CHATGPT on CAKEWALK

[Milton Sica]

Many applications are implementing the use of the ChatGPT API in their functionality.

I suggest that the same can be implemented in Cakewalk where many things could be requested and implemented by the application, such as:

1) Analyze performance improvement to be implemented in this project.
2) Adjust the configuration parameters that best suit the user's machine.

And so on.

[Byron Dickens]

 

[Milton Sica]

5 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

Hello, I enjoyed your video, but I don't think I understood the context of the "metaphor" of your opinion.
I would really appreciate it if you could spell it out in your own words, and I don't want to make any value judgments about what you actually think.
Awaiting.

There are some DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) that are starting to incorporate artificial intelligence resources into their functionality.

One of these is Oeksound Soothe2, which uses machine learning to analyze and suppress unwanted resonances in audio tracks. Another is Landr, which offers AI-powered mastering features to improve sound quality.

In addition, iZotope RX8 utilizes AI to enhance audio editing and noise cleaning functions. Waves Audio is also exploring AI technology in some of its plug-ins, such as the Waves OVox plug-in, which uses vocal synthesis to create sounds from voice recordings.

Overall, while the use of AI is still in its early stages in the audio industry, there is great potential for the technology to transform the way we produce, edit and mix music.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Milton Sica

[User 905133]

A week or so ago I saw a news story about a group of graphic artists (people that used their own mental and eye-hand coordination skills to create visual art for a living).  At issue is how the corporate proponents of AI "train" the technology.  I don't know the details, but it seems that real people ("artists") who depend on carefully cultivated traditional skills of artistry might be having their works used for zero compensation.

If that's the case, it would seem to be institutionalized stealing of intellectual property being done by people in the AI industry.

Back in the 1980s I purchased a several framed numbered prints from an artist at a street fair who had mastered a personal style of batik and sold the prints for a living. I liked them, appreciated the artist's work, and wanted to support the artist.

Not sure if the artist is still around, but I can imagine some huge corporate database entity including images of the batik artist's works in an AI training process in such a way that AI can "create" other pieces of art in that style.

JMO: As AI is embedded in the tools of production for unsuspecting individual artists of all sorts, I am concerned that human creativity is becoming less and less valued for the sake of  those who have foisted Artificial Intelligence on the world.

Quote

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that whoever reaches a breakthrough in developing artificial intelligence will come to dominate the world.

Is this the new arms race using new instruments of technology to disarm artists and others to concentrate power of all sorts in the hands of the techology makers as opposed to  artists, artisans, and others who cultivate individual talents?

Just a thought to consider when advocating more and more AI be incorporated into the tools of music production.

Edited March 17, 2023 by User 905133
fixed some typos

[michheld]

It will be called "Skynet".

[mettelus]

2 hours ago, User 905133 said:

If that's the case, it would seem to be institutionalized stealing of intellectual property being done by people in the AI industry.

Even without the "AI" part, this has been ongoing for years. The example I use most often is Google Translate, where they let people improve the software for free, but Google owns the software... people who made their living from translation get impacted. Safeguarding intellectual property is something I caution people on often, since the ones who like to brag about what they know end up giving IP to people who will either outright steal it or weaponize it back at them.

[Milton Sica]

Personal, important, certainly, all the manifestations brought up to now, but, when I created the post of suggestion of implementation, I didn't think to enter in controversies, nor debates on political/social/idealist issues.

I thought precisely of bringing up the possibility of inserting AI-based tools that allow the execution of different tasks.

I think that, if we enter into this approach, we would have to critically focus on the first ones who recorded messages on stones, those who recorded them on k7 tapes, etc.

Today we have several features that implement AI rudiments such as hotkeys, cal scripts, keyboard macros applications.

It was with this approach that I inserted the suggestion.

[Starship Krupa]

We don't have to like it, but it's been going on since humans started using technology. Every increase in the efficiency of producing goods or services has put people out of work.

How many can we think of in the music field alone? Composers used to employ personal assistants to transcribe their compositions into sheet music. In order for an orchestral composition to ever be heard by anyone used to require the assembly and training of a large group of already well-trained musicians. Having drums on your song used to require either playing drums or hiring a drummer. Before the use of multitrack recording (thank you, Les Paul), recording a full band song required having the band being able to nail each part in one take. Being able to overdub lowered the bar. It even made it so that you no longer needed a band. I myself eventually learned to play every instrument that I wanted to use. Guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, even learned how to sing (and yes, @Byron Dickens, I learned how to sing in tune with no need for pitch correction😄).

