Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
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Here in the Uk, when I design a product I have to ensure that I can produce if for 1/5 or 1/6 of the retail price.
The government takes 20% as VAT.
The retailier takes 50% of what remains as their margin.
The distributor takes 40-50% of what still remains as their margin.
We're already down to 1/5.
Subtract some more for packaging, shipping, support, warranty, repairs.
I'm now pretty close to 1/6th and I still have to make a profit myself and pay more to the state in tax on that profit.

It doesn't vary a great deal wherever one does business. Shocking, really.

I call them my silent partners.

I write aftermarket style e-disks and song e-disks for Band-in-a-Box.

So I have to pay for:
  • The web host to put my site on
  • An extra monthly charge for the S at the end of http (secure connection)
  • The shopping cart's monthly charge
  • The credit card authorization charge both monthly and per sale
  • Either the credit card percentage or PayPal fee, per order
  • Business bank account and all the fees the pile on
  • Subcontractors who choose the styles for my fake disks, per disk (If I chose them myself, I'd unfairly choose more Norton styles, only because I'm most familiar with them)
  • Sefl-employment tax (15% of what I make)


Of course, this drifts off the subject, so to get back OT...

I'm not a songwriter. I can write styles for BiaB, I am a music arranger, I am an improvisational soloist, and I play 7 instruments plus vocals. If I were to start writing songs, I'd definitely use AI to help. From what I've seen of AI generated music and/or lyrics, I'd probably change a lot of things before I decided it was just right. Would I include AI as one of the songwriters? Considering how much work I'd probably add, I doubt that I would. I'd take all the credit.

From what I've seen, AI can do some basic work, but lacks those special, intuitive touches that so far seems to be uniquely human. The ones that give your ears little surprises, whether it is a twist of phrase, just the right word, a choice of a chord where a more common one is normal, and so on.

I play with music. I even take BiaB output, export to a sequencer/DAW and spend more time tweaking and or editing than it took to input it into BiaB. I think I'm making it better (at least that's my aim).

But AI is learning at an explosive rate. Who knows what it will be able to do next year.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks