Just a little bit of harmless crystal ball gazing as the year comes to a close. Or to put it another way, just me waffling on about the future of music tech for the next 30 minutes!
I don't get depressed. I love music, I make music for myself, to please myself. Nothing else matters. Technological advances have enabled me to make and record sounds which would have costed thousands of pounds to produce 40 years ago. But I am happy with what I have now and no longer wish for the new. I enjoy my analog and digital synths but also spend a lot more time with my acoustic piano. I am not interested in the industries, in buying anything more. I love music.
Recently, my 11 year old nephew asked my sister for a drum machine for Christmas . She came to me and I set her up with a Korg Volca. It showed him my studio when he was over for thanksgiving. He was absolutely fascinated by my eurorack and moog Subsequent 37. He told me he had apps on his phone, but they aren’t as cool as the real machines. I have hope for the future.
30 year old here, been into synths for almost 10 years and also love history. I make modern idm/ bass music so I dont know if you could say im part of a certain age and demographic but I do see interest in these things from younger kids too which is exciting. I dont think hardware will ever stop being fun which might be the disconnect in the parallel from photography
Good to read fella. 30 year olds into tech were, are and always will be a thing. Guys my age learned in their 20s and 30s from guys in their 80's now, and it ripples down the ages. fantastic to read that you're seeing younger folks than yourself into this too, I know a few myself. Nerdery will prevail !! 🙂
Thank you Tim, the tactile has a place and also dreaming big that AI may help realize the dreams of our nostalgia at the same time. Cheers and a happy new year!! Wish you the best and appreciate your channel more than can be easily expressed. ❤
It's so interesting and so much fun to watch this video. And besides the musical aspects, i think it's one of the most clear and sober presentations of (generative) AI I have seen recently. You are one of the rare CZcamsrs i really like to follow. I like the topics you pick, your language and voice, your thoughtfulness, reasoning, humour, and also the fact that you do not flood us with too many videos.
Well done. As both a music tech and photography “enthusiast” I thought the comparison you made between the two was quite apt. I think the persistence of music “hardware”, however, is much deeper than nostalgia. Many people, myself included, spend so much time on computers and mobile devices that we want to get off the screens in our music. Also, because music (sound) is felt not just through our ears but in our bodies, I think that the tactile experience of turning knobs, pressing keys, moving sliders, striking drums, and plucking strings is not really replaced by digital sound generation. But digital technology has already extended the capabilities of “traditional” instruments and given rise to new instruments. While “producers” and “sound design” artists can get by on software alone, I don’t see musicians and listeners soon giving up the physical experiences of playing and feeling sounds moving through space from human to human.
We are making humans redundant and starting down a dangerous path. Probably the most dangerous path we have ever walked down. If Ai can create the most powerful synth ever created it can also create the music to go along with it. So you wont need any music gear because you will be redundant.
Beautifully made overview video of the paralels between the evolution in the field of photography, videography and music gear! Nice music too!!! Many compliments and thank you for your very nice and balanced videos / content!
Tim, I've got the solution!!!!!!!!!! now I know where it's technologicaly going to go...the direction especialy for music!: -Everything that's easy to put in a prompt can be and will be AI generated. -commands that require much more accuracy, consum to much brain energy, in terms of 'translating musical feelings in to the technical part of musicpoduction' demand for special outboardequipment. -huge control consoles with free assignable nobs,faders and keys. All Motoriced! -a universal DAW , Plugin and sountpack is playing. Thanks for the beautiful report. R.g.
Tim, thanks for these thoughts and, yep - you're spot on. I was banging on about similar and parallel developments in the video editing, video 3D GFX, and audio recording industries, back in the early '90's when it was all the physical kit was being replaced by software and computers. It was all still expensive, but still actually affordable, when compared, if you worked in the industry etc. And then it just got more and more affordable and accessible. Fast forward, and yes, everything is changing so fast. Laptops and software just "rule" this area, and now of course AI is in the room. I've been embracing and using it since March for generating images and video, and well wow! Every day there's another seemingly massive advance. The same will happen with music and sound very soon - I suppose imagery was easier to analyse and "learn" from, but, as you say, it's only learning from us, and what we have all input into this "realm" (The Internet) for such a long time. I.E. that's all of the 'data" that there is out there for "It" to learn from. Anyway, it'd be good to stay in touch re this topic. Thanks and regards, Martin. P.S. as an antidote people still aspire and long about owning Strat or a Les Paul guitar - interesting?
Fabulous from beginning to end. Engaging and a lotta fun. Thanks Tim. I love what the future holds for music making. The apex of digital synthesis you mention is pretty crazy but I’m into it. Why not? Right? Great addition at the end saying we will do better embracing the technology. There are no rules to expression.
The bad side of software technologies is how quickly it falls out of date it's not secure And I think it makes users insecure Older techs like Super 8 film or analogue synths seem to be complete in themselves
Great content Tim. Knobs and buttons have been removed from car interiors and people have complained. People like the physical connection with technology so I think we’ll see the same with synthesisers.
As always Tim, You are both that great voice of why something should be worth examining, while being that voice in the wilderness of we don't quite know what comes next. Your insights into the development of technology (no doubt having a foot in photography helps see how these industries mirror each other) are only exceeded by your deep love of the history of the engineering that went into creating this. As a musician (and a hobby photographer with my Nikon LRS cameras) I also wonder when need will trump nostalgia. I love the fact that I can buy both software and physical reproductions synths that were well out of my price range as a teenager in the 1980s, and that I can recreate (in Eurorack form) some of my dream modular synths (Moog, ARP 2500, Roland 100M, Buchla 200 series, Serge). This is a great time, but as you point out, this is fragile. Like you, I hope future generations will want to do this in the same way 20 year olds now play vinyl records, but who knows. My take is that we simply enjoy the fact that companies such as Behringer are willing to spend millions recreating our dream analog synths and charge us the price of a used Honda and not a Ferrari to have them! As always, keep up the great work my fellow Britt across the pond. Chris
I work with computers all day, I make a living developing apps and websites, I'm a "digital native". But I still solely use hardware to make music as I want to rely on my ears more than on a percentage or number on the screen (and I stare on the screen all day long anyway). And when I talked with a young colleague who doesn't have the money and proposed he used some classic synth VST with a USB hardware controller (that looks and feels and sounds like the real thing), he said he still wants hardware. Regarding AI: I attended a conference recently with 3 of the main speakers talking about AI and apart from copyright issues (who says Getty Images won't win a law suit in 2 years against ChatGPT concerning their AI training, turning all your nice new AI generated logos and pictures into copyright strikes?), they gave us the task of drawing a tree. Some of us drew a christmas tree, some a palm tree, some a tree with a swing ... whereas the AI drew 200 pictures of Northern American Leaf Tree (as it was trained to do that). Not very creative. Also as I used to be a copy writer in advertising: what AI currently writes is less creative than what I would have accepted from a 15 year old doing some training on the job. Yes, repetetive tasks like writing about sports results can be done by a computer, but I didn't see a unique campaign idea being created by an AI. It might brute-force a thousand ideas ... and then a human CURATOR could select and adjust the very few random good ones, just as you do when generating an AI picture. But if you had the AI just repeat successful previous hits, you would end up with something like the current music charts, nothing inspirational, all the same pitch-correction crap, as it has a "track record" praised by some music industry manager without any musical taste or spine. Same with filmmaking: if you curated the writing tediously and pushed the AI in a clever direction all the time, it could come up with a useable script. If you then trained the AI to create something that gets close to what's in your head - and spent twenty ywars adjusting that slight smirk that the AI never generated right as it doesn't understand how human feelings are expressed but just copies 99.9% of a facial impression ... then you could come up with an excellent AI made film (directed by a huge army of humans). But it would be quicker to just hire a bunch of actor students and do something that's more touching (with added artificial film grain). For photographers, stock photography has been far worse than any other digital or AI development, so if I were you, I'd run for my life anyway (same goes for SEA writers). But as of music - as long as I do it for fun and not for a living, why should I do everything in a DAW and no tweak some vintage synth knob? And if I enjoyed it and it's good and it's so easy to publish on a million platforms, why shouldn't others enjoy it?
Beethoven created worlds , just like anyone who writes or plays music . People listen and if they pay attention , they share that created world within . Music is much more special than technology …it comes from and enters the heart .
👏🏻👏🏻👋🏼My dream would be to have a hardware and a software robot setting up all signal chain wiring patching stacking all equipment through verbal commands, able to use the full potential of hardware and make recommendations for music to be played by the human. Happy holidays!👏🏻👋🏼👋🏼
“Software will eat the world!” Is a saying that folks in my industry have been saying for years….Great content Tim. No AI will truly replace individual creativity. Your video here is an example. Humans in the future will want content generated by humans and will come to use those tools to seek it out…
Great video as always, thanks Tim! I'm simultaneously fascinated and optimistic yet terrified of the future. Working in IT, I feel that our attempts to automate everything is starting to go a little too far and even though this makes things as convenient as its ever been, I feel like we'll be automating ourselves out of most of our jobs in the next century or so for the sake of convenience and profit. And like it or not, our species is as driven by profit and wealth as we've ever been and it never seems to be enough, with seemingly everyone having multiple revenue streams and always reaching for more. The most ruthless, financially ambitious and power hungry amongst us will likely rise to the top of this heap with a plethora of automated systems that their companies have developed that have put them in that position. Once there, it's only a matter of time until they automate everything that can possibly be automated and eventually put us in a position where we are no longer able to work as we always have and our most basic human needs are no longer under our control to provide . Power always corrupts and the automator will eventually become the automated. When we're no longer in control of ourselves, that doesn't spell a positive outlook for our species. I can only hope our better natures will prevail through our trajectory into the future. On a more positive take, maybe I'm wrong and automation will bring in a new golden age for our species but who can say. I'm also extremely curious to hear what the music of the next few centuries will sound like (coming from humans, not AI). Hearing innovative music is always is always an uplifting thing and perhaps the future of human created music will have a positive impact on our species. Thanks for the channel and great synth content!
