That said, wow. An end to end FAST architecture that can infer a 4.5 minute song in 10 seconds is a compelling thing. I didn’t see if we got open weights, but my guess is that this is not crazy challenging to train, and some v2/v3 versions of this are likely to be good-to-very-good.
I suppose it might be because it's latent diffusion.
As an amateur musician, I'd like tools that help me be more productive musically - those that complement my skills (whatever they may be). All the things you mentioned above, namely, ability to score a melody via a simple hum, transfer to various instruments, generate proper responses to calls, generate melodies within a framework, etc., all these would be super valuable to me.
I'm an OK guitar + bass + keyboard player, I'd LOVE to have an AI assistant that accompanies along. That would make my own jammin' so much richer.
I dont think we have seen the end of AI-driven tools in music-tech yet. I'm cautiously hopeful.
That said, there is a difference to images in that music also has a "symbolic" level to it that is closer to text than images [1]. There's other work out there that uses LLM-type tools for direct melody generation (no audio). And of course, there's lyrics. I do expect commercial tools to start integrating all these capabilities gradually, it's just a matter of time.
[1] I guess there's also vector images (like SVG) - I've seen work in generating those as well, though it's less mature than directly generating pixels.
Story Jam lets you design chord progressions without needing to know about music theory, instead offering intuitive terms like "lightness", "darkness", "drifting" and "roaming". They mean about what you think they mean.
I'm planning a "Show HN" post for tomorrow morning EST with more details. But you can get the sneak peek here :)
For example, I tend to think of "composition" and "synthesis" as two very different topics.
One VST could spit out chords or melodies (not a common VST) whereas another could render those sounds (very common VST)
“Pop punk with prog rock time signatures“ is a funny idea, but it’s not interesting to listen to when there’s obviously zero intention behind it.
Lots of sour grapes comments from folks. Too bad. Not what I expect out of Hacker News. Glad people are pushing the technological envelope and exploring this space despite the strong negative emotions.
absolutely crazy
Ty it don’t think peasants were listening t to Bach, do you? Only the extraordinarily wealthy could afford to have music as anything like an every day thing.
We've done these things ourselves for hundreds of thousands of years. As we are increasingly convinced to buy them for convenience we loose the very things that make us know our connectedness.
So ya, there are real problems caused by the convenience of technology
> People that never considered the value of artistic process until it was the topic du jour unilaterally decided that it was inefficient, oppressive, complex, frivolous, and unfairly inaccessible to those that hadn't put any sustained effort into developing theirs.
This is eerily reminiscent of what's happening inside the USA government & administration today...
For sure! After all, what could be more democratic than a monthly subscription that could get snatched away at any moment - and clearly there's nothing more creative than pressing a button and waiting for 20 seconds!
> People that never considered the value of artistic process
One certainly learns of crazy things on HackerNews. Apparently people have never considered the value of artistic process, and not only that, but you also happen know that exactly.
> the topic du jour unilaterally decided
You're literally in this thread disagreeing.
> it was inefficient, oppressive, complex, frivolous, and unfairly inaccessible
Very interesting claims, too bad they were only stated in your imagination. That being said, your imagination I think is surprisingly close to my opinions! Let's discuss each point:
- it is very time-intensive to produce creative works of any kind, and indeed to perform any kind of mental work at all
- it does get pretty complex too, and because of this, some mental efforts are even shot down for being too frivolous (such as that bit of automation that is not worth making because it would never pay itself off)
- oppressive is a bit of an odd one, but if I think hard enough, I guess I can see how having to use the output of e.g. my work (software) can be oppressive
- same for unfairly inaccessible - lately there's been a trend where various services would only be available online, and the only contact you'd get is a self-service form or two. Maaaybe you'd get an AI chatbot to chat with. Certainly, to those with minimal to no tech literacy, this will be inaccessible and it will feel unfair.
> was merely the natural progression of artistic praxis
If only there was a way to disagree with this without being a dickhead!
> these tools have democratized creativity
How does one democratize an innate property of people? Surely you mean that they have democratized the production of creative works rather, and even of those only the less high-art ones, which I'm sure you never fail to point out when shown one?
> they're now broadly available to anyone willing to pay money for a subscription service that will obviously soon be a hell of a lot more expensive, or shell out a few thousands dollars for a top-tier video card that you almost certainly already have in your gaming rig, anyway.
And what happens after that? Artists will be like "oh gee, well I'm not doing this again!"?
> This is silicon valley progress
And also Hangzhou and Shenzen, China.
> and if you don't like it, you're a communist
Are you? You seem to be more of a raging idiot than anything to me at least.
