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AI will transform music; the question is how?Every new technology goes through a period of being overhyped before the dust settles, and that technology either fades or builds steadily thereafter. Think 3D printing, VR, NFTs. In my 20+ years as a media and tech analyst, only three technologies have had a level of hype that felt like it was going to live up to expectations: 1) the internet (which was already in full swing by the time I started out – I’m not that old); 2) smartphones / apps; and 3) AI. Those technologies have one big thing in common: what they could become is ungovernable by its originators. But while it was human-power that unlocked that potential of the first two, it is the technology itself that is the accelerant for AI. Of course, people will amplify it as well, but AI itself is already creating many of the new pathways. The business, societal and even humanity implications are so vast that the implications for music are small in comparison. This, however, does not mean that they will not be equally transformational and disruptive within the confines of the music business. Which brings us nicely onto ‘heart on my sleeve’.

For those of you that have been on Mars for the last few days, this AI-generated track mimics the musical style and voices of Drake and The Weeknd. As Trapital’s Dan Runcie observed “[It] isn’t that good, but it’s an improvement from 2020’s TravisBott and other generative music attempts in recent years”. UMG’s response was to encourage DSPs not to host generative-AI tracks, and Drake himself was not happy with the last time a ‘fake Drake’ track did the rounds. Drake will probably be even less happy with this latest AI addition to the Fake Drake roster, which raises the question: will Fake Drake Break Drake?! While there are valid concerns from both parties, there is a real risk of this becoming an old world versus new world conflict, and in such scenarios, the new most often comes out on top.

AI is going to change the future of music. That genie is well and truly out of its bottle. Should more have been done by the traditional music industry to work with music AI companies earlier on? Of course, but we are where we are. So the focus now should be on trying to work out how to influence and shape what the future might be, through collaboration as much as (perhaps more than) enforcement:

We have been here before: The music industry was vehemently against P2P piracy (and I am old enough to remember that). After more than a decade of trying to fight it, the music business finally built an entirely new business around piracy’s successor technology – streaming. P2P infringed copyright, it took control out of the hands of the traditional business, and it created previously impossible use cases. AI is doing the same. What is different now is that the very ecosystem that streaming created (along with social platforms) puts AI into the hands (and ears) of billions of people, whereas P2P reached just tens of millions. Consumers will experience AI at scale before the industry can shape it. And in the digital world, consumers tend to get what they want.

Guitar or tape machine?: These two old technologies both reshaped music. One was about creating, and one was about copying. AI is a mix of both, which is what makes the response so difficult. Assistive and generative AI is already a mainstay of music creation, such as iZotope’s Neutron 4 and Splice’s CoSo. AI music is a continuum, from tweaking mixes through to composition, with virtually everything else in between. There is not one single, simple answer for ‘what to do with AI?’

Enforcement will be difficult: With the best will in the world, copyright law was not designed for AI. Music rightsholders will do their best to apply existing law, but they will face challenges in doing so. Meanwhile, there will simply be too much output to effectively pursue plagiarism cases, which take time and ultimately depend on the personal interpretation of non-expert judges and juries. If you think 100,000 tracks being uploaded per day to streaming now is a problem, when generative AI goes mainstream among consumers (which it most likely will), the number of new ‘songs’ created daily could easily be a hundred times that – perhaps even a thousand. 

Focus on the input not the output: So, the most scalable solution for music rightsholders will be to fix the problem at the top, by ensuring that generative AI tools only learn from what they have permission to learn from. ‘heart on my sleeve’ can only sound like Drake and The Weeknd because the tech learned from theirmusic. A number of generative-AI companies already only learn from selective, pre-authorised datasets. If this becomes the norm then an entire new licensing opportunity emerges for music rightsholders. Artists and songwriters will likely need to consent first, similar to how sync works. The alternative (trying to license and / or collect royalties on the millions, billions or trillions of songs that will be created) would be a fool’s errand.

The reason why AI feels so frightening to much of the music business is not just because of what it is, but also because it is a catalyst for pre-existing market shifts. The last half decade was characterised by the rise of non-traditional music, in the shape of ‘fake artists’, mood music, and independent artists. All of which have eaten into the market share of traditional music companies and creators. 