I enjoyed this and thought you hit on some very important points, especially on the topic of the industry depending on enthusiasts and nostalgia. I love the recreations and they’ve made accessible through emulation an experience that very few would be able to access in hardware. I do hope that with the computing power available our favorite software companies can leverage modern technology to move forward, create, and innovate. Working with AI in a professional educational setting, and seeing the wonderful pace of innovation in just the past 18 months, I think the types of sound design scenarios you’re envisioning are close at hand. A sound design platform or soft-synth with an natural language model API-connected prompt interface could be quite interesting. There’s a lot of possibility for new things in sound. Thanks for providing some fuel for thought today.
Thanks, Tim. Excellent talk. I’m not depressed. Maybe that is due to my being involved with keys since the 70s and having a room of some non-museum instruments to rediscover. Been trying to migrate to a laptop pc based rig for gigs. It is amazing to use and sounds phenomenal, but I find it difficult to give up the interaction with hardware. Even using current complex controllers (I.e. Keylab series). Been trying to let go of my film camera also, to no avail. LOL. Someone will have a blast discovering these tools when I am gone!
I have to say you are right,i too can not relate to modern day products ,most of which are made just for profit,the sounds of todays music is just a mish mash ,no real clarity or depth ,i still have many analogue synths which i enjoy ,maybe just getting older ,????
I think the primary driver for hardware sales in the future will be user interface. In an age where you can do everything in the box, the only thing that really distinguishes hardware is the human interaction with it. I think we're going to see weirder hardware appear as flagships as manufacturers try and boost the "value add" in the only way that will be left to them, the user experience. I've been collecting production gear for about 5 years now (and thanks by the way, Tim, you've been a big influence on that). I know I don't actually need anything that I've got in this room, beyond perhaps the monitors and audio interface, but I like knob twiddling and being physically involved with the music making process. The limitations of the hardware in front of me is where the creativity comes from, which is not an experience I find myself having on any of the (extremely capable) VSTs I have available to me. The irony is that I find myself using presets or the same settings over and over again on VST plugins, mainly due to choice paralysis in the face of their capabilities. I'm also aware that hardware is largely still a rich man's game, even if that is changing to some extent. This is a luxury hobby for me, and I do appreciate the fact that I'm in a fortunate enough position to be able to enjoy it. I am constantly in awe of what the next teenager with a laptop and Ableton is able to make in terms of actual music, and I'm very glad that option is available to the youngsters with that level of creativity. The important thing to remember there is that I am not, in any way, at a detriment because those options are available to other people. I just like doing things my way and have no aspirations beyond enjoying the mostly space cow farting noises that come out of all of my gear. Music production is more open to everyone now than it has ever been, and I'm fully supportive of the technology evolving in as many directions as possible if that means more people have an avenue for expressing themselves. As long as the space is still somewhere that can support those with the "real cameras" and the wider populace, I'm happy. I appreciate your point about not being able to remember the actual vintage stuff. For context, I'm 35, but I had my formative years listening to the dance music of the 90's. Things like the 303 were a legend even to the common listener back then, I grew up reading magazines of what Leftfield or the Chemical Brothers were using to make all of the tunes I was listening to. That stuck with me, even though I wasn't old enough to be a part of the scene that existed around that music. I think the biggest counterpoint to this fear is the modular community, a lot of the people getting into that space do seem to be the younger generation. A lot of the conversations I'm having about modular are with guys in their early to mid 20's and buying new modules when they can afford them, but are also actually making music on the kit they have already.
It's interesting what you said about just using VST presets. I find for myself, the more knobs a VST has the more likely I'm only going to use presets. I just don't find using virtual knobs that satisfying or as providing much feedback...despite having little experience with hardware. At the very least, using an actual synth has a *feel* to it. VSTs that have some type of visual feedback other than a knob turning are a step in a good direction, I think, but developers lean into replicating physical hardware UI without adding any "digital spice". Anyway, I'm just a 40 year old who grew up straddling the analog and digital world rambling here lol.
From a music production standpoint I see this in what Softube and SSL did, not to mention TC Technology. Having grown up tinkering with knobs In recording studios beginning in the late 1980s, I still need that ability and a computer mouse won't do it. This is something Roland seems to understand, among others, when it comes to software synth technology.
@@cnlbydesign5373 I agree completely. This is one of the reasons I'd sooner pick up a cheap Behringer synth or Novation circuit and start jamming than open another instance of Serum. The only thing I prefer doing "in the box" is mixing, as being able to load on as many graphic EQs as I want in a session is very useful. I do have some rack EQs, but I only really use them on my guitars and over AES as most of them are a bit noisy. Still can't beat a physical compressor on a drum bus though. Even with sample slicing and that sort of thing, I find using an MPC far more fluid over a VST. The only real drawback is cost of gear/cables. I dread to think how much money is in the room I'm sitting in, setting everything up over MADI and patch bays alone was more than I care to add up, but the end result of being able to turn on any instrument and immediately get jamming is well worth it. I've tried control surfaces for mixing digitally, but in the end I've just routed everything through an analogue 32 channel console. Again, the limitations of the physical seem to breed creativity for me.
Very insightful and thought provoking Tim. I always love your videos. ❤ I think one of the things driving the resurgence of analog is the physical, tactical, feedback of turning a knob or pressing a button, or in the case of modular, plug-in in a patch cable. You don't get that with generative AI (or a Yamaha DX7 lol). If I have a knob that I can tweak and listen to the results, then I can experiment until I find something I like, But with generative AI, I need to know what I like upfront in order to tell it what to generate. I think that's why analog has come back and will never go away. That need for hands-on tactical feedback for experimentation cannot be replaced by AI. I can see if you were scoring a film and need some mood music, you could tell generative AI about the mood, and it will produce it, and will probably be very good at that. But as a musician looking for "that sound", I feel there will always be a need for experimentation, which for me, means some instrument that gives me tactical feedback and inspiration. Merry Christmas Tim 🎄
Interesting parallels here. I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject lately myself. Vision takes a lot of processing power more than Sound but think about how much faster vibrations you need in order to reproduce sound compared to, let’s say, video. Another difference is that you need a screen in front of your eyes to watch video as opposed to sound that permeates the space around the listener.
I’m a 69 year old retired electro acoustic engineer/composer/researcher. Lucky to be a part of the electronic music revolution from cutting up pieces of recording tape snd splicing them together to doing the same thing digitally with computers and hardware. I much prefer to create/use my own sounds to compose/play with rather than have them created for me but hey! thats why I’m an aging modular junkie
Hartmann Neuron modeled synthesis was kind of a first attempt at "IA" generated waveform, maybe worth a try, but really prehistoric attempt regarding what you suggest at the end of this very interesting video.
Thanks! Well thought out and probably spot on. As a recently retired person, I now make music just for my own satisfaction, and part of that is to see what I can come up with on my own, without worrying about it having to make anyone else happy. There is a certain self-satisfaction of doing it all myself and not worrying if it's any good for public consumption. I simply enjoy the creative process. That said, I don't build my own synths or computers, I use the tools that are available. Of course, sampling other people's music has long been used as a tool to create music, in hip hop for example, even though they didn't "create" the sampled bits. The future of AI probably means people will be using it to "create" music and claiming them as their own creations, even if it means they just typed in some textual prompts. I'm not sure where the creative satisfaction is in that, but hey, that's not my problem. Keep up the good work, Tim. I enjoy your channel.
I dug your video and clips. You are right I haven't bought a new hardware synth since the Jupiter X came out. I have 13 hardware synths. Most over $ 3000 new. Im using more plugins as computers and software improve. Happy Holidays Tim dig your perspective.
Hey Tim, loved your videos since day one. Quick question as im completely stumped. What is the synth above the andromeda? I have been trying to work it out for ten mins and cant quite tell what it is.
The key element to appreciating music/sound, is "the experience". Whether it is passively listening, using it as meditation; dancing, playing it..etc. If an internet-based experience works for someone, then great. As far as "making-a-living", well that future is very uncertain. If having the latest gear (and knowing what to do with it), gave certain musicians an edge in the 70s, 80s 90s...do you not think that having the processing power and machinery, and internet speed/access will not once again, favour the fortunate?
Generative AI as it is now should really be called derivative AI. Could a current-era AI model possibly produce the examples you called out? Maybe. But it can't ever produce a waveform or a filter effect which wasn't somewhere in its training data so, I guess, think about whether that matters to you
Interesting topic. I think a true artist will create on whatever tools are available to them. What would Dali create with an iPad? What would Beethoven create with the modern keyboards of today? In 1979 I saw Isao Tomita play a concert in Tokyo. He sat on a chair on the stage and stared at the audience while his music played. I was just happy to see a great musician/synthesist in person. BTW, I love your videos. Keep up the good work.
I will class myself as an enthusiast. I have a full-time job and pride myself in spending my holiday money every year on plug-ins and synthesisers. However, I've been working with machine learning and AI for years. if I can tell my Computer to make a sound similar to OBX without lifting a finger, I would. 😀
My 8-year-old daughter loves making music and beats on a phone or iPad… because she then loves the challenge of making those sounds and that music on “the real synthesisers, Tatti!” ❤ Regarding your observations about “nostalgic gear”, here’s another parallel: Both my 8- and 16-year-old daughters enjoy music from the ‘60s - ‘80s at least as much contemporary music. Certainly part of that is that I’ve played it for them, but I think there’s much to be said just for the quality of the music on its own merits. Similarly, I have bought the synths I have (and kept the ones I haven’t sold! ;) strictly because of the quality of sound that each provides. It’s not that it’s “better”, it’s that it has a special quality that I can’t get from other offerings. If that rubs off on my girls, perhaps there will be continued demand for these instruments!
Being a 64 years old synthesizer enthusiast, I'm still working as a software engineer with some years experience in research on AI and knowledge based systems. With synthesizers I want to do it "hands on". Patches and sound banks might be nice but I want to create "my sounds". Sometimes as intended but more often just randomly created. That's what I call creativity.
I guess music is very naturally formulaic. It is simple, repetitive, structured, algorithmic. Highly mathematical and also grounded (heck, even restrained) by the physical properties of how sound behaves in space. There is not that much variation when you think about it. I don't think AI will be able to add any significant improvement to that part. To be frank, I think it could do that already. That being said, where I think AI could be useful in music making are individual tools. AI powered plugins, perhaps? Intelligent mixing and mastering? Sound purification? Smart reference analysis?
