The trend in the music industry for artists to create flawless recordings seems to be growing ever more omnipresent, regardless of genre. Out of time? Quantize it. Not in pitch? Use autotune.

As producers have gone digital, these tools, along with many others, have become the industry standard. These ubiquitous editing tools are taking the imperfection of the recordings further and further out of music. Now, with the growing use of AI, generative and otherwise, there is yet another wrinkle added in the search for musical perfection.

And, before going much further, I will admit to using AI in a recent recording session. While recording drums, my band performed the songs in a live setting. After the performance, AI was utilized to separate the vocals in order for us to have a scratch vocal track to record to. In this sense, AI was very helpful, but I think the distinction must be made that it wasn’t generative AI, nor will the AI-separated vocal be used in the final mix. It was merely used as a placeholder. But what about instances where it’s not used as a placeholder?

Consider the Beatles’ last released song, “Now and Then.” Lennon’s vocal was separated using AI technology to extract it from a very degraded demo recording he had done in the mid-1970s. From there, the remaining Beatles, Paul and Ringo, were able to build the rest of the song. (George’s guitar work from an earlier session of the song in the mid-1990s was also used.) But this case, while much more extensive in its use of AI, is still not an example of generative AI.

So, what is generative AI, and what are some common examples? Generative AI, in terms of music, is when artificial intelligence studies music of the past, learns its patterns, and proceeds to spit out something new while taking these learned algorithms into account. At best, it’s careless; at worst, it’s extremely damaging to the industry.

Tools like Suno (whose tagline is “From your mind to music”) allow anyone with an idea, whether they are musical or not, to “create” a song. Though it is cheapening the craft, I fear that generative AI will soon be as ubiquitous as quantization and autotune. In some ways, society seems to be steering more toward technological creativity, often to the detriment of musical creativity. It is because of this perceived opinion of mine that Jack White’s sentiments during his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were so refreshing to me: "And so, to the young artists, I want to say, get your hands dirty and drop the screens and get out in your garage or your little room and get obsessed. Get obsessed with something. You know, get passionate. We all want to share in what you might create. 

Perhaps things are not as gloom and doom as I feel they are