Streaming’s finite royalty pot makes revenue a zero sum game. Whatever may be done to try to ‘formalise’ AI music, it is almost certainly going to accelerate the fragmentation paradigm shift, by putting music creation in the hands of consumers. Radiohead once sang that “anyone can play guitar”. In practice, most people cannot, and do not. But literally anyone can ‘play’ AI.

There is growing concern among investors that this will mean market share erosion for the majors (and it probably will), but there is still a play for traditional labels and publishers, by licensing AI at the top. In doing so, they can benefit from the shift, just in the same way that major labels benefit from the rise of independent labels and artists through owning distribution platforms. That opportunity, though, requires the right approach and for it to be taken fast. The time is now.

I will leave the final words to President Biden, whose comments on AI as a whole apply just as neatly to AI in music:

“Look what’s happening with artificial intelligence right now. It poses enormous promise and enormous concern. Our world stands at an inflection point. The choices we make today are literally going to determine the future of this world.”

How to get started in Sync Licensing and why it’s so importantHaulix Daily explains how important is for musicians should try to get their music synced and how to do it. by Ashley Di Buduo of Haulix Hey there, music lovers!. Continue reading
The post How to get started in Sync Licensing and why it’s so important appeared first on Hypebot.

MPG Awards: Change of venue The upcoming MPG Awards ceremony have been forced to move to a new venue due to structural issues being identified at their original location. 

Witech Releases FREE Simple Sampler Plugin
Witech released Simple Sampler, a freeware sampler VST3 plugin for Windows. Along with synthesis, sampling is one of the backbones of electronic production. While most DAWs have their own sampler built-in, there is something to be said about having options. With the plethora of samplers in the wild for producers, Witech has thrown in their [...]
View post: Witech Releases FREE Simple Sampler Plugin

Sound Radix release Auto-Align 2 A major update to Sound Radix automatic microphone alignment and phase correction plug-in.

Elon Musk to launch truth-seeking artificial intelligence platform TruthGPTThe tech billionaire made the announcement during a Fox interview on Monday.

Universal Music Group responds to ‘fake Drake’ AI track: Streaming platforms have ‘a fundamental responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists’UMG calls on streaming services to choose the right 'side of history'
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Twitter to label tweets that get downranked for violating its hate speech policyTwitter announced today a new policy that it claims will offer more transparency around which hateful tweets on its platform have been subject to enforcement action. Typically, when tweets violate Twitter’s policies, one of the actions the company can take is to limit the reach of those tweets — or something it calls “visibility filtering.” In these scenarios, the tweets remain online but become less discoverable, as they’re excluded from areas like search results, trends, recommended notifications, For You and Following timelines, and more.
Instead, if users want to see the tweet, they have to visit the author’s profile directly.
The tweet may also be downranked in replies when such enforcement takes place and ads won’t run against the content, Twitter’s guidelines state.
Historically, the wider public would not necessarily know if a tweet had been moderated in this way. Now Twitter says that will change.
The company plans to “soon” begin adding visible labels on tweets that have been identified as potentially violating its policies, which has impacted their visibility. It did not say when exactly the system would be fully rolled out across its network.
Image Credits: Twitter
In addition, not all tweets that have had their visibility reduced will be labeled, the company noted.
It’s starting only with tweets that violate its Hateful Conduct policy and says it will expand the feature to other policy areas in the “coming months.”
“This change is designed to result in enforcement actions that are more proportional and transparent for everyone on our platform,” a blog post authored by “Twitter Safety” stated. The post additionally touted Twitter’s enforcement philosophy, calling it “Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach.”
If a tweet is labeled, the user themselves won’t be shadowbanned or removed from the network — the company notes the policy actions will occur at “a tweet level only and will not affect a user’s account.”
Twitter also explains that users whose tweets were labeled will be able to submit feedback if they think their tweet was incorrectly flagged, but says they may not get a response to that feedback, nor will it guarantee the tweet’s reach will be restored.
Likely, this has to do with the vast cuts Twitter made to its Trust & Safety teams and the company as a whole. And it may be relying heavily on automation to make its decisions over labeling, though it’s unclear to what extent this system will be automated. (Twitter no longer replies to press inquiries, so blog posts and tweets made by the company or its new owner, Elon Musk, are the only official word on things like this.) Automation, of course, could mean Twitter will get things wrong — something it admits in a Twitter thread about the changes. Here, the company also says it plans to allow authors to appeal its decision at some point “in the future.”
Again, no hard deadline or a ballpark time frame was provided.

