AI Music Rick Beato

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fazer

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This video is a look at AI in music production. Write the beats, the synth parts and lyrics for your song. So you can skip using all the software tools like autotune melodyne beat detective and all. Now just describe the artist you want to be like and no assembly required as well as no taste for now but it gets better all the time. Sounds like a instagram post addition to your accomplishments page.
 
Rick can be a lot of fun sometimes, and other times his content just isn't geared at me (which doesn't mean it's bad). But I was in a session with him pre-pandemic at a Jazz Education Network convention and man, was it dull. As I recall, he spent most of it either talking about how many views this-or-that video had gotten, or trying to assure everyone that he really likes music theory (which of course is great, but it seemed like he was worried that the crowd wouldn't take him seriously if he didn't continually emphasize this).

Still, the discussion of AI in music and production is an interesting and evolving one. I have what my friends would describe as an insufferable amount of thoughts about the general public's disinterest in effort and engagement when it comes to how they interact with art of all sorts, and I think that it (coupled with the inevitable advancements in technology) feeds directly into this. It is not a new conceit that most people are content with the musical equivalent of hotel paintings, so it follows that even schlocky AI music will become acceptable -- let alone if it actually gets good -- as mass audiences are fairly undiscerning and any functioning AI songwriting algorithm will be able to churn out more product at lower cost and effort than any real person, making it a pretty simple business decision from the perspective of those at the top. The visual art world already knows the pain that AI inflicts on human artists, and it's only a matter of time before that arrives in other corners of the creative landscape. That said, there's been some deeply human controversy around some of the AI "artists" (FN Meka being perhaps the most obvious example), so who knows where all this will lead. And also I'm just a crotchety naysayer.
 
I'm just a crotchety naysayer.
Ya me to. I’m glad to have worked in the field from 75 to 2011. You enjoy the art of your time period. Being alone in the studio with email for direction was more the norm at the end of my production career. I currently have all the software up to date and know when a couple of clients need help , I need the software to answer their request.

Something fun would be to ask the AI software to write a Dylan like song like “Tangled up in Blue”. Or say a Knopfler song. “Let it all go”. Or how about a Thomas Newman movie score for an algorithm orchestra score.
 
when he talks about recording I often cringe
I’m way more interested in his music theory and artist review. I engineered my whole life and learned theory in the studio from great players and arrangers a little bit at a time with each session. But great players with a great arranger is what makes an engineer sound great. I guess if AI can do that, it will be able to engineer a great mix also.
 
I have fond memories of listening to my cousins rip into each other over this same topic back in the late 80's. One was an avid listener of Joy Division and old British punk, and the other loved New Wave/"Flock of Seagulls' music. Of course, the punk guy was saying that the new stuff was terrible, with the synthesized drum sounds, and 808-based drum beats, and how it would be the death of music as we knew it. The same thing happened when the Beatles came out 20 years prior.

It seems this cycle repeats every 10-20 years or so.
 
I love Rick's crank GET OFF MY LAWN posts. But for a guy who claims to have made a living as an engineer and producer, when he talks about recording I often cringe.
I have known Rick for almost a decade now. He is 100% legit and has done everything he says he has done. He is 100% just like he is in the videos as he is in real life. Before YouTube he and I would have long talks about all this stuff. The vids are very much a natural progression for him I believe. He was always dropping knowledge bombs on me about production and engineering. He never talked down to me and taught me a lot.

As far as his sounds. He was at the time doing mostly heavy rock records back then but he always was into different music. Those bands where a huge part of the client base, they naturally would seek him out from all around the world. So the sounds he goes for are all genre driven. I remember him describing sounds to me and playing stuff for me that I wasn't in love with personally (not a genre I was in love with). But then he would show me other amazing mixes and inspirations (from that genre) that drove his directions towards some of those sounds and it made sense.

Then he would play me other songs in different genres like Jazz or classical and tell me all the things he loved about those tracks and a bunch of the history. All very different and wide appreciation.


Anyway, I am very happy for Rick and his success. He is one of the good guys and he really does love music.

He also gave me my SPX90 so I would get into the Andy Wallace trick. haha
 
I have fond memories of listening to my cousins rip into each other over this same topic back in the late 80's. One was an avid listener of Joy Division and old British punk, and the other loved New Wave/"Flock of Seagulls' music. Of course, the punk guy was saying that the new stuff was terrible, with the synthesized drum sounds, and 808-based drum beats, and how it would be the death of music as we knew it. The same thing happened when the Beatles came out 20 years prior.

It seems this cycle repeats every 10-20 years or so.
The big difference with AI music tho is that it is fundamentally non-musicians using prior musicians' work to train machine learning algorithms to spit out dozens or hundreds of songs within the span of a few hours.

We're not talking about a difference of styles, or musical approaches or even instrumentation- we're talking about the ability of a single coder or small group of developers to build a one-time app that can then take the collective creative output of decades of musicians and begin to mass produce derivative works ad infinitum with zero effort, zero credit or recognition, and zero compensation to the musicians who produced the source material.

I'm not worried that AI art/music is going to replace bands/galleries/concerts/albums etc... I am worried that it is going to decimate session musicians, film and video game scoring, commercial jingle writers etc... and do it by stealing from the people it's trying to replace.
 
Yup. Eventually AI will have hologram bands of artificial people who will perform the music in concerts. And you'll be able to buy merch at these events too (as long as your CBDC is in good standing).
 
The big difference with AI music tho is that it is fundamentally non-musicians using prior musicians' work to train machine learning algorithms to spit out dozens or hundreds of songs within the span of a few hours.

We're not talking about a difference of styles, or musical approaches or even instrumentation- we're talking about the ability of a single coder or small group of developers to build a one-time app that can then take the collective creative output of decades of musicians and begin to mass produce derivative works ad infinitum with zero effort, zero credit or recognition, and zero compensation to the musicians who produced the source material.

I'm not worried that AI art/music is going to replace bands/galleries/concerts/albums etc... I am worried that it is going to decimate session musicians, film and video game scoring, commercial jingle writers etc... and do it by stealing from the people it's trying to replace.
We've been through this before. Recording jingles in the bedroom helped put a lot of NY studios and jingle musicians out of business. That was about 1988 or so.

2 violinists walk into movie score session with a full orchestra. While unpacking one turns to the other and says, "Look! We put 2 synthesizer player out of work."

Referring to "Gone" on Miles and Gill Evan's Porgy and Bess album, can AI make reading mistakes that become lore?

I already can't stand pop music for that reason, especially since synth drums and bass got into the scene. Nothing to listen for especially in highly repetitive music, plus a lot of wasted virtuosity IMHO.( And I'm never wrong about these things.) ;o)
 
One of my favorite RB you tubes was Bernard Purdity drums on steely Dan. In another video he talked about Bruno Mars and he had isolated tracks from both songs. The program drums sounded so brittle and stiff. And then purdity’s. Solo drum tracks were magic with air and groove. The cymbals were so sweet. The point was. If your Bruno, you got the money to overdub groove on your track but there is a saying that modern always trumps great. We like what we like. Music will go on with a life of its own. I just won’t be showing up much for canned packages. Play on!
 
No guessing needed - it can do all that and more, even write code that works.
All the above. Plus write movie scripts and generate all the backgrounds and all the actors too! See Jordan Peterson's lecture from a couple weeks ago:
 

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