Great video, Tim! always enjoy listening to you talk about such matters! Great Job! (p.s. what is the white synth behind you? (I can't place it at all...)
When it comes to analoc circuits, there are these standards. Its ms20 filter circuit or the mog ladder filter and so on. If you look new filters coming out its modifications of these, so I do think these classics are going to stay with us as long as analog is something people want. It might get more and more niche though
About the analog revival, I have two theories (that are not original, lots of people on the internet think the same): - Art created digitally to be perfect, be it an oscillator wave or a photograph, is too "sterile", or too perfect - if you will - for us, creating a weird dissonance, maybe even an uncanny valley. They are useful, but only for people who know what they are doing and can "mold" these perfect things into imperfect representations, bringing back the "flawed" nature of the "organic world". I remember, for example, one of your videos about the Moong One, and how sterile it sounded when the oscillators were perfectly tuned. Art, after all, is not about being perfect, but about being expressive. - "Analog art" allows newcomers to be imperfect and to learn and deal with expectations, to try their hand at expressing themselves, knowing full well it _won't_ be perfect, but it will have its character as a byproduct of the medium. And this "character" that analog stuff creates sets it apart from digital art, and gives it a unique characteristic that literally can't be replicated. Tape saturation, for example, give us harmonic content we barely notice, but it's pleasant and/or enjoyable (as long as it's not overdone) even to people who didn't grow listening to music in tapes. Given this, I do believe the "analog revival" in the future will entails more and more mimicking "flawed" analog equipment with controllable variables, so we can degrade digital art as much as we like, in the exact spots that we want. I mean, the plugins from Aberrant DSP are already focused on this, and they are great! I use their compressor sometimes even without compressing anything because it already imparts its character into the sound. If we relied solely on digital medium to make art, everything would be the same, because digital stuff is always perfect. A digital saw wave is the same in every digital synthesizer, so it would sound the same everywhere. What's the solution? Run it through emulations inspired by analog and "flawed" equipment, and now you have a saw wave that can't be easily replicated. It became _your_ saw wave, that meets _your_ needs, degraded in a controlled manner to meet _your_ expectations. I mean, just recently I was watching a video from Plogue about emulating the SID chip from the C64, and every SID iteration has its own sound, and sometimes even the same models have different characteristics! For someone composing music for a video game in the 80s, that would've been a nightmare, as it would sound different on each system. Currently, though? That's awesome, because now you can emulate this "flawed" sound palette in a controlled manner and bend it to your will to fit your needs. There's a reason people love the sound of the SID chip, and it's because of that: its flawed nature gives it character! Do note that I'm using "flawed" with quotes because it's the nature of analog circuits not to be perfect, and this is not a bad thing. So that's it. The analog revival will never die, and enthusiasts will always come back for "degraded" art as means of expression. The digitally perfect stuff is only for professionals that either need something to be indeed perfect to fit their needs (such as a detailed photo of a nearby galaxy, or documenting a rare bird), or know how to "manually" degrade that perfect product and turn it into an artistic expression.
Perhaps the revival of analogue equipment is caused by the craving for control? Sticking cables ourselves, focusing an image ourselves are actions we can do with our own hands. Things we can invent and perform ourselves. Digital technology and now AI are taking over many simple tasks from us so many people are perhaps losing a sense of essential contact with their own works of art? If we look at recent history of how orchestral sample libraries have gained a place alongside real orchestras, we see that those orchestras have not been replaced. Although many muscians feared that this would happen. A library cannot replace the summation of 60 beating hearts into 1 big beating musical heart simply because 1 composer/programmer cannot conceive the personal interpretation of a score by 60 individuals. The sample libraries have allowed more composers to compose for real orchestras and increased the demand for orchestral live music in the film and TV world. In itself, this is wonderful although I do hear a musical flattening in terms of the quality of composition and orchestrations. You can't compare Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams to a handy, talented producer playing a few atmospheric chords on his keyboard.😉 In itself, this is fine, of course. As long as things can coexist. At some point, there will be no more room left. I fear that eventually the dominance of mediocrity will then be stronger, and that when that time comes, humanity will be too flattened and indifferent to notice that much beauty is being lost. I am happy to be alive NOW and to witness and follow all this. Hooray!
Hello Tim, 61 year old here and I make music using hardware gear, it’s the only way I can, technology overwhelmed me at some point and I can’t fathom any of it out. I’m hoping the future for musicians includes the desire to buy, own and play a real musical instrument and not something that is embedded in a computer device that is running software emulations.
Tim you've been around where most of us value your Ideas! I listen to you regularly and you have always made alot of sense! Everything that you've talked about has been interesting! Keep up the good work!
I earned a masters degree in music technology from New York University in 1994, and even then I could see that the entire studios we had were going to be replaced by software. I ended up pursuing a career in software and a few years ago bought a copy of Logic and made an entire album on my laptop, as I knew I'd be able to sooner or later. Hardware is sexy but too inefficient for me; I like to channel my creativity into one device.
One of the big differences for me is that hardware will most likely turn on and work 10-30-40 years from now, however, software always gets outdated and most likely a plugin will not work 15 years from now unless you have an old computer. Maybe emulation will become better and more future prone? The AI you are talking about already is here, I saw it online the other day, its not perfect yet, but it's a start, and then you have Synplant 2, these two combined would put us in the ballpark.
I guess we are at a crossroads where we can express ourselves without the immense learning curve. But we need to have something to say about this world we experience together. The artist want to convey their feelings about this life. The gear is only as fascinating as the story behind its creation..
Hello Tim...I don't get depressed either. It's been a while since I observed this vast technological ocean in which we have been immersed for several years. It was already fascinating when the analog world imposed its laws, but I have something to add... Maybe it is me, the difference, the most unrepeatable me, because if there is something that is unrepeatable, it is every human being and the vision that each human being has of life, competes only with him. In reality, when all the technologies come to tell us what today, and therefore in the future, has to happen and how,... When artificial intelligence arrives,( which is for me the great trickster because it is like the mind that pretends to feel and it is not its quality because the mind thinks, the heart feels), ...appears wonderfully wonderful , but if it does not carry within it the seed of natural intelligence, can it contribute to the better development of the human being ,if that is what we were looking for, of course?. What good would there be in that?.It will be a very pretty nutshell but with nothing inside, a photograph of a sunrise but without natural light or anything that resembles it. I am fascinated due to technological advances but the vast diversity of different forms of realization that these advances offer cause a mirage that confuses and that is that after touching the end and turning it into the means. The objective will always be to transmit, express. That is why we always return to the beginning, because there is a moment when at the end there is a wall, as you have said, that will come in the future. We will return to the beginning because deep down we are looking for the beginning. What is that principle?...contact with oneself. Art, make no mistake, arose when human beings asked themselves why they felt what they felt when observing the environment in which they lived and expressed it. That now the means to express oneself become the final objective seems to me to be a big mistake that will lead us back to that wall and we will return to the beginning again and again. We all know that a problem repeats itself until we solve it. .. Frankly I believe that we will play the drum, the flute and the clapping again and we will start again to reach that wall again and start again and so on forever until one day, perhaps, the nutshell of our understanding will open. and we no longer need to express but simply enjoy. Merry Christmas Tim. Let's continue doing beautiful things without caring what we do them with. Gabriel Vallejo. Huella Mundana czcams.com/channels/QrhHcFTh1WTImsGE9zaM-Q.html?si=Th56v4KLvdCSu-8F
I can't say much in the photography area but music - there will always be hardware synthesizers because: people still like to turn knobs and press switches. Some VST's are just as good - mainly digital ones. My concern would be for professional recording studio's. Technology means anyone can write, record, mix and master an album in their home studio. As for AI film studio's, art, photography, larger studio's will invest in AI mainly to cut costs to make more profit. Call me a cynic profit is the bottom line. So there will be less professional studio's but hobbyists will still be around buying gear.
Of course, "old fangled" chemical photography decimated the demand for portrait painters, and electronic instruments must have hugely impacted the mass-market demand for acoustic instruments for homes, schools, village halls... not to mention session musicians previously hired by rock bands when they wanted some woodwind or strings in their performance. Yet, even today, people still rub charcoal on paper, smear oil on canvas, blow into brass tubes and pluck strings, because art isn't necessarily about finding the most efficient way of achieving an end. In other news, people still sail in boats blown along by the wind, cook food over burning wood, pay to travel on steam-driven trains, buy expensive vinyl discs containing low-fi analogue sound that you destroy a bit with every play... So I don't think anything is going away - even if industries ebb and flow as mass-market demand rises and falls. Wasn't the current analogue hardware revival partly sparked by the appearance of *software* products like Rebirth? It's telling that there are firms like Arturia who started out making software synths and then moved into (mostly) analogue hardware. I get the distinct impression that, at least at the lower-price end of the market, software synths are selling hardware synths as much as vice versa (Softtube Modular was my gateway drug to Eurorack, curse them!) I'm highly skeptical about analogue hardware sounding better than a good plugin - and, being objective, plugins are certainly more economical, productive and versatile - but, then, objectivity isn't necessarily the aim of the exercise - hardware feels different, and that's fine as long as you accept it as an emotional/subjective response and don't make up pseudo-science to justify it. A lot of "art", at least the sort that sells cameras and synths by the million, is primarily about the artist entertaining themselves. I wouldn't pretend to be a "musician" - and I certainly resemble the "Mid life crisis synth owner" meme (except I left it a bit late) but I get enormous satisfaction from creating (derivative and technically inept) "music" which I'm not sure I'd get from asking ChatGPT to do it for me. I do feel for the people who make a living composing and performing "work-a-day" music for film/TV/games and are at a real risk of being replaced by "AI" - that's going to be echoed across most industries as jobs previously seen as "creative" or "skilled" are automated - and some social changes will probably be needed. There will doubtless always be work at the "top end" for premium productions that will pay for a human composer/performer - but how will people sleep indoors and eat hot meals while establishing their reputations if they can't get work making jingles for toothpaste ads? For the moment, however, most large-language-model "AI" is useless without human "curation" - there have already been some epic failures in other fields (like legal arguments citing non-existent case law) and I suspect that the pace will slow a bit once a few more early adopters have got egg on their face. I hate to say it, but I suspect that the big limit to AI-composed music will be massive copyright lawsuits every time it comes up with something that sounds a bit like a famous song...