With the advent of movies with sound, having musical accompaniment to films no longer required hiring a band. Heck, with the advent of the player piano, you no longer needed to hire a pianist to play at your bar. Jukeboxes. Recorded music itself.

All along the way, musicians out of work. The creation of music requiring less musical knowledge and skill.

We're already past the point where entire songs are stitched together out of canned loops. DAW's have chord tracks and there are plug-ins so that an understanding of harmony is no longer required. Being able to sing in tune long since stopped being a requirement for being a slick pop vocalist.

In the end, though, these are just tools. They require some kind of intervention from a human, even if it's just curation of what comes out.

I am demoing Loop Engine from WA Production, and was skeptical at first about whether I could use it to make music that sounded like "Superabbit." I fed it some info, clicked on some buttons, not even understanding how to use it, but chord changes started coming out of it. Nothing special, but I kept pushing buttons, and finally got something that made me think "hey, now that sounds kinda cool." And with my choices of synths and processing, damned if it doesn't sound like me.

Was my process there that much different than if I had picked up a guitar, started noodling around and trying chords, and in 15 minutes had come up with something I liked? In one case, I'm using a program to suggest chords and in the other one, I'm relying on my own limited catalog of chords (as well as my moving shapes tricks). I keep throwing it at the wall until something sticks.

The skill has been maligned by old dudes, but there are artists who headline huge festivals to play music recorded by other people. And they are legitimate artists. I'm resigned to the fact that I will never be able to get 10,000 festivalgoers to leap into the air simultaneously, but DJ's do it all the time. And all they are doing is curation and presentation.

If what is being curated and presented is the creation of an AI, that curation and presentation still must be done by humans, even if it's humans creating an algorithm.

And y'know, even with all these innovations and shortcuts and whatevers, here where I live in the SF Bay Area, you can still go out every night of the week and watch and listen to excellent jazz and rock bands. Every single night. Dozens of them. The existence of technology-produced music doesn't eliminate the demand for live music played in real time by a collection of humans. It might reduce it due to it not being the only way to consume music, and emergence of new genres, but it doesn't eliminate it.

[Teegarden]

Technology can be good or bad depending on the way you implement it. 

Some time ago I also started a feature request about AI implementation in CbB and it immediately led to mainly negative feedback without anyone even trying to understand if it maybe could have useful purpose. 

It seems like many are just afraid it will make them obsolete. And from a certain perspective they have a good point. Probably in the near future we will have less need for audio engineers, composers etc. 
Do I like that? NO, already the idea that ChatGPT or something alike can, based on learning from a few of my own songs, create another new and probably better song in my personal style makes me just feel sad... The rapid pace at which AI is improving and starts outperforming humans in many ways is just frightening!

However, I love the implementation of AI that saves me time and gives me better results than I would have achieved without it...

AI is here to stay and you can chose to either embrace it in such a way that you can make it work for you and enjoy the many benefits it can provide, or simply ignore it and eventually stay behind the rest of the world that will continue to evolve.

Other DAWs implement it, VST companies implement it, why not implement it in CbB in way that can benefit us all and let CbB stay in the Premier League of the DAWs.

And like @Starship Krupa said, live music will always be appreciated. The fun of playing together, interacting with public, that seems unlikely to change anytime soon!  

[Milton Sica]

39 minutes ago, Teegarden said:

Technology can be good or bad depending on the way you implement it. 

Some time ago I also started a feature request about AI implementation in CbB and it immediately led to mainly negative feedback without anyone even trying to understand if it maybe could have useful purpose. 

It seems like many are just afraid it will make them obsolete. And from a certain perspective they have a good point. Probably in the near future we will have less need for audio engineers, composers etc. 
Do I like that? NO, already the idea that ChatGPT or something alike can, based on learning from a few of my own songs, create another new and probably better song in my personal style makes me just feel sad... The rapid pace at which AI is improving and starts outperforming humans in many ways is just frightening!

However, I love the implementation of AI that saves me time and gives me better results than I would have achieved without it...

AI is here to stay and you can chose to either embrace it in such a way that you can make it work for you and enjoy the many benefits it can provide, or simply ignore it and eventually stay behind the rest of the world that will continue to evolve.

