PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic BIAB & AI

It will probably be able to replace most things that are rule based or experience based on Big Data as in the list in the post above.

But I wonder how well it will be in those areas that are based on human feelings, touch and intuition.

When it comes to music it will probably be able to produce something that sounds decent and that many people find ok to listen to but will the results really be great or excellent? Something that hooked into the brain automatically once you heard it once?

Will it have the same edge and quality that music produced by real musicians who can play and sing their instruments have when letting their music and feelings flow from the brain to the instrument or the singers voice.

It is still only computers running algorithms over large quantities of data and refining their conclusions/results from experience learned/feedback. There is nothing like a human brain with its massive complexity involved.

So can an excellent and brilliant song melody/arrangement be composed by extracting information from and experience from other songs with excellent melodies/arrangements big hits? I doubt it.

Personally I can hardly recollect any melody from any songs that have been produced after the mid 80s.

But most hits and songs before that period had a strong melody line, rhythm and arrangement that got hooked into the brain almost automatically once you heard it once. And they are still strong.

Anything after that period I can hardly recollect at all, not a single melody, not even any titles of songs, and not even the artists (it leaves no impression)

My own theory is that it needs real musicians that can play and sing their instruments well with excellence that reflect their feelings at the moment, as well as good composers in order to produce a memorably song that sticks on at the first occasion it is heard.

Machine generated music, synth rythms, automatic generated arrangements, played instruments, melodies, whole songs and so on, it is music and it could be pleasant and ok to listen to at times but mostly for my own part it lacks something essential, something is missing, it is nothing that sticks or got hooked into the brain. But it is fun to play around with and for drafting ideas and training.

I guess it is the age.

For me, AI is a natural fit for BIAB.

Wondering if we can't get PG Music himself to opine?

I also think some level of AI would be helpful in Biab.

I mainly looking for something that can help me narrow down and catch a specific feeling or characteristics of a song or idea that I am working on. I find the current search methods over styles completely useless.

I’m with you on this 100%. I get so many people asking if there is a way to integrate the ai assisted generated lyrics with band-in-a-box.

[quote=JoanneCooper
BassThumper. I am also on that list of people whose jobs may become obsolete with AI. I am a business analyst BUT am already using AI in my job to produce documentation at a hugely increased rate (and with a much better quality) so maybe while other business analysts are busy lamenting how AI put them out of work I will become valuable in another role entirely. Bring it on.
[/quote]

Joanne, don't let the naysayers discourage you. Spread those musical wings and fly!
As for one of your jobs becoming obsolete, take heart. You are ahead of the game by adopting AI and that will be worth something in the long run, demonstrating you have a courageous readiness for the future.

Remember that there were those that saw no benefit of the horseless carriage, the telephone and even the computer. Eventually, most of them end up changing their minds.

I remember doing LP programming and optimization work back in the day using reference books such as:
Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis

Now AI tools are available that do a far better job in a fraction of the time.

This Forbes article may be of interest.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/07/24/how-ai-is-revolutionizing-the-role-of-the-business-analyst/?sh=3b6d05052fe8

The downside of course is what are all those workers that become obsolete going to do? I don't have that answer. But sci-fi may give us a clue. There was an episode of Star Trek Next Generation where the adolescent kids were learning advanced calculus as they travelled around the galaxy; presumably so they could do science when they reached adulthood.

BT,
If making music is your "job", that you want to get "more" efficient in. Sure, may those AI wings carry you to the stars.

To me, music is simply a hobby in which, it is the process of finding my own way is what I like. Even if my tunes are ugly and one sided (that's what they are actually )
Some people still love pooping horses, riding squeaky bicycles, walking, even if knees hurt, instead of driving, meeting friends instead of facebooking/texting and the list goes on. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

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But instead of making a word salad, lets go back to the topic of the thread. BIAB & AI
The only item that makes sense to me that was mentioned is finding proper style / assembling best musicians. +1 on that.

I see all other AI requests a bit strange (to put it mildly). As I mentioned before, (if anybody listened?). I am certain that there will be many software companies offering AI assisted "music making" tools in the form of VST/VSTi. Companies with prime focus on AI... BIAB doesn't have to compete in that space, but simply make the process of adopting/integrating VST3(and future variants) to the most flexible extent.

People wanted arpeggiator for BIAB.... How long would it take for PG team to write in-house ARP sequencer that would compete even with free titles?? Instead, they opened up Chord Track, which allows you to bring absolutely almost any VST arpeggiator (with it's own sound source). That was a simple and efficient step.

I would rather see BIAB slimmer, more robust, more intuitive, fix known issues, time signatures, flexible VST routing, etc.