If AI doesn’t understand or have an idea what it’s processing and producing. Then I don’t think that we can confidently say that our brains do so either. I mean, the only way we can tell if a person or entity understands a subject is through “testing him/her/it”. Seeing that AI is already passing Medical, law and business school tests. If we still say that “it” doesn’t understand, then what makes us sure that “we” understand. Is it the lack of sensory like eye site or hearing, or touch. Well we can surly add that with sensors.
The difference between Art and AI for me is : an artist explores without knowing what he will discover. AI is searching what already exists and acts like a dream, asleep, reassembling a wide range of information into a an optimised quantity of memory. An artist is acting like an astronaut, bouncing from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy...discovering a wide range of information/seeds he has a hard time turning into a final master piece. May be only one in a life time...
How many tokens did you "consume" generating all those images? The usage of the word intelligence in AI is such a misnomer. Much better to call it something like Artificial Automation. Might also give users a warning that using it can be addictive. Thanks Tim great overview. Have a merry Christmas and best wishes for 2024.
Personally, I think analog will be considered 'done' and we will regress back to the rompler big time. But with greater resolution and hands-on control, plus some of the analog tech built in. I'd love that in multi timbral format!
The only thing we can be sure of is that the future will be different to what we think it will be. Or as someone much cleverer than I put it “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
It is somewhat unintuitive that visual content would be made accessible through generative algorithmic tools sooner than audio since visual information *seems* more complex. (I don’t think it is.) Since we communicate with AI through text, I wonder if a historical overemphasis on the visual resulted in a more refined set of linguistic tools to describe that information making it easier to categorize and synthesize. Human existence has an element of artifice at its core. That is, existing as a human being is possible only by accepting some self-imposed limitations to our perception for the purpose of having the experience. One consequence of AI is that it threatens to expose those limitations for what they are: artificial. When one becomes invested in those limitations, believing them to be more than they are, that can be unsettling. The impulse to cling to this perspective has some similarities to nostalgia for older, more limited, technological forms. Both have value and can be rewarding as long as we understand them for what they are: a set of self-imposed restrictions we choose to apply to ourselves for the purpose of having a certain experience. Your videos are a total joy and inspiring. Thank you, and have a wonderful new year!
Thanks for this thoughtful video! What makes me fear most, is the trust of people in new technologies, especially AI, without scrutinizing anything. Personal knowledge, acclaimed over many years, seems to loose its value. Or has already lost it. A lot of „art“, for example music and photography, has become some kind of random. It's a shame.
Universal availability of pens, typewriters, word processors, spell / grammar checkers and AI haven't resulted in a world full of Pulitzer Prize winning authors. Easy doesn't mean better.....
At dinner the other night my friend whipped out his brand new iPhone and said “check out my new camera”. Even though he has full sized cameras at home he realized that he’d simply have more opportunities to take photos simply because he’d have it with him. The image quality IS amazing as is the optical zoom.
1. Ultimately AI creations get selected by humans. Even if we don't do the creation, we will still have power over the selection. I like the idea of being able to ask AI to create sounds for me. 2. I set aside creative photography when I turned 60 to focus on music but I enjoy making my thumbnail images with my old Olympus DSLR. The only camera I have bought since then is a Canon M50 for shooting CZcams videos. 3. I can see why people get nostalgic for synths they wanted in their youth but I like what younger generations have done with older gear. They certainly aren't infected by the thirst for "realism" that drove synthesizer design through the 80s and 90s. They go to those old instruments with fresh eyes like what happened to the TB-303. 4. Happy Christmas! 🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄
As to the future, is it not true that we see dimly as though a veil shrouds our sight? As in all issues of insight, it takes the wisdom of a seer or prophet to bring clarity to a matter. Dave Smith brought to world the Prophet 5 which led the way and gave insight to many others that changed our way of producing music. As Dave had insight to build his Prophet and lead the way in his field, so too are the writings from true prophets sent forth to bring illumination to the final dark age we are approaching.
Hi, Tim. Before lawnmowers, there were goats. Before automobiles, horse & buggy. Before digital synths, analog synths. Before digital cameras, 35mm cameras and so forth. More accessibility means more will be able to make music. However, the true art form (visual/audio/canvas) as rendered by incredibly talented artists will diminish. And - this is, alas, as sad contemplation. Our virtual world will become even more flattened as anyone with half effort can render amazing results, albeit computer-assisted.
With all due respect I got about 5 minutes into this and started to feel like I was at a convalescent home. I’m 54 and I don’t how many times my friends and I sit around talking about the same things. We are half a century old and worry about be replaced by AI and the matrix, yet revel in technological advances. We worry about becoming obsolete knowing we are nearing the end. Getting old sucks!
Yr commentary on generative text inspired me to imagine - that we’re trying to teach our technology to autonomously communicate with us. A hope being that it can explain some things for us…with its advanced logic and all. Knowing we as a flourish of universal self understanding aren’t likely to figure it out. Then after “life” has passed we’ll have possibly solved the universe’s biological issue. Just some free imagining. lol
Unfortunately I do get depressed. AI is already causing downturns in related industries. The skills and vocabulary of expression that many have learnt through their lives are taking one last nosedive of devaluation into obscurity. I see a lot of people acting like bookshop owners in 97, and Amazon is coming to take the food off their table. Harsh new world.
I went through analog tape to adat to pro tools. I often think my analog 1/2"recordings sound better than anything I do now. But could be I lost my Mojo after 30 years of age. Been recording since 1984 till now. Dont write or play like I did in 1990 or 2008. Despite all the best gear. Maybe the muse has passed.
I kinda think you might be missing a few of the pieces about the future. Here’s hoping ya’ll might be able to still get enough food and still be able to get some music gear and a camera.
My personal opinion as a 60 year old music fan & assistant music producer: (1) Companies are keep making instruments for the past 25 years less reliable so they can maximize their profit margin, i.e. lower labor cost, manufacturing cost, easy & quicker manufacturing for mass production, i.e SMD capacitors (short life) instead of real passive components which last 25-30 years! We have plenty of DAWs, audio interfaces, drum machines etc, while more & more new technologies emerge! Can a tablet and a music software replace a real piano player and a real piano and/or a real band or a symphonic orchestra? No! (2) With the emerge of digital technology in the beginning of the 1980, the prices went down and a lot of people, musicians and hobbyists were able to have a home studio and proceed into music production. (3) The majority of hobbyists and new musicians learn by themselves how to create music and the result was new genres of dance music, but less hits and lower quality of music. In 2023 700.000 - 1.00.000 new songs are released (!!!) every month worldwide a HUGE competition between artists in all genres, while their creators are "struggling" to make profits out of their creations. WHY? BOTTOM LINE: We have GREAT technologies! Music is inside us, but people must go to music schools. Learn the basic rules of Harmony, Synthesis, Arrangement, Fugue, etc so we can all together move forward and advance the level of the quality of the music creativity for more hits, higher revenues for the artists and better music enjoyment! Thanks for the video Tom.
a continual rehash of the past is the future based on the market demand across almost all consumer products. success is difficult, so remaking past "successes" and trading on the history is what has gotten us to now, a tiresome sea of bland recycled ideas at a comfortable price point. but at least we have your wonderful musical pieces to enjoy as the gloom surrounds us :)
at 53 I still like my hardware instruments, never been a professional musician but truly I don't care , all my stuff is my medicine, I will never accept anything "smart" technology unless it helps with recording itself and AI , whoever wants it can have it , nothing good will come out of it in my opinion, interesting show Tim 👍🏻
People often say "it's not rocket science" yet 'rocket science' is little more than stuffing propellant into a tube and pointing it where you want it to go, they often fail. 'Rocket science' is the most very clumsy and hamfisted of all the 'sciences' ... very interesting video
In the past, with hard work, serious investment, and some hardcore perseverance, most artist/enthusiast could become a serious professional, and eventually make a good living at their art. Juxtaposition, today that same artist/enthusiast, is lucky if they make enough money off their art, to buy their next piece of gear. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that just about anyone can make good art today, and with minimal investment, however, it’s so saturated now, chances of making a good living doing it, is nearly impossible.
Food for thought indeed. Very enjoyable nonetheless. Your vision of generative AI designing sounds seems very likely to me. I think the bridge between the brain (creator) and the product (music or image) will virtually cease to exist. Brain activity picked up by electrodes and sent to a computer will make the music and images. This will develop to a point where no physical instruments are needed. This video reminded me of Star Trek where to my surprise the Enterprise crew are still playing acoustic instruments so either I or Gene Roddenberry could be wrong.
I don't get depressed. I love music, I make music for myself, to please myself. Nothing else matters. Technological advances have enabled me to make and record sounds which would have costed thousands of pounds to produce 40 years ago. But I am happy with what I have now and no longer wish for the new. I enjoy my analog and digital synths but also spend a lot more time with my acoustic piano. I am not interested in the industries, in buying anything more. I love music.
Recently, my 11 year old nephew asked my sister for a drum machine for Christmas . She came to me and I set her up with a Korg Volca. It showed him my studio when he was over for thanksgiving. He was absolutely fascinated by my eurorack and moog Subsequent 37. He told me he had apps on his phone, but they aren’t as cool as the real machines. I have hope for the future.
Thanks for this. A friend's daughter is music production-curious and I bought her a Korg Volca (FM2) for Christmas, and she's smitten.
Great stuff Tim... as always. Insightful, thought provoking, interesting. Great music, imagery, video production. Bravo!
Agree. His artistic side shines through.
