pseudopop

Despite my dystopian predictions I'm not worried about or afraid of AI. I'm mostly indifferent about it and pre-emptively annoyed at the people who will eventually abuse it to do something stupid, like flooding the market with AI-generated songs and later accusing people of copyright infringement. I am also excited to see what kind of assistant tools will come; I can't wait to offload the boring and repetitive tasks to an AI. But you're right: there are a lot more important problems for humanity to solve right now. It's just an interesting topic, that's all.

I know I said I'd shut up, but... Oh yes, that's how it will start. The AI will replace human assistants first. That's all well and good, but some years after that we get into the more difficult situation. You're welcome. Sorry it took me so long. But how do you know those (or other emotionally touching) works were not created with careful calculation and purposeful manipulation of human emotion? Or conversely in a drunken stupor with no real meaning or thought behind them? We only see the end result and the stories artists tell. In the end it's just ink on a paper, frequencies in the air and pigments on a canvas, and it's up to each individual to find the meaning and emotion in it. Consider your favorite piece of music. Now imagine that it was revealed it was actually an AI who created it with the specific purpose of evoking whatever emotions it evokes in you. The human artist was just a front to sell it as meaningful art with a story behind it. How would it change your view of the work? Something like this WILL happen in the future, BTW, I promise you. Think of a book or a movie where the villain was so despicable that it made you angry. That's what the writer wanted you to feel. It was purposeful manipulation. The manipulation AI will do is just going to be better and more subtle. You will read a passage in a book and you will think that the author, A.I. Turing, has perfectly described the nuances of the emotion the protagonist is feeling and it is so relatable you will shed a tear. I would love to believe that humans are not interested in art itself but the other humans behind the art. That even from the very start Banksy's work had no value as such but that it was always Banksy as an artist who had the value and people saw that through his art. But people don't even know who Banksy is, so how can they value him? (Though in this case it makes people more interested in the artist, but you get my point, I hope.) Then again, perhaps my view describes my own relationship with art more than I care to admit. But I'm really playing the devil's advocate here. In general, I value human art more than AI art, but only because I create art myself. I usually understand the talent and effort required. So I put fully AI generated art in the same box as I put art that is just paint thrown at a canvas. No effort, no respect. I disagree, but I suppose only time will tell who was right. Now this is a great point and something I haven't thought of. What kind of music will a being who is almost infinitely more intelligent than us create? Can we even understand it? This whole AI thing is one of those Russian can of worms, isn't it? You open one and it's just another can of worms inside.

Oh, it was correct for me too. It just stings on a purchase that is already expensive, that's all.

That is the best demo of Asterian I have heard so far! I bought the Asterian & Solaria combo just the other day. I figured it was the cheapest way to get them, even with the 24% VAT.

Can't break the tradition of useless gift cards.

I paid $12 for this like the sucker I am.

I don't disagree with you but I feel your examples fall a bit short because in each case there is a human involved. What if the camera moved and otherwise acted by itself, without ever having been programmed by someone? But that is actually besides the point. I think discussions like this get very easily lost in the semantics. And the more I think about this the less I know what to actually think about it, and what to say about it. But that has never prevented me before, so here goes: For argument's sake let's assume that everything is art no matter the source or the process. So that urinal is art, as is whatever might go inside of one. Sunsets, forest fires and dung beetles are art. Music written by human certainly is but so is your printer and the error page it just spat out. So we stop debating about whether something is art or not. The answer is always "yes", so we can't base the value of something on an arbitrary label anymore. Where does that leave us? Are we headed into a future where the value of art is based on the value it brings to an individual? If I just want something pretty to put on my wall, should I care who or what created it or what effort was put into it? Will I enjoy it less if it was created by an AI even if it looks gorgeous? Will I enjoy it more if it was created by a human even if it looks like literal shit? What if they did not? What if in the future AI can produce art that is finely tuned to the unique neural and chemical profile of someone's brain? This is something Yuval Noah Harrari has suggested (I highly recommend his book ***** Deus). If you're feeling sad, your personal AI can generate music specifically tailored for your brain to lift your spirits, and do a similar change in the artwork on the walls of your living room. Or if you're the kind of person who likes to dwell in misery, it might do just the opposite. In any case, the art that you would hear and see would be exactly what you would want/need to see and hear the most at that very moment, so for you it would be more enjoyable than any other art ever created. What is there left to value in human art at that point? I still stand by my previous statement that people will appreciate the skill and effort, but I'm not sure if that will be common or rare. The more utilitarian view we take on something, the less we tend to appreciate it. Perhaps if humanity doesn't significantly change, we might go looking for human art to experience something uncomfortable and unexpected, something to challenge us. That is a part of what human art does currently and that may never change. We may also end up collectively disliking AI art out of principle and a feeling of human camaraderie. AI art might be too good or too distant, so we go see art with imperfections, live humans making mistakes with live instruments and to find new flavors and to broaden our horizons in general. Who knows. Humanity has been able to sort out all kinds of things eventually, so despite what I wrote I'm hopeful that AI + art will at most disorient us for a moment and then we'll be back on track like nothing ever happened, happy with the new tools we have and all kinds of art coexisting in joyous harmony. What I do know is that I will keep doing art no matter what, because I enjoy the creation process even when the results suck and no one appreciates it. No AI can ever take that away from me and I'm sure others feel the same. I enjoyed it too, but I think I have now exhausted the things I can and should say about this topic. Sorry for rambling, everyone. Sidebar: I used to look down at hip hop as a genre because I thought they were just gluing samples together and calling it a day. Then I watched a documentary where they showed the whole process of searching for rare records, listening to them to find potential samples, recognising the parts that could actually work when sampled, modifying the samples, combining them with other samples and all the other little details. Only after understanding the craft I learned to appreciate and respect it, even if I still don't always think much of the results.

