Reply To: Sonible Releases smart:comp3 Today

[LinkedMusicians]

On jude77 said

As AI progresses, it makes me wonder what the future holds.  Presently, plugins like this fascinate me, and I realize they will only grow more complex and capable over time.  I think I’d like to be alive when quantum computers hitI thi the home market to see what happens.

I use AI for help with analyzing audio, in the mixing and mastering phases. I realize that what gets more attention these days is people using AI to write songs, to perform the music, but for me, that misses the entire joy of making music. To me, to sit down and create using your hands, your feet, your voice, that is an extension of ourselves, our individuality, our humanity. That’s what makes music very special. Turning that over to a machine, that’s like devaluing a painting from Renoir or a composition from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. and thinking that artificial intelligence that learns from art and really only mimics, but is unable to be truly original, could be equal.

Back when I was a working musician, I turned to audio engineers at live shows. I mic’ed up my drums, I learned from audio engineers — live sound and studio engineers — what mics to buy, what effects to buy. I basically just took their advice and bought what they told me was best. What I brought to the table was my playing. That was my skillset, not engineering. I was doing multitrack recordings since I was maybe 12 or 13, and I bought a PA and monitors of my own for rehearsals for jam sessions when I was in my early 20s. But I never learned how to work with any of that stuff at an advanced level. So, these days, while I’ve learned a lot more about audio engineering, I still don’t know that much and a lot of hobbyists in our community who’ve never played professionally know much more than I probably ever will. AI tools from Sonible, iZotope, and Toontrack (I use EZmix a lot on vocals — and vocals are the most challenging part of mixing for me). Those AI tools allow me to do what I could not do without them. For mastering, I really just rely on one tool, Izotope Ozone. Granted, I’m sure that my stuff doesn’t sound super polished, but, again, these tools allow me to do what I could not achieve without them. But I would never turn to AI tools to create or perform music. To use a baseball analogy, it’s far worse than a player taking steroids to up his performance. Using AI tools for audio processing, however, is fair game, IMO.

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