30 year old here, been into synths for almost 10 years and also love history. I make modern idm/ bass music so I dont know if you could say im part of a certain age and demographic but I do see interest in these things from younger kids too which is exciting. I dont think hardware will ever stop being fun which might be the disconnect in the parallel from photography
Good to read fella. 30 year olds into tech were, are and always will be a thing. Guys my age learned in their 20s and 30s from guys in their 80's now, and it ripples down the ages. fantastic to read that you're seeing younger folks than yourself into this too, I know a few myself. Nerdery will prevail !! 🙂
I Like your channell TIM! Nice video! Bravo!
Thank you Tim, the tactile has a place and also dreaming big that AI may help realize the dreams of our nostalgia at the same time. Cheers and a happy new year!! Wish you the best and appreciate your channel more than can be easily expressed. ❤
Nice work Tim! Brilliant
It's so interesting and so much fun to watch this video. And besides the musical aspects, i think it's one of the most clear and sober presentations of (generative) AI I have seen recently. You are one of the rare CZcamsrs i really like to follow. I like the topics you pick, your language and voice, your thoughtfulness, reasoning, humour, and also the fact that you do not flood us with too many videos.
Thank you Tim. Truly a great video.Merry Christmas.
Well done. As both a music tech and photography “enthusiast” I thought the comparison you made between the two was quite apt. I think the persistence of music “hardware”, however, is much deeper than nostalgia. Many people, myself included, spend so much time on computers and mobile devices that we want to get off the screens in our music. Also, because music (sound) is felt not just through our ears but in our bodies, I think that the tactile experience of turning knobs, pressing keys, moving sliders, striking drums, and plucking strings is not really replaced by digital sound generation. But digital technology has already extended the capabilities of “traditional” instruments and given rise to new instruments. While “producers” and “sound design” artists can get by on software alone, I don’t see musicians and listeners soon giving up the physical experiences of playing and feeling sounds moving through space from human to human.
The future is care homes with synths and singing Enola Gay rather than home organs and We’ll Meet Again 😮
We are making humans redundant and starting down a dangerous path. Probably the most dangerous path we have ever walked down. If Ai can create the most powerful synth ever created it can also create the music to go along with it. So you wont need any music gear because you will be redundant.
Beautifully made overview video of the paralels between the evolution in the field of photography, videography and music gear! Nice music too!!! Many compliments and thank you for your very nice and balanced videos / content!
Great combination of insight and introspection, combined with a sprinkling of self deprecating humour. Have a great holiday season yourself.
Tim, I've got the solution!!!!!!!!!!
now I know where it's technologicaly going to go...the direction especialy for music!:
-Everything that's easy to put in a prompt can be and will be AI generated.
-commands that require much more accuracy, consum to much brain energy, in terms of 'translating musical feelings in to the technical part of musicpoduction' demand for special outboardequipment.
-huge control consoles with free assignable nobs,faders and keys. All Motoriced!
-a universal DAW , Plugin and sountpack is playing.
Thanks for the beautiful report.
R.g.
Tim, thanks for these thoughts and, yep - you're spot on. I was banging on about similar and parallel developments in the video editing, video 3D GFX, and audio recording industries, back in the early '90's when it was all the physical kit was being replaced by software and computers. It was all still expensive, but still actually affordable, when compared, if you worked in the industry etc. And then it just got more and more affordable and accessible. Fast forward, and yes, everything is changing so fast. Laptops and software just "rule" this area, and now of course AI is in the room. I've been embracing and using it since March for generating images and video, and well wow! Every day there's another seemingly massive advance. The same will happen with music and sound very soon - I suppose imagery was easier to analyse and "learn" from, but, as you say, it's only learning from us, and what we have all input into this "realm" (The Internet) for such a long time. I.E. that's all of the 'data" that there is out there for "It" to learn from. Anyway, it'd be good to stay in touch re this topic. Thanks and regards, Martin. P.S. as an antidote people still aspire and long about owning Strat or a Les Paul guitar - interesting?
Couldn't have put it better Tim. Now when people ask me to explain what I mean about future of synthesis I can point them to this video.
Fabulous from beginning to end. Engaging and a lotta fun. Thanks Tim. I love what the future holds for music making. The apex of digital synthesis you mention is pretty crazy but I’m into it. Why not? Right? Great addition at the end saying we will do better embracing the technology. There are no rules to expression.
I was so happy when Behringer came out with affordable hardware synths and Cherry Audio affordable soft synths.
That was a delightful piece of music at the end. A real piece of mastery...
The bad side of software technologies is how quickly it falls out of date it's not secure And I think it makes users insecure Older techs like Super 8 film or analogue synths seem to be complete in themselves
Very nicely made video! And a good point.
Fun watching the two Tim's giving each other evils, hehe :)
Excellent video, thanks Tim, my brain cells have just come alive. Have a wonderful Crimbo bruva :)
Great content Tim.
Knobs and buttons have been removed from car interiors and people have complained. People like the physical connection with technology so I think we’ll see the same with synthesisers.
As always Tim, You are both that great voice of why something should be worth examining, while being that voice in the wilderness of we don't quite know what comes next. Your insights into the development of technology (no doubt having a foot in photography helps see how these industries mirror each other) are only exceeded by your deep love of the history of the engineering that went into creating this. As a musician (and a hobby photographer with my Nikon LRS cameras) I also wonder when need will trump nostalgia. I love the fact that I can buy both software and physical reproductions synths that were well out of my price range as a teenager in the 1980s, and that I can recreate (in Eurorack form) some of my dream modular synths (Moog, ARP 2500, Roland 100M, Buchla 200 series, Serge). This is a great time, but as you point out, this is fragile. Like you, I hope future generations will want to do this in the same way 20 year olds now play vinyl records, but who knows. My take is that we simply enjoy the fact that companies such as Behringer are willing to spend millions recreating our dream analog synths and charge us the price of a used Honda and not a Ferrari to have them! As always, keep up the great work my fellow Britt across the pond. Chris
I work with computers all day, I make a living developing apps and websites, I'm a "digital native". But I still solely use hardware to make music as I want to rely on my ears more than on a percentage or number on the screen (and I stare on the screen all day long anyway). And when I talked with a young colleague who doesn't have the money and proposed he used some classic synth VST with a USB hardware controller (that looks and feels and sounds like the real thing), he said he still wants hardware.
Regarding AI: I attended a conference recently with 3 of the main speakers talking about AI and apart from copyright issues (who says Getty Images won't win a law suit in 2 years against ChatGPT concerning their AI training, turning all your nice new AI generated logos and pictures into copyright strikes?), they gave us the task of drawing a tree. Some of us drew a christmas tree, some a palm tree, some a tree with a swing ... whereas the AI drew 200 pictures of Northern American Leaf Tree (as it was trained to do that). Not very creative.
Also as I used to be a copy writer in advertising: what AI currently writes is less creative than what I would have accepted from a 15 year old doing some training on the job. Yes, repetetive tasks like writing about sports results can be done by a computer, but I didn't see a unique campaign idea being created by an AI. It might brute-force a thousand ideas ... and then a human CURATOR could select and adjust the very few random good ones, just as you do when generating an AI picture. But if you had the AI just repeat successful previous hits, you would end up with something like the current music charts, nothing inspirational, all the same pitch-correction crap, as it has a "track record" praised by some music industry manager without any musical taste or spine. Same with filmmaking: if you curated the writing tediously and pushed the AI in a clever direction all the time, it could come up with a useable script. If you then trained the AI to create something that gets close to what's in your head - and spent twenty ywars adjusting that slight smirk that the AI never generated right as it doesn't understand how human feelings are expressed but just copies 99.9% of a facial impression ... then you could come up with an excellent AI made film (directed by a huge army of humans). But it would be quicker to just hire a bunch of actor students and do something that's more touching (with added artificial film grain).
For photographers, stock photography has been far worse than any other digital or AI development, so if I were you, I'd run for my life anyway (same goes for SEA writers). But as of music - as long as I do it for fun and not for a living, why should I do everything in a DAW and no tweak some vintage synth knob? And if I enjoyed it and it's good and it's so easy to publish on a million platforms, why shouldn't others enjoy it?
Beethoven created worlds , just like anyone who writes or plays music .
People listen and if they pay attention , they share that created world within .
Music is much more special than technology …it comes from and enters the heart .
“Once upon a time we twiddled knobs to create sounds”
👏🏻👏🏻👋🏼My dream would be to have a hardware and a software robot setting up all signal chain wiring patching stacking all equipment through verbal commands, able to use the full potential of hardware and make recommendations for music to be played by the human. Happy holidays!👏🏻👋🏼👋🏼
“Software will eat the world!” Is a saying that folks in my industry have been saying for years….Great content Tim. No AI will truly replace individual creativity. Your video here is an example. Humans in the future will want content generated by humans and will come to use those tools to seek it out…
Great video as always, thanks Tim! I'm simultaneously fascinated and optimistic yet terrified of the future. Working in IT, I feel that our attempts to automate everything is starting to go a little too far and even though this makes things as convenient as its ever been, I feel like we'll be automating ourselves out of most of our jobs in the next century or so for the sake of convenience and profit. And like it or not, our species is as driven by profit and wealth as we've ever been and it never seems to be enough, with seemingly everyone having multiple revenue streams and always reaching for more. The most ruthless, financially ambitious and power hungry amongst us will likely rise to the top of this heap with a plethora of automated systems that their companies have developed that have put them in that position. Once there, it's only a matter of time until they automate everything that can possibly be automated and eventually put us in a position where we are no longer able to work as we always have and our most basic human needs are no longer under our control to provide . Power always corrupts and the automator will eventually become the automated. When we're no longer in control of ourselves, that doesn't spell a positive outlook for our species. I can only hope our better natures will prevail through our trajectory into the future.
On a more positive take, maybe I'm wrong and automation will bring in a new golden age for our species but who can say. I'm also extremely curious to hear what the music of the next few centuries will sound like (coming from humans, not AI). Hearing innovative music is always is always an uplifting thing and perhaps the future of human created music will have a positive impact on our species. Thanks for the channel and great synth content!
I enjoyed this and thought you hit on some very important points, especially on the topic of the industry depending on enthusiasts and nostalgia. I love the recreations and they’ve made accessible through emulation an experience that very few would be able to access in hardware. I do hope that with the computing power available our favorite software companies can leverage modern technology to move forward, create, and innovate. Working with AI in a professional educational setting, and seeing the wonderful pace of innovation in just the past 18 months, I think the types of sound design scenarios you’re envisioning are close at hand. A sound design platform or soft-synth with an natural language model API-connected prompt interface could be quite interesting. There’s a lot of possibility for new things in sound. Thanks for providing some fuel for thought today.
