AI has made its way into the music industry where it has created mashes and mix-ups with people’s favorite artists. It’s a music artist’s paradigm shift. It has also presented an extraordinary opportunity for novice, amateur, and professional artists to have a very productive and collaborative platform in producing unique music and exciting atmospheres.
AI spans the entire music industry. It begins from the way music is first created and produced, which provides a new facet in how it’s consumed and experienced. Today, AI-powered tools are assisting musicians in writing, recording, and mixing music more efficiently and creatively. It’s also being used to personalize the listening experience for fans and a way to discover new artists and the various talents they bring to the industry.
There are several AI-powered song composition and video tools, for example, Amper Musics Songwriter, Band Labs, Band in a Box, and Presonus Notion. These apps serve current and future artists in several different ways. There are also apps for virtual instruments and synthesizers. One well-known AI instrument is IBM’s Watson’s Beat, which gives the user or artist the ability to replace and create new sounds. These new AI capabilities in music have given rise to an entirely new wave of artists.
One of the largest music companies in the world, Universal Music Group, has partnered with YouTube to produce a music AI Incubator. The new organization starts off with three (3) underlying principles. According to Forbes, they are.
- AI is here, and we’ll embrace it responsibly together with our music partners.
- AI is ushering in a new age of creative expression, but it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate.
- We’ve built an industry-leading trust and safety organization and content policies. We will scale those to meet the challenges of AI.
Live performances are also under the influence of AI, which creates new types of venues. Virtual Reality (VR) and AI technologies have converged to create exciting concert experiences. Several artists and DJs have made their way in the industry by leveraging AI to create hyper-realistic environments that make it possible to reach global audiences.
In these physical venues, AI-driven technologies are enhancing the fan experience in real time. AI has been used to analyze crowd reactions, thereby dynamically adjusting lighting and visuals. The level of analysis ensures that each concert is unique and can be customized to the level of diverse audiences.
The rise of streaming platforms on cable, television, and online apps has also revolutionized how AI-generated music is distributed and consumed. It has become the leader in creating such experiences. AI algorithms are also used to analyze music lovers’ behavior, preferences, and listening patterns to further customize personalized playlists and to introduce music lovers to new artists and genres.
According to a Forbes article, “Tools like Spotify’s Discover Weekly and Apple Music’s Personalized Radio use AI to recommend songs to users based on their listening history and preferences.” Music lovers benefit from this type of technology. This not only expands their musical horizons, but it also provides a powerful tool for artists who are seeking to reach and engage new audiences.
Although AI is having a huge impact on the music industry, there are some risks that also need to be addressed.
One of the risks immediately presenting itself is that AI-generated music is so realistic that it cannot be distinguished from human-created music. This raises several legal issues about copyright and ownership. These risks are generating new laws, especially concerning intellectual property and proprietary law.
There’s a creative AI music artist located in the Washington, DC area who goes by DJ DETOXX. He uses and exploits AI in the music industry, and he’s significantly profited in the new AI-generated music genre. He answered a few insider questions regarding AI music creation and collaboration.
“How did you get into using AI for music and DJing?”
DJ DETOXX: “I started using AI in music in 2022. I received a call from a wedding event planner I’d previously DJed a wedding for and he wanted a creative music piece for another event. He gave me an mp3 of a song they wanted the vocals stripped from so they could use the music track as an instrumental for the bride and groom.
I’m a user interface/user experience (UI/UX) software engineer and designer by profession. I’ve been constantly researching technology trends in software development and digital music. As a result, I stumbled upon an online AI platform called LALAL.ai, which is a vocal and music separation software package. I purchased credits to use the software to remove the vocals from the soundtrack.
I continued researching different AI software packages and discovered a new version of the DJ software that I had been using called Serato. I downloaded the new version of Serato Stems separation feature and considered what song would be dope to work on using the Serato software.
At this time, the Usher cover song challenge of track ‘Super Star’ was going crazy on all the social media platforms. So, I took the recording artist Michael Wyatts’ cover version of ‘Super Star’ since it had over a million views at the time. I separated the audio from his track and mashed it up with Usher’s vocals and used the instrumental of 2 Chainz’s song ‘It’s a Vibe’ as the music to be layered under the original music track. I not only did the audio version, but I also included the video from each artist. I had mashed up everything and posted it to YouTube on my DETOXX LIVE channel and it went viral. It currently has 47K views and 1.3K likes.
I continue to create more AI-generated music mashups, remixes, and blends that use other AI software such as Kaibr, E-mastered, and others. My work can be found at dailydetoxx.com where my first video mashup using video/audio separation is posted (https:\\www.youtube.com\watch?v=6OIV3X9M1RI).”
“Do you see this the same way as some artists, that its an infringement on their copyrighted music?”
DJ DETOXX: “Yes and no. To have the ability to use AI to separate vocals and song stems allows content creators to recreate, flip, mash up, or blend two or more different songs. It’s genius for the future of the genre, innovation, and the continuation of music. One thing is that it allows DJs and other AI content creators to bring old classic songs back to life. For instance, I created the existing AI mashup of the MTV classic song “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer and using Busta Rhymes’ beat with partial vocals from his 2005 song “Touch It” to where I was able to bring Hammer’ song back to life. You can listen to my AI song mashup here: https//on.soundcloud.com/C7D27nTHXQsRWf6q9.
In return, this could cause multiple artists to monetize and do a collaboration on stage or in the studio for newly recorded music. I think the artists and labels will say that it’s copyright infringement because it may allow the artist to lose identity with their original song recording, as well as lose a fan base in years to come. However, I also think all proprietary content needs to evolve because there are too many gatekeepers.”
“How are your AI music creations protected from being copied?”
DJ DETOXX: “Anything that’s introduced to the music universe can be copied, but with AI-generated music, the majority of it is already content ID tagged through ASCAP and BMI. So, now it’s up to the record labels, YouTube, Apple, and other streaming and music service platforms to split royalties because AI music-generated content is here to stay and isn’t going anywhere.”
Please check out some of this newly generated AI music and feel free to explore for yourself other software and artists who are using software for their AI music-generated masterpieces.