Granted, many people are benefiting from these tools (myself included) but at some point a lot of us are going to have to find a new job (assuming the progression continues unabated), and I'm not sure what new jobs are going to exist when LLM coders replace many or most of us.
If you don't enjoy composing music, just don't do it, and give it to someone who does, and has the experience/knowledge/culture/practice/gut to do it.
This supposes that the music is the end goal, and the very point of my comment is that it doesn't always have to be, and in those cases "just don't do it" also means not doing whatever comes after.
Just as you state below, this doesn't replace creating music for the creation's sake. I don't believe it will, or should. It merely replaces having nothing at all, or having the 100,000th video with the same upbeat stock sound.
Well it has the benefit of being true.
By the same logic synthesizers shouldn't have been invented that allowed people to make advanced sounds without tediously learning an instrument first, consumers should remain priced out of microphones and editing software, etc.
Like I said, I am not trying to feign ignorance on the drawbacks of the tech which is very real and far from negligible. I am not a tech bro AI maximalist. I just do believe that hyperbole will not put the djinn back into the bottle, and pretending like there isn't a real market between nothing and paying or being a composer isn't adding anything to the conversation.
Tell me one example how music gen in any way benefits anybody to the level that is worth putting out of business the last few artists that make ends meet?
We would be better off if the other 99.9% didn't have worry about making ends meet, than if we do whatever it takes to keep the status quo of the 0.1% intact. That does not only go for artists.
We've created machines to replace humans doing things humans enjoy doing. Leaving the drudgery machines were supposed to eliminate to be done by humans.
There's at least an order of magnitude more people who enjoy making music than there are people with the actual skill/talent to make music. Music generation AI is an absolute blessing to the untalented among us who'd love to make a song in a certain style or with certain lyrics but lack the time, talent or ability to do it ourselves.
But don't mistake one thing for the other: how is it different than, say, being Emperor Joseph II asking Mozart in Vienna to write an opera for him?
Mozart wrote the music, not Joseph.
Similarly, you can hike across France, from South to Britain for several days. Or you can take the train. Or a car, alone, or with a driver. Or a plane, in the pilot or the passenger seat.
You'll get in the same place in the end. The experience will be totally, fundamentally different for you, as well as for others.
I'm a musician myself, but I sadly suspect that most music made today "benefits humanity" very little... Is music making always a net positive? If nothing else, these tools will allow more music will be made.
Yes because the act of making music, even not very good music, is what has value. Music generated without human input has no discernible value.
> If nothing else, these tools will allow more music will be made.
By machines that, as far as we can tell, take no enjoyment from making it. And eliminates any possibility of emotional connection between the artist and the listener. Which is the entire source of music's value.
Let’s follow the AI and automation craze to its eventual conclusion - automations everywhere, humans are either employed in automation industry, or are unemployed at a massive scale.
Stable jobs are replaced by ever-optimized gig economy for some, and chronic poverty for others. For there to even be economy - the massive underemployed population subsists on government welfare.
Cynic in me thinks that all of the wealth generated by enormous productivity gains resulting from automation will not find its way towards population displaced by it. Those cashiers, toll booth, and warehouse workers did not find themselves in much more lucrative careers - I don’t see why it will be any different for truck and cab drivers who will be joining them in the near future.
If you see a future where these people who suddenly found all this extra leisure time o. Their hands and no income - are somehow blossoming in creative directions and realizing their own potential - I’d like to have it painted for me, as it all looks pretty bleak to me. Just not quiet sure of the timeline.
Best I can come up with is an emergence of some kind of counter-cultural protest market where people buy and sell “made by humans” products, and are continuously attacked by various regulations originating from mega corporations who captured the government.
I wonder what the hyper-capitalist's end game looks like. One giant company that covers everything with one man sitting at a dashboard, tweaking parameters? Is that one man even necessary?
I wonder what our plans are for when "the economy" prefers to do it's thing without us. Writing poems all day? What capitalist instrument will provide "money" for us to spend in this giant machine?
Old joke about airplane automation:
In the future there will be just one pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
So where is it going? Why: the end.
But this is also where Gandolf says, “end?”
So they just hate humanity in general then.
So, feel free to criticise capitalism and how inhumane it is, but don't anthropomorphise it by ascribing human emotions to the system.
If you think I’m being harsh, I have my reasons as a professional musician to critique these things in an unflattering light because they are my competition. Thankfully actually “generated” AI music is trash. Copyright is problematic in the US, I admit, but tech bros using copyrighted material to train programs to put us out of business - without paying a penny which even Spotify doesn’t per stream - yeah, I’ll have some disdain about this scenario and I feel it’s justified.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