Thanks, Tim. Excellent talk. I’m not depressed. Maybe that is due to my being involved with keys since the 70s and having a room of some non-museum instruments to rediscover. Been trying to migrate to a laptop pc based rig for gigs. It is amazing to use and sounds phenomenal, but I find it difficult to give up the interaction with hardware. Even using current complex controllers (I.e. Keylab series). Been trying to let go of my film camera also, to no avail. LOL. Someone will have a blast discovering these tools when I am gone!
I have to say you are right,i too can not relate to modern day products ,most of which are made just for profit,the sounds of todays music is just a mish mash ,no real clarity or depth ,i still have many analogue synths which i enjoy ,maybe just getting older ,????
I think the primary driver for hardware sales in the future will be user interface. In an age where you can do everything in the box, the only thing that really distinguishes hardware is the human interaction with it. I think we're going to see weirder hardware appear as flagships as manufacturers try and boost the "value add" in the only way that will be left to them, the user experience. I've been collecting production gear for about 5 years now (and thanks by the way, Tim, you've been a big influence on that). I know I don't actually need anything that I've got in this room, beyond perhaps the monitors and audio interface, but I like knob twiddling and being physically involved with the music making process. The limitations of the hardware in front of me is where the creativity comes from, which is not an experience I find myself having on any of the (extremely capable) VSTs I have available to me. The irony is that I find myself using presets or the same settings over and over again on VST plugins, mainly due to choice paralysis in the face of their capabilities.
I'm also aware that hardware is largely still a rich man's game, even if that is changing to some extent. This is a luxury hobby for me, and I do appreciate the fact that I'm in a fortunate enough position to be able to enjoy it. I am constantly in awe of what the next teenager with a laptop and Ableton is able to make in terms of actual music, and I'm very glad that option is available to the youngsters with that level of creativity. The important thing to remember there is that I am not, in any way, at a detriment because those options are available to other people. I just like doing things my way and have no aspirations beyond enjoying the mostly space cow farting noises that come out of all of my gear. Music production is more open to everyone now than it has ever been, and I'm fully supportive of the technology evolving in as many directions as possible if that means more people have an avenue for expressing themselves. As long as the space is still somewhere that can support those with the "real cameras" and the wider populace, I'm happy.
I appreciate your point about not being able to remember the actual vintage stuff. For context, I'm 35, but I had my formative years listening to the dance music of the 90's. Things like the 303 were a legend even to the common listener back then, I grew up reading magazines of what Leftfield or the Chemical Brothers were using to make all of the tunes I was listening to. That stuck with me, even though I wasn't old enough to be a part of the scene that existed around that music. I think the biggest counterpoint to this fear is the modular community, a lot of the people getting into that space do seem to be the younger generation. A lot of the conversations I'm having about modular are with guys in their early to mid 20's and buying new modules when they can afford them, but are also actually making music on the kit they have already.
It's interesting what you said about just using VST presets. I find for myself, the more knobs a VST has the more likely I'm only going to use presets. I just don't find using virtual knobs that satisfying or as providing much feedback...despite having little experience with hardware. At the very least, using an actual synth has a *feel* to it. VSTs that have some type of visual feedback other than a knob turning are a step in a good direction, I think, but developers lean into replicating physical hardware UI without adding any "digital spice".
Anyway, I'm just a 40 year old who grew up straddling the analog and digital world rambling here lol.
From a music production standpoint I see this in what Softube and SSL did, not to mention TC Technology. Having grown up tinkering with knobs In recording studios beginning in the late 1980s, I still need that ability and a computer mouse won't do it. This is something Roland seems to understand, among others, when it comes to software synth technology.
@@cnlbydesign5373 I agree completely. This is one of the reasons I'd sooner pick up a cheap Behringer synth or Novation circuit and start jamming than open another instance of Serum. The only thing I prefer doing "in the box" is mixing, as being able to load on as many graphic EQs as I want in a session is very useful. I do have some rack EQs, but I only really use them on my guitars and over AES as most of them are a bit noisy. Still can't beat a physical compressor on a drum bus though.
Even with sample slicing and that sort of thing, I find using an MPC far more fluid over a VST. The only real drawback is cost of gear/cables. I dread to think how much money is in the room I'm sitting in, setting everything up over MADI and patch bays alone was more than I care to add up, but the end result of being able to turn on any instrument and immediately get jamming is well worth it. I've tried control surfaces for mixing digitally, but in the end I've just routed everything through an analogue 32 channel console. Again, the limitations of the physical seem to breed creativity for me.
Very insightful and thought provoking Tim. I always love your videos. ❤
I think one of the things driving the resurgence of analog is the physical, tactical, feedback of turning a knob or pressing a button, or in the case of modular, plug-in in a patch cable. You don't get that with generative AI (or a Yamaha DX7 lol). If I have a knob that I can tweak and listen to the results, then I can experiment until I find something I like, But with generative AI, I need to know what I like upfront in order to tell it what to generate. I think that's why analog has come back and will never go away. That need for hands-on tactical feedback for experimentation cannot be replaced by AI.
I can see if you were scoring a film and need some mood music, you could tell generative AI about the mood, and it will produce it, and will probably be very good at that. But as a musician looking for "that sound", I feel there will always be a need for experimentation, which for me, means some instrument that gives me tactical feedback and inspiration.
Merry Christmas Tim 🎄
Sounds like a well thought out and fair prediction to me.
Tim, which composition is this in the background? (2:14 - 5:26) Is it your eurorack? I love what you do with simple melodies and sparse voices.
A nice take on the evolution of cameras/synthesisers
Interesting parallels here. I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject lately myself.
Vision takes a lot of processing power more than Sound but think about how much faster vibrations you need in order to reproduce sound compared to, let’s say, video. Another difference is that you need a screen in front of your eyes to watch video as opposed to sound that permeates the space around the listener.
I’m a 69 year old retired electro acoustic engineer/composer/researcher. Lucky to be a part of the electronic music revolution from cutting up pieces of recording tape snd splicing them together to doing the same thing digitally with computers and hardware.
I much prefer to create/use my own sounds to compose/play with rather than have them created for me but hey! thats why I’m an aging modular junkie
Hartmann Neuron modeled synthesis was kind of a first attempt at "IA" generated waveform, maybe worth a try, but really prehistoric attempt regarding what you suggest at the end of this very interesting video.
Thanks! Well thought out and probably spot on. As a recently retired person, I now make music just for my own satisfaction, and part of that is to see what I can come up with on my own, without worrying about it having to make anyone else happy. There is a certain self-satisfaction of doing it all myself and not worrying if it's any good for public consumption. I simply enjoy the creative process. That said, I don't build my own synths or computers, I use the tools that are available. Of course, sampling other people's music has long been used as a tool to create music, in hip hop for example, even though they didn't "create" the sampled bits. The future of AI probably means people will be using it to "create" music and claiming them as their own creations, even if it means they just typed in some textual prompts. I'm not sure where the creative satisfaction is in that, but hey, that's not my problem. Keep up the good work, Tim. I enjoy your channel.
I dug your video and clips. You are right I haven't bought a new hardware synth since the Jupiter X came out. I have 13 hardware synths. Most over $ 3000 new. Im using more plugins as computers and software improve. Happy Holidays Tim dig your perspective.
Hey Tim, loved your videos since day one. Quick question as im completely stumped. What is the synth above the andromeda? I have been trying to work it out for ten mins and cant quite tell what it is.
The key element to appreciating music/sound, is "the experience". Whether it is passively listening, using it as meditation; dancing, playing it..etc. If an internet-based experience works for someone, then great. As far as "making-a-living", well that future is very uncertain. If having the latest gear (and knowing what to do with it), gave certain musicians an edge in the 70s, 80s 90s...do you not think that having the processing power and machinery, and internet speed/access will not once again, favour the fortunate?
Generative AI as it is now should really be called derivative AI. Could a current-era AI model possibly produce the examples you called out? Maybe. But it can't ever produce a waveform or a filter effect which wasn't somewhere in its training data so, I guess, think about whether that matters to you
Is that an Alesis Andromeda at the back?
Interesting topic. I think a true artist will create on whatever tools are available to them. What would Dali create with an iPad? What would Beethoven create with the modern keyboards of today? In 1979 I saw Isao Tomita play a concert in Tokyo. He sat on a chair on the stage and stared at the audience while his music played. I was just happy to see a great musician/synthesist in person. BTW, I love your videos. Keep up the good work.
I will class myself as an enthusiast. I have a full-time job and pride myself in spending my holiday money every year on plug-ins and synthesisers.
However, I've been working with machine learning and AI for years.
if I can tell my Computer to make a sound similar to OBX without lifting a finger, I would. 😀
My 8-year-old daughter loves making music and beats on a phone or iPad… because she then loves the challenge of making those sounds and that music on “the real synthesisers, Tatti!” ❤
Regarding your observations about “nostalgic gear”, here’s another parallel: Both my 8- and 16-year-old daughters enjoy music from the ‘60s - ‘80s at least as much contemporary music. Certainly part of that is that I’ve played it for them, but I think there’s much to be said just for the quality of the music on its own merits. Similarly, I have bought the synths I have (and kept the ones I haven’t sold! ;) strictly because of the quality of sound that each provides. It’s not that it’s “better”, it’s that it has a special quality that I can’t get from other offerings. If that rubs off on my girls, perhaps there will be continued demand for these instruments!
Being a 64 years old synthesizer enthusiast, I'm still working as a software engineer with some years experience in research on AI and knowledge based systems.
With synthesizers I want to do it "hands on". Patches and sound banks might be nice but I want to create "my sounds". Sometimes as intended but more often just randomly created. That's what I call creativity.
