The Sound of AI Music: Berlin Hears the Future
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
AI’s presence grows, reshaping the industry.
No strings to strum, no beats played manually,
But can it replace human creativity?
The credits for these lyrics do not go to Freddie Mercury or any other human being, but to ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that makes educated guesses about its responses. Today, artificial intelligence tools can not only write lyrics, but they can also compose melodies and generate voices.
At a time when these technological developments have been perceived as a threat to artistic originality in the music industry around the world, Berlin-based artists, producers and other industry professionals say they are not afraid to be replaced by computers.
“I don’t think that human creativity can be replaced,” Matthias Strobel, a Berlin-based music and tech entrepreneur said. “Instead, I think AI is going to extend the creative horizon of artists.”
Berlin, historically a trailblazer in the music industry for pioneering technologies such as synthesizers, drum machines, and electronic music in general— think techno — is already living up to its reputation as an innovative powerhouse. New AI projects on the Berlin scene include those that assist disabled musicians, another that allows independent musicians to keep track of their royalties, and the first ever AI-composed opera.
Studios and startups around the city have embraced AI technology and envision an industry in which human creativity is augmented rather than replaced by AI. They predict that AI will lead to a democratization of the industry as new technologies become more accessible.
Strobel is the founder and president of MusicTech Germany, a music technology association that is aiding the music industry’s transition to the digital age. He is the founder of Wicked Artists, a booking agency for technologically creative artists. He lectures about music tech entrepreneurship at the Berlin campus of New York University (NYU). And Strobel works together with Handiclapped, a Berlin-based charity that helps musicians with disabilities and inclusive bands to get more gigs, under the motto “inclusion rocks.”
Sitting on a terrace along the Frankfurter Allee, close to his home in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district, Strobel said the music industry has historically taken its time to embrace technological developments.
“Back in the days you had orchestras sitting at radio stations, playing music. They did that for ages. And then there was recorded music. Suddenly all orchestra players were saying that they could jump out the window because there was no future for them,” Strobel said.
The arrival of the synthesizer awakened a similar fear amongst musicians, as did MP3 players and online music streaming. And now there is AI.
Strobel characterizes Berlin as a place where musicians and tech creatives are likely to find each other and collaborate, because of the vibrant local scene and because partnerships have proven successful in the past.
He points to the startup ‘seeqnc,’ co-founded by Albert Gruber, to illustrate how AI can contribute to a fairer music industry. Seeqnc works to create a more transparent music industry by using AI technology to track and then notify artists, labels and rights organizations when their songs are being played at clubs, festivals and on livestream platforms like YouTube and Twitch. The end goal is for artists to receive their fair share of royalties, which they are currently missing out on.
Gruber, also known as DJ/Producer AlBird, works from Riverside Studios Berlin, a creative hub that is home to 52 artists and 27 recording studios. Riverside Studios is situated on the border of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, in the heart of the Media Spree, a large investment project that houses media and technology companies along the Spree river.
Its location amid other music studios, startups and concert venues allows for many collaborations and other opportunities. Gruber casually mentions an afterparty of pop star Robbie Williams and an impromptu recording session of rock band Radiohead. He points to a mixing desk in his studio that used to belong to Pink Floyd, just as Anatole “Toto” Serret, the drummer for Australian funk band The Parcels, walks past.
With the splashing sounds of the Spree in the background, Gruber explained that the idea for seeqnc began after a friend called him to say that Richie Hawtin, one of the biggest artists in the electronic music scene, had just played Gruber’s song. If this friend had not attended that particular concert, Gruber would have never found out.
“The news was amazing, but it would have been great to know of other instances too,” Gruber said. “Because it could have helped me with the promotion of my song release.”
Gruber quickly realized he was not alone. For artists, especially those creating electronic music, there was practically no way to find out if their songs were being played at concerts, clubs or livestreams, causing them to miss out on income and rendering them financially dependent on bookings and performances.
“This leads niche, underground and independent artists to miss out on substantial revenue,” Gruber said. By contrast, a single song play at a major festival could earn an artist between 600 and 1000 euros, if they were to know about it.
So, Gruber sat down with friends to discuss whether the latest technology could help. With a team of five people, ranging from technology gurus to businessmen and artists, they rolled out a first beta version of seeqnc in 2018. Right now, the software behind seeqnc is able to detect songs, keep a track list and notify artists when their song is being played somewhere. It can even recognize songs when DJs perform their own interpretation of it. In the future, seeqnc should be able to detect AI-generated voices as well.
Gruber believes an AI-powered initiative such as seeqnc promises a fairer music industry. “It already gives artists and labels more visibility,” he said. “And it helps them protect their rights.”
Empowering tools like seeqnc are the kind of democratization that music tech entrepreneur Strobel has in mind for the AI revolution. Still, he acknowledges that not all artists will directly benefit from AI and some will have to teach themselves new skills in order to stay up to date with the industry. “But their jobs are not disappearing,” Strobel said. “They are changing.”