Other DAWs implement it, VST companies implement it, why not implement it in CbB in way that can benefit us all and let CbB stay in the Premier League of the DAWs.

And like @Starship Krupa said, live music will always be appreciated. The fun of playing together, interacting with public, that seems unlikely to change anytime soon!  

Is this. Great !

 

[Byron Dickens]

It's part of the race to the bottom is what it is.

[Starship Krupa]

38 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

It's part of the race to the bottom is what it is.

What do you mean?

[User 905133]

15 hours ago, Teegarden said:

Some time ago I also started a feature request about AI implementation in CbB and it immediately led to mainly negative feedback without anyone even trying to understand if it maybe could have useful purpose. 

It seems like many are just afraid it will make them obsolete. [emphasis added]

I think this comment is a bit reductionist. For example, there is more at stake than individuals as individual "just" becoming obsolete.  While that might be a small part of it, today's AI revolution is more of a quantum leap for all of humanity taken as a whole.

15 hours ago, Teegarden said:

And from a certain perspective they have a good point. Probably in the near future we will have less need for audio engineers, composers etc. 
Do I like that? NO, already the idea that ChatGPT or something alike can, based on learning from a few of my own songs, create another new and probably better song in my personal style makes me just feel sad... The rapid pace at which AI is improving and starts outperforming humans in many ways is just frightening!

However, I love the implementation of AI that saves me time and gives me better results than I would have achieved without it...  [emphasis added]

I agree, but I would posit that the recent changes go far beyond changes in degree and and quality. To me they are quantum changes that once introduced and fully embedded in the fabric of society will change how humans use their brains.  Yes, the inventions of the alphabet, writing, moveable type, etc. also changed us, but changes stemming from a reliance on AI have the potential to be even more cataclysmic. 

14 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

It's part of the race to the bottom is what it is.

13 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What do you mean?

I am not posting my example of what "race to the bottom" means to me out of deference to Milton.  It stems from a professional interest in how human communication has been transformed by technology.  I have saved the draft in case there is ever a coffee house discussion of the possible implications of AI there and I feel I can make a useful contribution to the discussion.  

Edited March 20, 2023 by User 905133
Fixed typo: obsolute --> obsolete (though "obsolute" might be a useful word somewhere as in "absolutely obsolete" - the word play was unintentional, though).

[Milton Sica]

19 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

I think this comment is a bit reductionist. For example, there is more at stake than individuals as individual "just" becoming obsolete.  While that might be a small part of it, today's AI revolution is more of a quantum leap for all of humanity taken as a whole.

I agree, but I would posit that the recent changes go far beyond changes in degree and and quality. To me they are quantum changes that once introduced and fully embedded in the fabric of society will change how humans use their brains.  Yes, the inventions of the alphabet, writing, moveable type, etc. also changed us, but changes stemming from a reliance on AI have the potential to be even more cataclysmic. 

I am not posting my example of what "race to the bottom" means to me out of deference to Milton.  It stems from a professional interest in how human communication has been transformed by technology.  I have saved the draft in case there is ever a coffee house discussion of the possible implications of AI there and I feel I can make a useful contribution to the discussion.  

Thank you very much for the approach you brought.
That's it.

[Byron Dickens]

15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

What do you mean?

More and more steps towards "push button, out comes song." No skill or work required.

Not to mention the further devaluing of those skills.

 

2 hours ago, User 905133 said:

I am not posting my example of what "race to the bottom" means to me out of deference to Milton.  It stems from a professional interest in how human communication has been transformed by technology.  I have saved the draft in case there is ever a coffee house discussion of the possible implications of AI there and I feel I can make a useful contribution to the discussion.  

That would be a worthy discussion. Push-button insta-songs ain't the half of it....

Edited March 20, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[msmcleod]

The biggest issue with AI is the amount of data that is needed for it to be effective, and more importantly the fact that the results are so incredibly skewed to the data that you give it... which of course means,  a lot more data, and a lot more varied data.

Personally I think AI in music has huge potential,  but as far as the Cakewalk team is concerned I'm almost certain we couldn't spare the resources to collect enough quality data to  get anything useable (well, not unless you'd all be happy to sacrifice any Cakewalk updates for a year or two).  And even if you consider BandLab as a whole, who you could argue has access to a lot of material to use as source material for learning, is it varied enough to become usable in all genres? 

