Mark Morgon-Shaw

And yet...... it sounds subjectively better written, performed and produced than most of the stuff in the songs forum here. Probably because it's trained on professionally produced music. Personally I don't think we're going to see human music replaced by AI music, but it will be another genre alongside all the others. Most people follow the artists/bands they like because they're invested not only in the music but in the person/people too. AI could write the best song in the world but if there's no human story or personality behind it listeners can't get as invested - I've followed some my favourite bands since the 80s &90s through all the ups and downs, breakups, comebacks etc. It's all part of the rich tapestry of their story which we connect with on a human level. What I predict will happen is we'll get a boom of novelty AI generated songs which lots of people will think is cool for a little while but once the novelty wears off it will become a bit same old, same old and people will naturally gravitate back to the actual artists they admire. Like someone said above if anyone can do it then there's no real value. Things have value that are scarce. If you commodetise it then it loses it's appeal. In my little niche of the industry some folks are worried that people writing background music for TV might get replaced by AI. I'm not overly worried myself for a number of reasons, some of them musical, some of them practical , some ethical, and some of them legisaltive but basically for an AI to do what I do would not be that straightforward and even if it could there are changes that would need to be made to the legal copyright framework to allow it to happen. More than one Production Music company that I write for have instigated a " No AI generated material " policy because there is a risk of someone being sued if an AI model spits out a hook that's close to another copyrighted work for example. Overall I think it will have it's little day in the sun and then once the novelty wears off we'll be back to business as usual but hopefully with some better tools to help us - not replace us. Mark ( Sync Producer with music in over 1K TV shows )

The first music software I used was Type A Tune on the Vic 20 in 1982 https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/20923/VC-20 Type-a-Tune/ However the the first MIDI sequencer to use the paradigm of displaying notes that move left to right was likely the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) Series III, introduced in the early 1980s. This was one of the first digital audio workstations (DAWs) that included a graphical user interface for sequencing.

I think it would help a lot if the drums and bass were playing in time together

I've had stuff that's been viewed millions of times on Youtube and the royalties were under £10 so I don't think Bandlab are stealing your money

Welcome to the new 2d realm where everything is flat

My point is I don't want to pay for stuff I have no need for

My conspiracy theory is the whole Bandlab membership is a ruse A soft launch marketing tactic, to test the waters and see how many new subscribers they can pick up. They will 100% already know that there's a whole swathe of users out there who want a perpetual licence and nothing else. My prediction is after a community backlash they will pivot into a dual model of subscription alongside a perpetual licence ( which will be more than the the sub ) to appease the masses and make themselves look good. And this will have been the plan all along. People always want something they can't have. It creates desire. It they launched both together they would sell less as there would be more apathy.

I don't need any of those whatsoever

My thoughts exactly - When I look at it it , it makes my eyes feel like my glasses need cleaning

Not many I imagine. It's like owning a Swiss Army Knife and going to work with a toothpick

To be honest a lot of it sounds better the dated stuff I've heard made in Cakewalk here.

Yeah that's the Bandlab App , rather than Cakewalk/Sonar

Seems like it's a big chunk of their customer base though

Lol, no I am balding so keeping it buzz cut prevents the combover look

Yeah I should have put this on my list, I always check mixes so you can only just barely hear them. Anything too loud sticks out like a sore thumb

Suunds like a poor man's Auratone ! Good for checking mid range tranlation and balance

There's no one best way to mix because it depends a bunch of other factors, like the room you work in or the style music you make. A few things thing I can share from my experience mixing 100 tracks a year that mostly end up in TV shows for the past 8yrs 1. Doing lots of mixes improves your ear / skills - If you only mix one track a month , try mixing at least one a week for a year. I guarantee the mix from week 52 will be miles better than the mix from week 1 - you will also think your early mixes sounded rubbish and likely be right. 2. You can mix on anything, monitors - cans - buds etc. as long you learn how they translate to other systems. 3. Most bad mixes I hear are as much down to performance issues like timing , tuning etc. so get those right first or it will just sound bad regardless 4. Try to have several monitoring options you can switch between whilst mixing. Nearfields, headphones, boomboxes etc will all tell you something different so it's about being able to understand what each is telling you about the mix 5. Listing in mono is a great free tool for getting your arrangement right as it's easy to hear if instruments are speaking over each other 6. If you're serious then acoustic measurement / treatment is really helpful in taming your mix room, and products like Sonarworks or Arc can really help too 7. If your domestic situation means you have no choice but use headphones I can reccommend Slate VSX which I use late at night and also as a virtual car test. They sound 80-90% like mixing on speakers. 8. If you're in need of some sort of mixing course my own favourite is Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio by Mike Senior because it deals with the reality of mixing in non-professional studio and is very comprehesive.

I do my own !

Or just do the sensible thing and use a desktop in the studio

Or get a laptop with a num pad My current laptop has one, and think the few I've had previous have always had them

Indeed . I've been doing this for years without requiring a CAL script. Select your notes in the PRV, then you can move them around with the arrows keys on the NUM PAD as long as you have NUM LOCK on They can be moved in all directions but if you hold CTRL + 8 ( arrow up ) or 2 (arrow down ) the selected notes will jump up or down by an octave. Pretty sure this is standard procedure but I've been using it for so long I sometimes forget which are regular keybindings and which are things I've changed myself. I have asked multiple times for the ability to do this in theTrack View as it's really handy if you just want to transpose a clip without opening the Process-Transpose Dialogue The closest I have come is I've programmed my Stream Deck with a macro so I can highlight the clip, hit a button ( I have one each for octave up and down ) and it very rapidly opens the dialogue, types in the value and confirms it. It takes a second or so but it can do it much more quickly than I can manually. It will do this for midi or audio clips.

A lot of DAW users use Stream Decks which can be set up with macros

I use Akai VIP ( sadly discontinued but it came free with my midi controller ) which brings all your softsynths into one place and you can quickly browse all the presets from multiple synths from one big centralised GUI. The thing it made me notice , is that when you can 't seen the synths own native interface... they all kinda sound pretty much the same.

Interesting. Did any of you guys pick up the new Sound On Sound ? The article Hardware Vs Plugins of a 48 channel mix? The guy mixed a track on his Neve console with a load of outboard Then he set about recreating the same mix as closely as possible by using an analyser of the hardware EQ curves etc. and re-did the whole thing in the box. TL:DR - the mixes sound very similar The big take away for me though is it was easier to get the mix sounding good on the analogue gear. It had a wider sweet spot and was hard to make anythign sound 'bad' per se. The "in the box mix" took more work and required a better understanding of the plugins to get the same result but at the end of the day it was achieveable. I think this also applies to the argument of different EQ plugins. You can probably get them all to sound pretty close to each other if you know the plugin well and can match the curves etc. But it will likely take you longer. So I choose to use different EQ plugins for different things. 1 - Pro Channel EQ - just to lo pass filter and get rid of rumble etc : Because it's there and low CPU 2.- ProQ 3 - This is my day to day EQ : Because it has a great interface and is like a swiss army knife 3.- API 560 - I prefer this for my drum buss : Because it's a graphic EQ and I find it easier to get the sound I want 4 - Maag EQ4 - For mastering : Because it's got a nice air band and the fixed bands work well to subtle sculpting Could I get the same result just using ProQ3 ? Yes probably, but on certain tasks the others are quicker and easier. Also - I see many posts arguing this EQ , or that compressor plugin ( across various audio/music forums ) and often when I go their profiles and take a listen to their music it's often not very well performed or mixed. i.e. They aren't even outperforming the stock plugins never mind fawning over some percieved esoteric difference provided by an expensive plugin.