

While you're correct, AI musicians can easily have all the features of a real musician. Check out Hatsune Miku. Although the music and lyrics are written by humans, the singer is a completely fictional character who sings (generates) the music. Fans love her (it?). So, we've already solved the persona problem. Just need to generate good lyrics and melody as well now.

Not really. Hatsune Miku is more like an instrument. Like piano or violin, but synthesized human voice (not completely synthesized even, they used voice samples from the real human). Miku is one of many vocaloids. You can think of vocaloid as family of instruments, like violin family in traditional music with violin, viola, cello etc. In my opinion, she is not even the best vocaloid, but most widely known for sure. And, as with all musical instruments, it all comes to how composer uses her. Most songs you hear only because composer is already fairly popular in doujin circles.

AI generated music is completely different field, because AI is the composer there. This is why in the original article they talk about how they want to create symbiosis of AI and human composer, essentially creating another tool aka instrument, but this time human needs to do even less in terms of actual music creation.

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