I believe these were also mentioned in the ToyXylo thread, but here's the link: https://cinesamples.com/productGroup/freebies/

I sat on the fence until the very last minute* trying to decide if I should get the FX collection or not. You know what you get for waiting until the very last minute? But I finally managed to purchase it with one minute left in the timer! I don't actually have that many vintage gear plugins so I hope these will be good enough to fill the gaps. Considering I paid €5 per plugin I don't need them to be the best there is. My other option was the Black Rooster bundle, but I felt that went too far into the vintage and boutique for my taste. Arturia includes some new and unique plugins, so I feel it strikes a better balance. I was hoping to get an offer to buy Coldfire for €29 but no such luck. * Figuratively speaking. There were actually seven minutes left when I got the error and three when I started the checkout process.

But isn't this just looking at art from a consumer's point of view? Are you saying that the source of art doesn't matter, only how humans see it? In the future computer generated art will be in every way indistinguishable from a piece created by a human. The consumer will not know who did it unless they are told. Will we really value "pooped out art" the same way we value the works of Shakeaspear, Picasso and Mozart? Yes, glueing loops together is something that passes as art these days, unfortunately, but I believe that there is some disagreement on whether it's original and creative art. But I digress. But it is. The grunt work you describe is exactly just that: 90% of the time not much creativity is required in doing that kind of work. I might even add orchestration on the same pile (though I slightly disagree on the arpeggiation). Grunt work is ripe for automation and it should be automated, because it's often boring, mechanic and waste of everyone's time. I mean, who really looks forward to cutting each kick and snare out of a drum track? People who can afford it outsource grunt work because it doesn't matter who does it, so it can just as well be an AI who will even do it the most efficiently and accurately. But before you get to that grunt work, someone needs to compose the music. Someone needs to write the melodies. Someone needs to decide that "this part will be arpeggiated", "here the flutes deviate from the key", "here the music will slowly turn into more epic to increase the tension", "here will be a silly trumpet run to simulate gas exiting the human body" and so forth. In the future, that someone is going to be AI. What will be the part of a human artist in that future? To describe to the AI what kind of music they would like it to compose today? Oh, it's so dreadfully cloudy, Alexa. Let's write something melancholy. A slow tempo chamber orchestra piece, I think. Optimize the length so the sad feeling people will get is only fleeting and doesn't drag their mood down. Add some obscure references to the "Le quattro stagioni" to amuse the snobby critics. And brew me some tea while you're at it. All this creative effort makes me thirsty.

I have bought twice from Pluginfox (just yesterday Soundiron's Hyperion Strings & Brass). No problems here.

Sorry, this is a long one but I just had to add this since we are already off-topic. I asked ChatGPT to: I'm an omnivore, BTW. I just wanted to see how it would understand what I'm asking it to do. And here is the masterpiece: Ok, not great poetry. And no big words, and it uses the words in the title. But at least the context and style are correct and there are a few cases of what I might call a metaphor. Now let's put a little twist to it: I mean, Britney is famous for this kind of stuff, right? Yes, all it did was replace some of the words. This happens often with ChatGPT. It gets somehow stuck in what it produced previously and just refines it unless you tell it to start from scratch. So you get a very scary Britney. Still, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty impressed. Not by the lyrics, but by the fact that it understood both the theme and the style, even if it failed pretty spectacularly with Britney. Perhaps the theme was too heavy. I have a few songs where I'm stuck with the lyrics and I have asked ChatGPT to make some suggestions on how to continue. Every time it has somehow managed to undestand the subtext but the lyrics have been very on the nose. I personally like some deeply buried subtext (though obviously it's not buried deep enough), ambiguity and room for interpretation (ie. I fade away from your life instead of You ignore me). It also has a tendency to repeat the same words for rhymes (in this case "remains" is used twice), something I try to avoid. In other words, so far it hasn't given me anything useful, but it keeps getting so close that I'm motivated to throw stuff at it just to see what comes out.

It's our fault. Despite the warnings we hit too hard. Woe is us, the dwellers of the Cakewalk Forum.

This has been available at this price a few times before, so check if you have 'em before hitting that buy button.