And these downsides of AI are small compared to the creative potential, Strobel finds. AI tools can provide suggestions and inspiration from outside one’s own musical bubble, augmenting human creativity.
One example is kling klang klong, a creative studio in Berlin that pushes the boundaries of sound by incorporating AI into the creative workflow. Its musicians and technologists compose sound and code for exhibitions, museums and events around the world.
Kling klang klong’s studios are located in a classic Friedrichshain apartment, with high ceilings and a worn stairwell. The studios are spacious and the atmosphere is laid-back with some employees walking around barefoot.
In 2022, kling klang klong collaborated with Hong Kong flautist and composer Angus Lee on the score for the world’s first AI opera, chasing waterfalls, that was performed at the Semperoper Dresden and the Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival.
Kling klang klong was commissioned by phase7 performing.arts as part of the composition team that also included T-Systems MMS, a German software consulting firm.
Julien Herion of kling klang klong describes himself as a sound-enthusiast who always wanted to score films. He is a composer, sound designer and mixing engineer and was involved with training the AI system for chasing waterfalls.
Part of training the AI system meant hiring renowned Norwegian soprano Eir Inderhaug to record 50 children’s songs, so the computer could learn about the fluctuation, intonation, and volume of the human voice. Much more human input was required to fully train the AI system, but Herion was impressed by the value that AI added on its own.
“Somewhere in the process, the AI system started adding breathing sounds to the voice, even though we had not given these instructions ourselves,” he said.
On every day that chasing waterfalls was scheduled to be performed, the kling klang klong team would let the AI system generate ten versions of the opera. After this, they would pick the best version, Herion would alter it a bit and then the opera was ready for that night.
And it’s not just special projects like chasing waterfalls. Herion also sees potential for AI to replace some of his daily, repetitive tasks — for example, when he is composing long pieces of background music for games or videos. “Sometimes it can really feel like conveyor belt work,” he said.
But Herion also considers this to be the point where he runs up against the limitations of AI, wondering how original the AI output can be when it is merely trying to imitate a selection of human input. When working on chasing waterfalls, Herion already noticed that the different AI compositions sounded a lot like each other.
This relationship between human input and the originality of AI output has already sparked debate and controversy. How does one define “original” and when does AI-generated music infringe the copyright of others? Legal rulings on these questions may determine what the music charts will sound like ten years from now.
Attorney Vera Zambrano, who has represented artists and musicians in Germany and the U.S. in all possible constellations, stresses that we are entering a defining phase in copyright law. “Currently, the law is far behind on technology, simply because the current copyright laws were implemented before AI even existed,” she said.
Slowly but steadily, intellectual property law is rising in priority, which became apparent in April this year. A TikTok user by the name of ghostwriter977 released a song on streaming platforms titled “Heart on My Sleeve,” which sounded like a collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd. The song became an internet hit overnight, but before it could reach its full potential it disappeared from the internet.
“Apparently, the legal teams behind the two Canadian superstars managed to take the song down by means of an out-of-court-settlement,” Zambrano said. “But it is unclear how they did this.”
It is still too early to call which direction the law is going to go, but it is clear that AI will play an increasingly big role in the production of music. In discussing “Heart on my Sleeve” with NPR, Stanford University professor Ge Wang said that we are witnessing just the beginning. “The cat is not going back in the bag,” he said. But it could take many years before the law catches up with today’s technology, let alone tomorrow’s.
Still, lawyer Zambrano is optimistic about rights for the musicians of tomorrow. She says that artists have the constitution on their side as long as they are not intentionally and purposely copying somebody else’s work without permission. Besides, AI systems get their inspiration from the past, just like humans do. “It’s impossible to make music that sounds like nothing that came before it,” Zambrano said.
Pascal Staub, a creative technologist at kling klang klong, backs that up from a technological viewpoint. “I think it’s not unethical if AI produces something that’s similar to what has been there before,” he said. “Because that’s what happens in art all the time. Artists see something and build upon it.”
As a creative technologist, Staub uses software and hardware to build interactive musical tools that allow users to create audiovisual works. He constantly explores the potential and the limitations of AI.
Based on his experiences to date, Staub sees little reason for musicians to be scared of AI. He is not even a fan of the term AI. “It is not very artificial and it is not very intelligent,” he said. It is not very artificial because the output is just a reproduction of the input, he says. And it is not very intelligent because AI systems are one-trick ponies. In the case of ChatGPT, this trick is text production.
As a result, AI systems are very dependent on those operating them: humans. This means the music industry has little to worry about, especially considering other more threatening ways in which AI can be employed. “I’m not scared of AI replacing me,” Staub said. “I’m more scared of states using AI for law enforcement, military purposes and killing people.”
But in music, AI can hardly be thought of as a threat. “It’s more of a tool, like a keyboard, a synthesizer or an effect pedal for the guitar, that you can use creatively,” Staub said.
In other words, AI is the newest instrument on the market and Berliners will be among the first to master it.
Kamiel Vermeulen is a graduate student in Journalism and International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris. He is reporting from Berlin this summer for “Berlin Beyond Borders.”