I guess music is very naturally formulaic. It is simple, repetitive, structured, algorithmic. Highly mathematical and also grounded (heck, even restrained) by the physical properties of how sound behaves in space. There is not that much variation when you think about it. I don't think AI will be able to add any significant improvement to that part. To be frank, I think it could do that already. That being said, where I think AI could be useful in music making are individual tools. AI powered plugins, perhaps? Intelligent mixing and mastering? Sound purification? Smart reference analysis?
having to fiddle with negatives in development process and cost (and space) of materials. digital photography is a blessing.
Great video, Tim! always enjoy listening to you talk about such matters! Great Job! (p.s. what is the white synth behind you? (I can't place it at all...)
JDXA with a vinyl skin
When it comes to analoc circuits, there are these standards. Its ms20 filter circuit or the mog ladder filter and so on. If you look new filters coming out its modifications of these, so I do think these classics are going to stay with us as long as analog is something people want. It might get more and more niche though
About the analog revival, I have two theories (that are not original, lots of people on the internet think the same):
- Art created digitally to be perfect, be it an oscillator wave or a photograph, is too "sterile", or too perfect - if you will - for us, creating a weird dissonance, maybe even an uncanny valley. They are useful, but only for people who know what they are doing and can "mold" these perfect things into imperfect representations, bringing back the "flawed" nature of the "organic world". I remember, for example, one of your videos about the Moong One, and how sterile it sounded when the oscillators were perfectly tuned. Art, after all, is not about being perfect, but about being expressive.
- "Analog art" allows newcomers to be imperfect and to learn and deal with expectations, to try their hand at expressing themselves, knowing full well it _won't_ be perfect, but it will have its character as a byproduct of the medium. And this "character" that analog stuff creates sets it apart from digital art, and gives it a unique characteristic that literally can't be replicated. Tape saturation, for example, give us harmonic content we barely notice, but it's pleasant and/or enjoyable (as long as it's not overdone) even to people who didn't grow listening to music in tapes.
Given this, I do believe the "analog revival" in the future will entails more and more mimicking "flawed" analog equipment with controllable variables, so we can degrade digital art as much as we like, in the exact spots that we want. I mean, the plugins from Aberrant DSP are already focused on this, and they are great! I use their compressor sometimes even without compressing anything because it already imparts its character into the sound.
If we relied solely on digital medium to make art, everything would be the same, because digital stuff is always perfect. A digital saw wave is the same in every digital synthesizer, so it would sound the same everywhere. What's the solution? Run it through emulations inspired by analog and "flawed" equipment, and now you have a saw wave that can't be easily replicated. It became _your_ saw wave, that meets _your_ needs, degraded in a controlled manner to meet _your_ expectations.
I mean, just recently I was watching a video from Plogue about emulating the SID chip from the C64, and every SID iteration has its own sound, and sometimes even the same models have different characteristics! For someone composing music for a video game in the 80s, that would've been a nightmare, as it would sound different on each system. Currently, though? That's awesome, because now you can emulate this "flawed" sound palette in a controlled manner and bend it to your will to fit your needs. There's a reason people love the sound of the SID chip, and it's because of that: its flawed nature gives it character!
Do note that I'm using "flawed" with quotes because it's the nature of analog circuits not to be perfect, and this is not a bad thing.
So that's it. The analog revival will never die, and enthusiasts will always come back for "degraded" art as means of expression. The digitally perfect stuff is only for professionals that either need something to be indeed perfect to fit their needs (such as a detailed photo of a nearby galaxy, or documenting a rare bird), or know how to "manually" degrade that perfect product and turn it into an artistic expression.
When everything i possible, nothing gets done.
Perhaps the revival of analogue equipment is caused by the craving for control? Sticking cables ourselves, focusing an image ourselves are actions we can do with our own hands. Things we can invent and perform ourselves. Digital technology and now AI are taking over many simple tasks from us so many people are perhaps losing a sense of essential contact with their own works of art? If we look at recent history of how orchestral sample libraries have gained a place alongside real orchestras, we see that those orchestras have not been replaced. Although many muscians feared that this would happen. A library cannot replace the summation of 60 beating hearts into 1 big beating musical heart simply because 1 composer/programmer cannot conceive the personal interpretation of a score by 60 individuals. The sample libraries have allowed more composers to compose for real orchestras and increased the demand for orchestral live music in the film and TV world. In itself, this is wonderful although I do hear a musical flattening in terms of the quality of composition and orchestrations. You can't compare Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams to a handy, talented producer playing a few atmospheric chords on his keyboard.😉 In itself, this is fine, of course. As long as things can coexist. At some point, there will be no more room left. I fear that eventually the dominance of mediocrity will then be stronger, and that when that time comes, humanity will be too flattened and indifferent to notice that much beauty is being lost. I am happy to be alive NOW and to witness and follow all this. Hooray!
Hello Tim, 61 year old here and I make music using hardware gear, it’s the only way I can, technology overwhelmed me at some point and I can’t fathom any of it out. I’m hoping the future for musicians includes the desire to buy, own and play a real musical instrument and not something that is embedded in a computer device that is running software emulations.
Tim you've been around where most of us value your Ideas! I listen to you regularly and you have always made alot of sense! Everything that you've talked about has been interesting! Keep up the good work!
'Que Sara -Sara'!😇
Thanks!
I earned a masters degree in music technology from New York University in 1994, and even then I could see that the entire studios we had were going to be replaced by software. I ended up pursuing a career in software and a few years ago bought a copy of Logic and made an entire album on my laptop, as I knew I'd be able to sooner or later. Hardware is sexy but too inefficient for me; I like to channel my creativity into one device.
@TimShoebridge sigh
Hey Tim - I love elephants ❤ So glad you affirm that AI is not I at all 😊 Really hate software that sticks AI in its blurb as a marketing ploy.
The tech version of greenwashing.
@@mk1st Absolutely 😒
Nothing will replace human interaction with physical things.
Well ...
One of the big differences for me is that hardware will most likely turn on and work 10-30-40 years from now, however, software always gets outdated and most likely a plugin will not work 15 years from now unless you have an old computer. Maybe emulation will become better and more future prone? The AI you are talking about already is here, I saw it online the other day, its not perfect yet, but it's a start, and then you have Synplant 2, these two combined would put us in the ballpark.
I guess we are at a crossroads where we can express ourselves without the immense learning curve. But we need to have something to say about this world we experience together. The artist want to convey their feelings about this life. The gear is only as fascinating as the story behind its creation..
Hello Tim...I don't get depressed either. It's been a while since I observed this vast technological ocean in which we have been immersed for several years. It was already fascinating when the analog world imposed its laws, but I have something to add...
Maybe it is me, the difference, the most unrepeatable me, because if there is something that is unrepeatable, it is every human being and the vision that each human being has of life, competes only with him.
In reality, when all the technologies come to tell us what today, and therefore in the future, has to happen and how,...
When artificial intelligence arrives,( which is for me the great trickster because it is like the mind that pretends to feel and it is not its quality because the mind thinks, the heart feels), ...appears wonderfully wonderful , but if it does not carry within it the seed of natural intelligence, can it contribute to the better development of the human being ,if that is what we were looking for, of course?.
What good would there be in that?.It will be a very pretty nutshell but with nothing inside, a photograph of a sunrise but without natural light or anything that resembles it.
I am fascinated due to technological advances but the vast diversity of different forms of realization that these advances offer cause a mirage that confuses and that is that after touching the end and turning it into the means. The objective will always be to transmit, express. That is why we always return to the beginning, because there is a moment when at the end there is a wall, as you have said, that will come in the future. We will return to the beginning because deep down we are looking for the beginning. What is that principle?...contact with oneself.
Art, make no mistake, arose when human beings asked themselves why they felt what they felt when observing the environment in which they lived and expressed it. That now the means to express oneself become the final objective seems to me to be a big mistake that will lead us back to that wall and we will return to the beginning again and again. We all know that a problem repeats itself until we solve it. .. Frankly I believe that we will play the drum, the flute and the clapping again and we will start again to reach that wall again and start again and so on forever until one day, perhaps, the nutshell of our understanding will open. and we no longer need to express but simply enjoy. Merry Christmas Tim. Let's continue doing beautiful things without caring what we do them with. Gabriel Vallejo. Huella Mundana czcams.com/channels/QrhHcFTh1WTImsGE9zaM-Q.html?si=Th56v4KLvdCSu-8F
I can't say much in the photography area but music - there will always be hardware synthesizers because: people still like to turn knobs and press switches. Some VST's are just as good - mainly digital ones. My concern would be for professional recording studio's. Technology means anyone can write, record, mix and master an album in their home studio. As for AI film studio's, art, photography, larger studio's will invest in AI mainly to cut costs to make more profit. Call me a cynic profit is the bottom line. So there will be less professional studio's but hobbyists will still be around buying gear.
There are dude on youtube who made wavetable library using AI algorithms. Pretty interesting stuff
Of course, "old fangled" chemical photography decimated the demand for portrait painters, and electronic instruments must have hugely impacted the mass-market demand for acoustic instruments for homes, schools, village halls... not to mention session musicians previously hired by rock bands when they wanted some woodwind or strings in their performance. Yet, even today, people still rub charcoal on paper, smear oil on canvas, blow into brass tubes and pluck strings, because art isn't necessarily about finding the most efficient way of achieving an end. In other news, people still sail in boats blown along by the wind, cook food over burning wood, pay to travel on steam-driven trains, buy expensive vinyl discs containing low-fi analogue sound that you destroy a bit with every play... So I don't think anything is going away - even if industries ebb and flow as mass-market demand rises and falls.
Wasn't the current analogue hardware revival partly sparked by the appearance of *software* products like Rebirth? It's telling that there are firms like Arturia who started out making software synths and then moved into (mostly) analogue hardware. I get the distinct impression that, at least at the lower-price end of the market, software synths are selling hardware synths as much as vice versa (Softtube Modular was my gateway drug to Eurorack, curse them!) I'm highly skeptical about analogue hardware sounding better than a good plugin - and, being objective, plugins are certainly more economical, productive and versatile - but, then, objectivity isn't necessarily the aim of the exercise - hardware feels different, and that's fine as long as you accept it as an emotional/subjective response and don't make up pseudo-science to justify it.
