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Comment by newman8r | Hacker News Reader

If I have an exact idea of what I want something to sound like, and I'm able to use an automated system to create that, is that creative expression? Obviously AI isn't entirely capable of that, but eventually with BCI devices it might be.

I've spent many hours learning to play guitar and ukulele but I'm really not very good, and probably never will be - but I can hear the music in my head I want to create. I'm not interested in monetary gain at all, just being able to hear it for real and maybe share it with some people.

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> [...]just being able to hear it for real and maybe share it with some people.

Your ability to make and share music as you like hasn't been abridged. Bandcamp has chosen not to be a part of it if it's AI-mediated.

> We want musicians to keep making music, and for fans to have confidence that the music they find on Bandcamp was created by humans.

It sounds like bandcamp is not the right place for what you want to do. There's plenty of ways to do what you're looking for though!

Agreed, I'm just pondering the general attitude around the space rather than bandcamp itself

>I've spent many hours learning to play guitar and ukulele but I'm really not very good, and probably never will be - but I can hear the music in my head I want to create. I'm not interested in monetary gain at all, just being able to hear it for real and maybe share it with some people.

Luckily there are hundreds of MIDI editor DAWs available. Open the piano roll, and write down the music note by note. Surely, it's not that hard if you can hear it in your head.

If you are very good at music theory and have good pitch recognition absolutely, but that is a skill that takes quite a bit of effort to train.

If you just want to do a one off track for a party or something with AI sure go for it, but don't expect others to call you an artist.

Just like we don't call anyone who can use a microwave a chef. The chef may use a microwave, but they don't use it exclusively and they've spent the time to learn other tools and techniques.

AI is not the only way to make synthetic music. If you have an exact idea, you can use virtual instrument plugins for software like Ableton Live to produce music.

That's how I feel about it too. I play piano well enough to get my ideas out and have used synthesizers and digital audio workstation software for years. I can sit down and carefully craft the music I have in my mind if I want to. Though I don't often have the time or the mental space to do so.

Or, I can make a barebones recording of musical ideas - of melodies, harmonies and the overall song structure - then upload it to Suno and inspire its robotic session musicians to play it in the style I ask. Quicker to make, faster to iterate upon, and can even be used as the basis for resynthesizing the track using more traditional methods.

Half-finished tracks, ideas that were only in my mind or existed only as badly recorded piano-bashed drafts, now (almost) fully fleshed out. It's immensely satisfying, and has made me even more creative as I use this tool to understand and explore musical styles I'm less familiar with.

It sounds to me like you just need to try creating electronic music, not using generative AI. If you really have an exact idea of what the music should sound like, you should be able to realize your vision this way, and you can use realistic instrument samples if you want. It may not sound the way a person would have played it, since you can't fully replace a human performer, but it can still sound really good, and there's a huge body of video game music from the last 30 years or so to vouch for that.

> If I have an exact idea of what I want something to sound like, and I'm able to use an automated system to create that, is that creative expression?

i say this without malice (more as an encouragement to you to do whatever you like): nobody cares about your individual consumption choices. if you want to consume content from a machine that produces the thing you want to consume, that in and of itself has no impact on anyone but you. but you might be missing out on good music (either by someone else, or by your own hand) and ultimately, i wonder if you will value the end product of a musical vending machine.

I feel like I appreciate good music and I've been into the underground DnB scene in LA for a while.

> nobody cares about your individual consumption choices

Not sure if I agree though - mentioning that I use gen AI for any use case can cause some very hostile reactions.

People have been doing this for decades already, FL studio, Abelton, etc. Not sure what AI has to do with it.

Disagree. Producing electronic music with a DAW still takes considerable skill. I've used all of those and open source alternatives as well.

I don’t understand. Is the argument that you shouldn’t need skill?

Yeah that's my opinion on the matter. Lots of unskilled people have creative thoughts right this moment, and want a way to express them, and share them - they just lack the skills to do so, and aren't able to dedicate the time to become a skilled musician.

I feel like there's a difference between AI used as a tool and AI used to make slop. Also, most AI music has weird noise in it that drives me insane.

I have to imagine* that we will figure out what that difference is, but it will be difficult and costly.

* I have to imagine that or else I will lose all hope in the future.

Fear not- there is research in this area~

https://caniphish.com/blog/how-to-spot-ai-audio

https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-modera...

even coded detectors exist https://www.submithub.com/ai-song-checker?id=09f25ee7913a415...

If a detector can exist, it can be used adversarially without a human in the loop to defeat itself.

I’m a founder of one of these AI music companies and that noise you’re describing (it differs between co’s for us it’s loud vocals, for Suno it’s vocal aliasing/sandiness and mushy instrumentals, etc) is exactly why I think these songs should not be going on Spotify/etc.

We’ll have this (and the corny lyrics issue) mostly fixed in a month or so, then it mostly becomes a recommendations problem. For example, TikTok is filled with slop, but it’s not a problem - their algorithm helps the most creative/engaging stuff rise to the top. If Spotify is giving you Suno slop in your discover weekly (or really crappy 100% organic free range AI-free slop) blame Spotify, not the AI or the creators. There are really high effort and original creations that involve AI that deserve to be heard, though.

I suggest going back and listening to some of the first experimental electronic music. The tools have improved a lot since then and people have used them to do really cool things, even spawning countless genres.

I'll blame Spotify, and your company.

See here for a truly random sample of human music: https://0xbeef.co.uk/random/soundcloud

Thankfully, most of it doesn't reach your Spotify feed. I think most of it is garbage, but I'd fight for the right of people to continue posting it. All things algorithmic have this exploration/exploitation, diversity/fidelity tradeoff and Spotify has theirs tuned very heavily toward exploitation/fidelity. I think there is a cool opportunity for someone to put the tradeoff dial into users hands.

Ah, when I said "find out what the difference is", I meant more of a cultural understanding than technical.

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