Oh, definitely!
The reason so many of the "styles" suggested, based on songs/artists nominated in the search box, are completely inadequate is that it's resourced by a limited number of players and recordings.
The stuff labelled as "metal" & "punk" don't sound like those should sound because, largely, they aren't.
There is an over supply of Mr. Mason: he's perfectly adequate across a range of styles but, because they are him, they all sound like him. As it stands I don't use him because the himness doesn't fit anything I do.
There're no real new wave or punk bassntracks, no drums to suggest Happy Mondays, New Order or Joy Division and so on.
I don't blame BIAB for these things - the catalogue is so heavily based on its jazz and country roots that it's a big ask & task to spread things.
Your response is the reason I'm so critical of the style picker/chooser/thingy...check out the origins of the drums n bass and it's clear that the "style" is a stretch of more than the imagination.
Nevertheless its a fab program.

That's a personal opinion and it's extreme.
I write songs, play most of the instruments and sing when I can't get someone else to.
I usually don't play solos...I'm no good at it. I have trouble bending notes well enough to achieve the desired tension & release plus I really don't want to play them. They aren't what I'm interested in. On about four occasions I've opted for an heavily tweaked BIAB solo but I usually get someone who can do that sort of thing to do it.
Oh, I could probably get away with a bass solo every time but there's a limited audience for that - particularly when I don't slap, twang, bend or create flurries of, notes.
One of the most common reasons, aside from lack of learning, for a guitarist to restrict themselves to the 1st five frets is the poor set up/intonation of the cheapish instruments out there. Going further up the neck for chords often results in the mild dissonance of a reasonably tuned instrument becoming an obnoxious thing forcing the player - one who can't perform /doesn't know about intonation, back to the safe zone.

'There are too many Cowboy Chord guitar strummers out there who never leave the 3rd fret and have no ability to ever play a solo.'

well, count me as one of them but the people who paid to see the band i was in were quite happy. i was the singer and the lead guitarist took the solos.

and that description probably fits Johnny Cash................

oh and on the topic of AI, in the 60s i worked during my student holidays for a major utility firm supplying gas to domestic customers.

when a meter reader couldn't get into the premises, the gas usage was estimated. however, if the estimate was too high, in some cases the next real reading was less than the previous estimated reading.

the computer then assumed the customer had gone all the way round the meter and sent a bill for thousands of pounds,

that was AI in action many years ago. a machine took a decision - or rather made an assumption and human customers suffered.

apart from a phenomenal increase in complexity what's the difference?

Well open chords in or around the third fret sound better usually anyways, though I can play a number of chords up the board, I do like the more open stuff.

Joanne, I was speaking (actually typing) tongue in cheek! I actually bought and use lyriclab and find it useful I get a basic concept and revise it to make it mine. I use BiaB to create the track bed the rework it carefully to get a finished product. It takes work. It is amazing and wonderful that we can share our feelings, experiences, and stories with music. If AI helps get me started then I’ll use it. At that point we all have to roll up out sleeves and polish our creations.

Eddie’s point about the sad state of country music does have some merit. If I hear one more song about a red dirt road I’ll scream! I wrote a lyric yesterday with lyriclab in 2 minutes then spend 30 more refining them. I would say the end result is pretty good and I had the bigger investment of effort and time.

I'm in total agreement on getting some new players involved in the making of real tracks and styles.

Absolutely ....

What is labeled as metal, plain and simple, isn't.

Rock and hard rock styles could certainly use some updating as well.

That is exactly how to use AI, as a helping hand and have it do a whole project. This is also how I use the Melodist and Soloist and I'm sure I will use AI in the near future.

Red dirt road? That sounds like a song that I should do!

+++RED DIRT ROAD+++

That was the original and a goot one!

Sure Eddie ruin my dream. Thanx a bunch

Well, had you come to Herbstock....

This is an interesting topic,

Being a maths/engineer type I couldn't write good lyrics to save my life ha ha.

Chatting with my daughter (who happens to be studying a PhD in epidemiology) she told me there could be a big potential problem with plagiarism in scientific papers due to AI.

Let's not mention court cases involving Ed Sheeran about "melody similarities". And did you know Michael Jackson's riff for "Bad" is identical to Led Zeppelin's riff for "Heartbreaker", except for one note?
I heard that on a TV show - my ear is not good enough to tell, what do the experts think?


Determined to break Chat GPT, I asked my daughter to show me how to login to Chat GPT 3.5 (free) and I asked, "when was my grandmother born?". Yeah, that was an easy win.

But I then asked "write the first act of a play like Shakespeare" I was blown away by the result, very Shakespeare like with his iambic pentameter (with one soft beat and one strong beat repeated five times). That would be scary for an English Literature teacher marking homework.

I then asked Chat GPT to write a song about my boat called MilliBee - I was super impressed.

Then I said, "write it like the Rolling Stones" and got a rocky version of the song, with hints of you-know-who.

Then "write the melody", reply was "I can't draw music, but I can indicate music with letters", it then cranked out chords for the whole song in the key of C. A typical 4 chord classic rock sequence.


So while AI could be fun for amateur/semi-pro song writing, with large data sets growing 7% annually the chances of song "rip off" may grow to a level we won't be happy with. Do you end up suing the Chat GPT company?

AI from the 1990s vs AI from the 2000s.