Here's a good example of not only how AI works, but also how inaccurate it can be - even when given 1000's of examples. BTW - if you're into AI in music, or even basic music DSP, this guy really does know his stuff - it's worth watching the whole series. 

But having watched hours of these videos, it's clear that you can get impressive results, but in order to do so you need a vast amount of good quality, and preferable pre-labelled data.

 

[Milton Sica]

5 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

The biggest issue with AI is the amount of data that is needed for it to be effective, and more importantly the fact that the results are so incredibly skewed to the data that you give it... which of course means,  a lot more data, and a lot more varied data.

Personally I think AI in music has huge potential,  but as far as the Cakewalk team is concerned I'm almost certain we couldn't spare the resources to collect enough quality data to  get anything useable (well, not unless you'd all be happy to sacrifice any Cakewalk updates for a year or two).  And even if you consider BandLab as a whole, who you could argue has access to a lot of material to use as source material for learning, is it varied enough to become usable in all genres? 

Here's a good example of not only how AI works, but also how inaccurate it can be - even when given 1000's of examples. BTW - if you're into AI in music, or even basic music DSP, this guy really does know his stuff - it's worth watching the whole series. 

But having watched hours of these videos, it's clear that you can get impressive results, but in order to do so you need a vast amount of good quality, and preferable pre-labelled data.

 

Personally, I think the assessments are taking different directions.
One that addresses musical creativity.
Another one that questions philosophical approaches and many others regarding the use of AI in the application.
For my part I thought of more direct cases like:
1) Evaluate my mix and propose a better one considering my settings.
2) Generate suggestions for mixing improvement; mastering in this project considering an 80's rock mastering model

And so on.

[Byron Dickens]

Both of your projected case scenarios would be better accomplished with your own ears and aesthetic sensibilities.

[Teegarden]

@Byron Dickens please try to understand what other users would like to see to improve CbB functionality.

It seems like you do support CbB becoming a better DAW with improvements and new enhancements as long as it is done by old fashioned programming, but certainly not if the improvement or creation of a new feature is based on AI...

The feature requests here are not a matter of lack of scales or work.
It is about workflow, performance and stability improvement.

We cannot stop the high speed AI train, nor can we stop bad implementation of AI in society. What we cán do is use AI for the better in our personal environment, one example being implementation in a DAW to help us reduce wasting time on repetitive and just time wasting procedures that we really don't need to compose or record a piece of music.

I personally want to spend more time on composing and arranging instruments, which are for me the most important creative part. I don't need AI to do that for me.
I would like AI to enable me doing the non-creative parts of producing a song faster (and better).
Others might want/need it for exactly the things I don't need it for and I see no reason why they could not have something like that implemented in a DAW. 

Other DAWs are also starting to use AI, so why would you like to see CbB stay behind?

Nevertheless, our feature requests are all about enhancing the user’s audio engineering skills and certainly not about replacing them...
 

@msmcleod, interesting video, he explains it very well! I did notice they are from three years ago, so by now are antique😉(just kidding...)

Did ChatGPT not already do that collection of enough quality data for you? I thought you could make it to good use because it has already all that training you need for at least some useful implementations? 

ChatGPT is being used to quickly write a procedure or app while saving programmers a significant amount of time. They still need to check and finetune it, but the various examples I seen over the last few months are very encouraging and -of crucial importance if you want good results- depending on how you adjust your questions, the program quickly provides increasingly better answers). So, I could imagine that you might benefit from it with faster programming. 
Version 4 of ChatGPT is only just out and a vast improvement over the former version, acing tests where the former still miserably failed.

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Teegarden

[Byron Dickens]

2 hours ago, Teegarden said:

ChatGPT is being used to quickly write a procedure or app while saving programmers a significant amount of time.

ChatGPT is also wholesale stealing intellectual property. There have been several lawsuits already.

 

2 hours ago, Teegarden said:

It seems like you do support CbB becoming a better DAW with improvements and new enhancements as long as it is done by old fashioned programming, but certainly not if the improvement or creation of a new feature is based on AI...

I really don't care if its done with black magick but people really need to slow down and think before they jump headlong off the AI cliff alongside all the other lemmings.

Like I said before, pushbutton insta- songs ain't the half of it....

Edited March 21, 2023 by Byron Dickens