Don't Let AI Make Music For You

 

 

I keep thinking about that clip of the suno CEO saying music production should be as engaging as Fortnite, but like, it is? It just is. But Fortnite is not for everyone. I don't like it, other people do, it is not for me and it is not worth my time to try to get any good at it. But I really like music production. Choosing chord progressions, finding melodies, fiddling with the mix, installing more plugins than I need and defaulting to the same four staples. It took time but I mastered my DAW and it is very fun and creatively fulfilling to perform the task of creating music. I have as much fun making music as people playing Fortnite.

This would be like saying driving a car should be as fun as monopoly, and then installing an AI driver. You aren't doing either thing now, you're doing a third much more passive thing. You aren't growing your skill and taking creative risks, you're asking a robot to amuse you. Why would any producer want that?

And listen, I get that guys like Timbaland exist, who fully embrace AI in their production, but here's the rub;

Any music producer who does use these services has fundamentally fallen out of love with the craft. 

They're former woodworkers who'd rather assemble Ikea furniture. And that's fine, but at least have the decency to not try and sell me the Ikea furniture you assembled, that's supposed to be for you, if I wanted Ikea furniture I would go to Ikea.

Music production as a hobby can be inaccessible. Like you can play Fortnite on the computer you already own, but there are just things you're really going to want to buy if you want music production to stop being a massive schlep. Like, you can get a result with your laptop's webcam mic and using your typing keyboard to enter notes, but not having to translate musical notes to typing keyboard keys and back, the clarity of even a budget USB mic, being able to plug your quarter inch guitar cable into your computer and get the signal from your actual instrument... It changes the game. But that also only applies to singer/songwriter stuff, lots of EDM producers get away with chopping up samples and clicking on a grid, hell, it's actually preferable to mostly use just your typing keyboard in something like Famitracker or Strudel. 

The barrier exists but it is lower than you think.

The thing stopping you isn't that God hasn't ordained you with musical talent. I promise you if you grit your teeth and follow a youtube tutorial you'll make a loop in under an hour. And you will have made it, every creative choice will have been yours and yours alone. And even though DAWs are complicated pieces of software that have quirks and I promise you every producer has at least one thing they despise about their DAW, learning how to navigate it efficiently is worth the effort.

But only if music production is something you're actually interested in. If you'd rather play Fortnite, you should do that! Do things you actually want to do and don't try wish away the process of something you only want the result of! It isn't as fun as they're telling you it is!

Sorry to have gotten so heated. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

From Luna, with love.