Had a great lecture with a researcher and expert on the music industry the other day. He had deep-dived into the AI that now is coming through at an enormous speed. And yes, it’s pretty clear where we are heading and what part of thhe business that will take the blow.
My guess here is that the recorded music will take a heavy blow. Making music has never been easier. Today I needed a new jingle for my Tiktok channel. With ease, I have five different AI systems that can make a jingle from scratch, copyright free, without any cost. It took me approximately around five minutes to get it and implement it in my next Tiktok video.
This song in the eighties cost me dearly. First, I would have needed musicians to make the song, then go into an expensive studio to record it. Just that alone we are talking over $1000.00. On top of that it wouldn’t be my song since another person wrote it, so I would need to get the rights. Then also mixing and mastering on top of that. And aren't even addressing the fact that it would talk probably two months to just create it.
Sure, in the 90's it became cheaper for sure. Studios were easier to get, and we started to record on computers. 2000's the home recording would have been fine, still needed to contact the musicians and get the deals. Mainly because they have the know-how about how to play instruments. Time-wise at least two weeks for the whole thing to happen.
Last ten years, getting cheaper since they could use more loops and pre-recorded stuff. And we could rent people from around the world doing the job for cheap money. Still, we had to pay a couple of hundred dollars for it. Time-wise it still would have taken me a couple of days.
Until now, suddenly it’s free.
AI will change how we look at creators. I could never write a song since I don’t play an instrument. Suddenly I can describe to the AI what it should create for me. Suddenly this unlocks it even for me to become an artist and songwriter. On top of that, I can use my non-singing skills to put on the track and then use some other famous voice like Grimes (that just announced that I can use her voice if we split the revenues) to make my voice more pleasant. We already use autotune so much that when we recorded this week, we even put autotune on some artists that had great voices just because it’s so used to it being part of the sound. So even here my voice will do. Then I can get lyrics from an AI about a topic I choose even with a style of any artist I like as well. Here we go I’m an artist?
Here is the problem. Suddenly something that was pretty hard to achieve has become really simple and very cheap to do. With that recorded music will devalue. Old songs that have recognition will still have a price. The new songs will have a hard time reaching out. Suddenly you can create your own unique sound for your dinner tonight, which will take you less than an hour and it will be free and if you want just exclusive to your taco dinner tonight.
Companies that make jingles or big cataloguess of background music should be pretty scared. Studio musicians could also be afraid right now. Then artists themselves. Just sitting at home making music will have no value whatsoever. Making it harder and claiming to be real and use real instruments, will probably just seems like some hipster thing in the future and done by the same people that record on tape recorders and give out on cassette today.
Will music die? No definitely not. We just open up the accessibility to more, we will have more music than ever. Probably also music that is made in a totally different way of thinking as well. People that play instruments usually think a lot more alike than, for example, people that work in finance. Now they can get a shot of making music and it might sound very different than we are used to.
Will it reach the masses? Probably not. Now you need something really special to make the song reach a worldwide audience. It will be a song out of millions to make that happen.
Then you have the interesting part. Even if I can make a song in five minutes, I can’t play it live. Sure, I can do it with backtracks and autotune on a stage with my Grimes voice generator. That is not enough, it won't be a good show. My guess is that artists in the future need to also be able to play their instruments and be good live. Here the AI will have a hard time reaching anytime soon. It probably will in the future. When I have a robot that makes my bed and my dishes, they could probably play guitar as well.
What we see here is that the first part is already here I just did the song today, it’s here, it’s real. The robot that plays guitar like Yngwe Malmsteen on a stage, it’s a bit in the future. The conclusion is that the music industry will be about live and live performances. This is the area where we will develop and get more human in the next ten years to survive. After that, we have to wait and see how far AI has gone. Maybe we have robot orchestras live as well. Right now though as an artist get your live show in shape, and stop hanging inside and just recording music. Get out there and meet your audience like humans.
And as a last tip, make an AI of your voice to be able to copyright it and also be able to get money from people that would like to use your voice.
PS To hear my first AI song get to my TikTok channel and listen to the song in the background in the last clips. https://www.tiktok.com/@peterastedt