A lot of "art", at least the sort that sells cameras and synths by the million, is primarily about the artist entertaining themselves. I wouldn't pretend to be a "musician" - and I certainly resemble the "Mid life crisis synth owner" meme (except I left it a bit late) but I get enormous satisfaction from creating (derivative and technically inept) "music" which I'm not sure I'd get from asking ChatGPT to do it for me. I do feel for the people who make a living composing and performing "work-a-day" music for film/TV/games and are at a real risk of being replaced by "AI" - that's going to be echoed across most industries as jobs previously seen as "creative" or "skilled" are automated - and some social changes will probably be needed. There will doubtless always be work at the "top end" for premium productions that will pay for a human composer/performer - but how will people sleep indoors and eat hot meals while establishing their reputations if they can't get work making jingles for toothpaste ads? For the moment, however, most large-language-model "AI" is useless without human "curation" - there have already been some epic failures in other fields (like legal arguments citing non-existent case law) and I suspect that the pace will slow a bit once a few more early adopters have got egg on their face. I hate to say it, but I suspect that the big limit to AI-composed music will be massive copyright lawsuits every time it comes up with something that sounds a bit like a famous song...
If AI doesn’t understand or have an idea what it’s processing and producing. Then I don’t think that we can confidently say that our brains do so either. I mean, the only way we can tell if a person or entity understands a subject is through “testing him/her/it”. Seeing that AI is already passing Medical, law and business school tests. If we still say that “it” doesn’t understand, then what makes us sure that “we” understand. Is it the lack of sensory like eye site or hearing, or touch. Well we can surly add that with sensors.
The difference between Art and AI for me is : an artist explores without knowing what he will discover. AI is searching what already exists and acts like a dream, asleep, reassembling a wide range of information into a an optimised quantity of memory. An artist is acting like an astronaut, bouncing from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy...discovering a wide range of information/seeds he has a hard time turning into a final master piece. May be only one in a life time...
How many tokens did you "consume" generating all those images? The usage of the word intelligence in AI is such a misnomer. Much better to call it something like Artificial Automation. Might also give users a warning that using it can be addictive. Thanks Tim great overview. Have a merry Christmas and best wishes for 2024.
Personally, I think analog will be considered 'done' and we will regress back to the rompler big time. But with greater resolution and hands-on control, plus some of the analog tech built in. I'd love that in multi timbral format!
The only thing we can be sure of is that the future will be different to what we think it will be. Or as someone much cleverer than I put it “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
It is somewhat unintuitive that visual content would be made accessible through generative algorithmic tools sooner than audio since visual information *seems* more complex. (I don’t think it is.) Since we communicate with AI through text, I wonder if a historical overemphasis on the visual resulted in a more refined set of linguistic tools to describe that information making it easier to categorize and synthesize.
Human existence has an element of artifice at its core. That is, existing as a human being is possible only by accepting some self-imposed limitations to our perception for the purpose of having the experience.
One consequence of AI is that it threatens to expose those limitations for what they are: artificial. When one becomes invested in those limitations, believing them to be more than they are, that can be unsettling.
The impulse to cling to this perspective has some similarities to nostalgia for older, more limited, technological forms. Both have value and can be rewarding as long as we understand them for what they are: a set of self-imposed restrictions we choose to apply to ourselves for the purpose of having a certain experience.
Your videos are a total joy and inspiring. Thank you, and have a wonderful new year!
Thanks for this thoughtful video! What makes me fear most, is the trust of people in new technologies, especially AI, without scrutinizing anything. Personal knowledge, acclaimed over many years, seems to loose its value. Or has already lost it. A lot of „art“, for example music and photography, has become some kind of random. It's a shame.
Thanks for the interesting video. That AI-generated sound would sound so cool.
Universal availability of pens, typewriters, word processors, spell / grammar checkers and AI haven't resulted in a world full of Pulitzer Prize winning authors. Easy doesn't mean better.....
At dinner the other night my friend whipped out his brand new iPhone and said “check out my new camera”. Even though he has full sized cameras at home he realized that he’d simply have more opportunities to take photos simply because he’d have it with him.
The image quality IS amazing as is the optical zoom.
1. Ultimately AI creations get selected by humans. Even if we don't do the creation, we will still have power over the selection. I like the idea of being able to ask AI to create sounds for me.
2. I set aside creative photography when I turned 60 to focus on music but I enjoy making my thumbnail images with my old Olympus DSLR. The only camera I have bought since then is a Canon M50 for shooting CZcams videos.
3. I can see why people get nostalgic for synths they wanted in their youth but I like what younger generations have done with older gear. They certainly aren't infected by the thirst for "realism" that drove synthesizer design through the 80s and 90s. They go to those old instruments with fresh eyes like what happened to the TB-303.
4. Happy Christmas! 🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄
As to the future, is it not true that we see dimly as though a veil shrouds our sight?
As in all issues of insight, it takes the wisdom of a seer or prophet to bring clarity to a matter. Dave Smith brought to world the Prophet 5 which led the way and gave insight to many others that changed our way of producing music. As Dave had insight to build his Prophet and lead the way in his field, so too are the writings from true prophets sent forth to bring illumination to the final dark age we are approaching.
Hi, Tim. Before lawnmowers, there were goats. Before automobiles, horse & buggy. Before digital synths, analog synths. Before digital cameras, 35mm cameras and so forth. More accessibility means more will be able to make music. However, the true art form (visual/audio/canvas) as rendered by incredibly talented artists will diminish. And - this is, alas, as sad contemplation. Our virtual world will become even more flattened as anyone with half effort can render amazing results, albeit computer-assisted.
With all due respect I got about 5 minutes into this and started to feel like I was at a convalescent home. I’m 54 and I don’t how many times my friends and I sit around talking about the same things. We are half a century old and worry about be replaced by AI and the matrix, yet revel in technological advances. We worry about becoming obsolete knowing we are nearing the end. Getting old sucks!
Yr commentary on generative text inspired me to imagine - that we’re trying to teach our technology to autonomously communicate with us. A hope being that it can explain some things for us…with its advanced logic and all. Knowing we as a flourish of universal self understanding aren’t likely to figure it out. Then after “life” has passed we’ll have possibly solved the universe’s biological issue. Just some free imagining. lol
all blazed
And agreed on the ai imagery.
Unfortunately I do get depressed. AI is already causing downturns in related industries. The skills and vocabulary of expression that many have learnt through their lives are taking one last nosedive of devaluation into obscurity. I see a lot of people acting like bookshop owners in 97, and Amazon is coming to take the food off their table. Harsh new world.
I went through analog tape to adat to pro tools. I often think my analog 1/2"recordings sound better than anything I do now. But could be I lost my Mojo after 30 years of age. Been recording since 1984 till now. Dont write or play like I did in 1990 or 2008. Despite all the best gear. Maybe the muse has passed.
Give me the sound of...
Process this audio to provide qudraphonic output from a single transducer. Also... design the transducer.🎉
I kinda think you might be missing a few of the pieces about the future. Here’s hoping ya’ll might be able to still get enough food and still be able to get some music gear and a camera.
My personal opinion as a 60 year old music fan & assistant music producer:
(1) Companies are keep making instruments for the past 25 years less reliable so they can maximize their profit margin, i.e. lower labor cost, manufacturing cost, easy & quicker manufacturing for mass production, i.e SMD capacitors (short life) instead of real passive components which last 25-30 years!
We have plenty of DAWs, audio interfaces, drum machines etc, while more & more new technologies emerge! Can a tablet and a music software replace a real piano player and a real piano and/or a real band or a symphonic orchestra? No!
(2) With the emerge of digital technology in the beginning of the 1980, the prices went down and a lot of people, musicians and hobbyists were able to have a home studio and proceed into music production.
(3) The majority of hobbyists and new musicians learn by themselves how to create music and the result was new genres of dance music, but less hits and lower quality of music. In 2023 700.000 - 1.00.000 new songs are released (!!!) every month worldwide a HUGE competition between artists in all genres, while their creators are "struggling" to make profits out of their creations. WHY?
BOTTOM LINE: We have GREAT technologies! Music is inside us, but people must go to music schools. Learn the basic rules of Harmony, Synthesis, Arrangement, Fugue, etc so we can all together move forward and advance the level of the quality of the music creativity for more hits, higher revenues for the artists and better music enjoyment! Thanks for the video Tom.
a continual rehash of the past is the future based on the market demand across almost all consumer products. success is difficult, so remaking past "successes" and trading on the history is what has gotten us to now, a tiresome sea of bland recycled ideas at a comfortable price point. but at least we have your wonderful musical pieces to enjoy as the gloom surrounds us :)
Nostalgia’s not what it used to be ..😉
No one ever talks about artificial stupidity. Stupidity is what makes things funny :-) Six fingers on a hand is about it so far.
at 53 I still like my hardware instruments, never been a professional musician but truly I don't care , all my stuff is my medicine, I will never accept anything "smart" technology unless it helps with recording itself and AI , whoever wants it can have it , nothing good will come out of it in my opinion, interesting show Tim 👍🏻
People often say "it's not rocket science" yet 'rocket science' is little more than stuffing propellant into a tube and pointing it where you want it to go, they often fail. 'Rocket science' is the most very clumsy and hamfisted of all the 'sciences' ... very interesting video
In the past, with hard work, serious investment, and some hardcore perseverance, most artist/enthusiast could become a serious professional, and eventually make a good living at their art. Juxtaposition, today that same artist/enthusiast, is lucky if they make enough money off their art, to buy their next piece of gear. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that just about anyone can make good art today, and with minimal investment, however, it’s so saturated now, chances of making a good living doing it, is nearly impossible.
Musically, it’ll never be The White Album.
Food for thought indeed. Very enjoyable nonetheless. Your vision of generative AI designing sounds seems very likely to me. I think the bridge between the brain (creator) and the product (music or image) will virtually cease to exist. Brain activity picked up by electrodes and sent to a computer will make the music and images. This will develop to a point where no physical instruments are needed. This video reminded me of Star Trek where to my surprise the Enterprise crew are still playing acoustic instruments so either I or Gene Roddenberry could be wrong.
So if low resolution mp3s on the public internet is the source for a Generative AI Dataset, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, Imho