Let’s Look Into Music’s Crystal Ball And Be Happy With What We See
by LEE JOHNSON
Generative AI technology for language and artwork has already had a profound impact on our world. The technology is in use now commercially for music as well, but it’s most definitely “early days”.
Please join with me as we gaze into the Crystal Ball of Music to see what impact this exciting new technology will have in the Music Production Industry as it is released and expands over time.
In looking into the crystal ball here at AUDIOSPARX and RADIOSPARX, we can see that the fundamental implications and applications of this exciting new technology are compelling and, from a creative perspective, VERY exciting. Consider the following benefits we see in the crystal ball:
- Creative Assistance and Inspiration: Generative AI can assist musicians and composers by providing them with creative ideas, helping them overcome creative blocks, and inspiring new musical directions. It can generate novel melodies, chord progressions, and even entire compositions, serving as a tool for experimentation and inspiration and rapid exploration of new styles, genres, moods, instrument techniques, and more.
- Streamlined Music Production: AI-powered tools can automate various aspects of music production, such as generating drum tracks, basslines, or harmonies. This can significantly speed up the production process, allowing artists to focus more on other artistic and expressive elements of their work.
- Music Modification, Enhancement, Effect, and Versioning: AI software can take as the input one of your existing tracks, and then create new versions of it with various types of enhancements and/or effects, or even more substantial modifications such as, for example, adding a bridge, or a chorus.
- Collaborative Engagement with AI: Generative AI is masterful at facilitating collaboration between human musicians and AI systems. Music composers and artists can use AI-generated material as a starting point, manipulating and integrating it into their compositions to create unique hybrid pieces. This opens up new avenues for experimentation and collaboration, expanding the creative possibilities for musicians.
- Production Accessibility Improvement: As Generative AI for music technology rolls out in a more comprehensive way, music production will become ever more accessible for non-musicians / lay-people / consumers. Since the technology generally functions on a for-pay basis — at least for the good stuff — as the accessibility improves, the paying client base will inevitably grow as well as more and more people explore this amazing new music capability.
- Real-Time Production Capability: Generative AI for music technology is going to do for music production what the advent of music streaming services did for music in the 90s and aughties. In short, it will make it possible for consumers to casually engage in real-time music production, even if only in a very informal, easy-going manner as they tinker on their phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
- Personalized Music Experiences: Generative AI can also enable personalized music experiences for listeners. By analyzing individual preferences, listening habits, and contextual information, AI algorithms can generate customized playlists and recommend new music based on personal taste. And going a step further, with Generative AI for music, it can even create unique new songs in real-time tailored to each listener’s preferences. As the quality grows over time, Imagine …. a completely unique real-time dynamic music listening experience tailored for your own personal preferences!
- Revenue Driver: We anticipate that the total revenue potential in the music production aspect of the music business is going to go up as a consequence of new ability for non-musicians to engage in music production. As the number of people who engage in music production grows over time, revenue will grow as well for the technology that enables this novel capability.
It’s important to note that while generative AI has the potential to enhance the music industry in numerous ways, it is unlikely to replace human creativity and artistic expression. Rather, it is more likely to be used as a tool to augment and inspire human musicians, leading to new and exciting possibilities for both artists and listeners.
This year, 2023 and beyond looks to bring a truly amazing new technical capabilities to the Music Production Industry. This will be an inspiring space to watch over the coming months and years as things really start to heat up, and advanced software keeps driving things to new heights!
Lee Johnson is the Executive VP at AudioSparx and RadioSparx and is also a musician, composer, producer, digital artist, and software engineer. Lee heavily uses Generative AI for language and artwork and is looking forward to collaboratively exploring the capabilities of this new technology in his own music production work.
‘In Conversation’ is the RADIOSPARX magazine on MEDIUM. Check out the RADIOSPARX — About Us Video here — Change Your Music, Change Your Life with RADIOSPARX.