(I use "art" here to include both visual arts and music.) My prediction: in the future the majority of the useless/filler/functional art will be generated by AI software and people who currently do that kind of work will find themselves without a job. So if you're currently writing trailer music, jingles for commercials, elevator music etc. or doing art for blog articles, custom character art commissions, concept art etc. AND you're not one of the top people in your field, you're very likely in for some tough times. As the AI generated content becomes more common I believe there will also be a newfound appreciation for art that is created by humans. I'd love to say that people will yearn for the art to have some deeper meaning and look for that human connection between artist and the consumer, but I'm afraid that is something too abstract. You could just generate a piece of art, say a human made it and make up some nice story about it, and people would swear they feel what you're saying. Instead I think there will be an appreciation of the craft itself, that a human has the necessary talent and is willing to make the effort to create something when you could just do it with a click of a button. In the same way you might appreciate a ring made by a jeweler but not be too impressed by a 3D printed one. Of course the artist themselves might have enough value to generate interest (like Banksy), and there will always be people who love to show everyone that they are better (ie. richer) than everyone else by getting their portrait done "the old way". I should add that I don't think people who, for example, write trailer music don't have any talent or that trailer music is somehow inferior. But certain type of art just happens to be of the type that can be easily generated by AI, because it's often very simple and formulaic by design. Also, I would imagine that people who commission it are not really interested in its artistic merits and just want something cheap that works well enough for its purpose. So yeah. Times change and we need to change with them. PS. Check out ChatGPT if you haven't already. If you're not interested in creating another account for it (phone number required) at least google for some of the crazy interactions people have had with it. The next year is going to bring some exciting/scary things with it.

Absolutely! When I say something is not my style I mean that it's not something that I usually gravitate towards and therefore I don't have the qualifications to evaluate its merits. But I am genre agnostic and can definitely enjoy other music besides 90s death metal. And I think music is like visual arts in the sense that while I may not fully understand the subject of a painting I can still appreciate the craft itself and the skill of the artist.

Coincidentally, I stumbled onto your Bandcamp page just the other day. I have to say I like your music too!

I don't know. At least it doesn't install it automatically. But looks like you get Eleanor Forte Lite. Edit: Ok, you can download Mai from Dreamtonics for free. Thanks for bringing it up. When you install a voicebank it lets you choose the location of the database, so that's a yes I guess.

The first serial is the one to use. I have no idea what the other two are. I'm on Windows, so for Synthesizer V I unzipped the file and ran the "svstudio-pro-setup .exe" that is inside the "Windows\Synthesizer V\Studio Pro" folder. After that I updated Synth V to the latest version, which you can do by running Synth V and clicking the cloud icon on the right. Then click "Check for Updates" button, then click Synthesizer V Studio on the list and then "Update" button at the bottom. Voicebanks are installed just by dragging them on the Synth V window.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing! It's not exactly my style but I like it. In the 90s I had (briefly) in my playlist artists/bands like Unkle, Senser, Sneaker Pimps, etc. and this gave me some positive flashbacks. Good job! And yes, please tell us what gear you used.

I have made majority of my APD purchases during this year, and they took place on seven different months. If I had had something like this at the beginning of the year my total would have been $35 less. On those other five months I also might have bought something that was priced in the $20-30 range, which includes plenty of stuff with the rewards money. So it would've been worth it. Then again, in 2021 I made just three purchases and my plan is to spend less money on plugins in 2023...

I suspect that they won't. Looking at the list the VBs appear to be either older or produced by some other company than Dreamtonics. Kevin and Ryo are the exceptions, released in February this year. I think the only English VB there besides Kevin is Tsurumaki Maki (produced by AH-Software). But let's hope I'm wrong. Sorry to hear that. I tried two Mastercards. The first one was declined but the other one, issued by another bank, was accepted. So I'm not 100% sure what is the determining factor. If you're desperate, they offer an alternative method of payment: See this page for more information. I have no idea how it works but I'd imagine there is an additional fee involved.

Ok. It took several attempts but I managed to buy Synthesizer V Pro, Kevin AI and Saki AI for a total of 16878 yens or about $125. The voicebanks were 5420 yens each (about $40) and Synth V 6037 yens ($45). So significantly cheaper than elsewhere and no tax was added. When you register an account you have the option to get the 30% discount coupon, ie. they don't give it to you automatically. They have instructions how to get it. The problem I had was that for some reason the first credit card I tried wasn't accepted and my browser's security settings complicated the CC verification process (3rd party scripts are disabled by default). They say that some credit cards issued outside of Japan may not be accepted and PayPal is not a payment option, but luckily I have multiple CCs. It's also possible that the first one failed because of some other error. Anyhow, I'm now downloading the files and we'll see soon if there are any nasty surprises waiting for me. Edit: Everything works great. The only bump was that the versions DLSite offers are old, so the first thing I needed to do was to update Synth V and both Saki's voicebank. But otherwise things are looking good.

It slides from the left side of the screen. I got a 10% discount! Must be my lucky day!

I think it's better again, but... I don't know. Maybe I'm overly critical of this voice for some reason. No matter the song it just sounds like it doesn't quite fit there. I wonder how it would work in a slow jazz song? As an aside, I have Solaria and Asterian in the shopping cart, but my finger is refusing to make the final click...