On the Development and Practice of AI Technology for Contemporary Popular Music Production

Emmanuel Deruty,Maarten Grachten,Cyran Aouameur,Javier Nistal,Stefan Lattner

doi:10.5334/tismir.100

Abstract

Although the use of AI technology for music production is still in its infancy, it has the potential to make a lasting impact on the way we produce music. In this paper we focus on the design and use of AI music tools for the production of contemporary Popular Music, in particular genres involving studio technology as part of the creative process. First we discuss how music production practices associated with those genres can differ significantly from traditional views of how a musical work is created, and how this affects AI music technology. We argue that—given the role of symbolic representations in this context, as well as the integration of composition activities with editing and mixing—audio-based AI tools are better suited to support the artist’s creative workflow than purely piano-roll/MIDI-based tools. Then we give a report of collaborations with professional artists, in which we look at how various AI tools are used in practice to produce music. We identify usage patterns as well as issues and challenges that arise in practical use of the tools. Based on this we formulate some recommendations and validation criteria for the development of AI technology for contemporary Popular Music.

Highlights

The practice of making music has since long involved instruments and—more generally—technology
As a music artificial intelligence (AI) research lab specializing in music AI tools for commercial artists,2 we aim to address the above questions in the context of music production practices of contemporary Popular Music (CPM)
In this paper we have provided a perspective on the development of AI tools for music production in contemporary Popular Music (CPM) genres, informed both by general considerations of the music production practice in those genres, and by a thematic analysis of reports on real-world AI music tool usage by professional artists

Summary

Introduction

The practice of making music has since long involved instruments and—more generally—technology. Advances in technology can have a profoundly transformative effect on music making practice (which we will refer to as music production in this paper). This effect is witnessed for by the roles analog and later digital electronics have played in music, in the form of synthesizers, samplers, sound effect gear, and digital audio workstations. Current applications include synthesis of individual musical sounds (Engel et al, 2017; Aouameur et al, 2019), “musical inpainting” (Hadjeres et al, 2017; Bazin et al, 2020), interpolation between musical material (Roberts et al, 2018), or synthesis of complete multi-instrumental audio tracks (Dhariwal et al, 2020)

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