We will continue to remove illegal content and suspend bad actors from our platform. We’re committed to increasing transparency around our moderation actions, and we’ll continue to share updates on our progress. You can learn more about our various enforcement actions here:…
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 17, 2023

The launch of the new policy follows Twitter’s earlier decisions under Musk to allow controversial figures, including Trump and neo-Nazis to rejoin the network. In one incident, Musk brought the artist formerly known as Kanye West back to Twitter, who then tweeted a swastika and was resuspended.
The new policy announced today may be one that reflects Twitter’s attempt to balance two opposing forces. On the one hand, Musk is a free-speech proponent who railed against Twitter’s allegedly less-than-transparent moderation policies in the years before he took control of the company. He even went so far as to publicly share internal documents and communications, aka the Twitter Files, in an attempt to expose how Twitter’s moderation decisions had been made in the past.
The results weren’t as astounding as he hoped. What was largely found was a company having to make complex and nuanced decisions, often in real time, around borderline content and high-profile figures.
Visibility filtering was one of the topics the Twitter Files had covered, in fact.
Musk aimed to show that Twitter had previously been politically biased in its past filtering of tweets, but the report didn’t include any information about how many accounts or tweets were de-amplified or the politics of those who were impacted, so no conclusions could be made.
But Musk’s personal beliefs are bumping up against the need to maintain a functioning business. That’s why, on the other side of things, Twitter could be attempting to make things right with advertisers.
Since Musk’s takeover, advertisers have been fleeing the network. Major brands, including Mars, AT&T, VW and Stellantis have all gone — and all the brand safety measures haven’t been able to restore their trust. The company may hope that labeling tweets that have been de-ranked will help marketers feel more comfortable that their ads aren’t running directly alongside hate speech. But advertisers have plenty of other reasons to be concerned over Twitter.
Since Musk’s acquisition, the network has been chaotic, with constantly changing policies and features, including a now pay-for-reach version of Twitter Blue and, over the past few days, changes to how news outlets are labeled, leading to generally reliable newsrooms like PBS, NPR, CBC, and others to leave the platform entirely. 

Twitter adds more ‘government-funded’ labels to global news outlets

This Week in Apps: Newsrooms leave Twitter, Reels expands, Android 14 arrives

Twitter to label tweets that get downranked for violating its hate speech policy by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Apple Music, Deezer, TIDAL pull down viral AI ‘fake Drake and The Weeknd’ trackGhostwriter's heart on my sleeve has now surpassed 625,000 plays on Spotify
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Mojave'S MA-37 RECOGNIZED AT NAMM TECH AWARDSMojave Audio was recognized for their outstanding Technical Excellence and Creativity during the 38th Annual NAMM TEC Experience, held last Thursday night at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Mojave’s MA-37 captured a TEC Award in the category of Microphones-Recording.

Started in 1985 by MIX Magazine, the TEC Awards are widely regarded as the highest honor dedicated to the pro audio and sound recording industry, recognizing outstanding performance by the individuals, companies and technical innovations behind the sound of recordings, live performances, films, television, video games and multimedia.

Mojave’s MA-37, winner of the Microphone-Recording category, is a modern take on the iconic Sony C-37a – a workhorse from the Golden Age of Hollywood recording. The MA-37 is a high headroom large-diaphragm tube condenser that updates the original design with modern components and workmanship for a rich, natural sound that imparts a smooth musicality on any instrument or voice. As with all Mojave Audio microphones, the MA-37 is hand-built with the same detailed craftsmanship that have made them essential in studios around the world.  

"This is Mojave’s fourth TEC Award nomination and we are honored to have been recognized this year by NAMM for the MA-37," commented Dusty Wakeman, President of Mojave. "We’re privileged to work alongside the creative genius David Royer and we’d like to thank our families and loyal customers for their continued support.”

For more information and detailed specifications, please visit: https://mojaveaudio.com/ma-37

About Mojave Audio

Mojave Audio was founded by Technical Grammy Award winning David Royer, widely known for his ribbon microphone designs with Royer Labs. Mojave Audio makes world-class microphones for Artists and Engineers who are passionate about their sound.

Photo ID: Mojave Audio President Dusty Wakeman (left) and Mojave Audio Partner Colin Liebich

Lake People announce MC100 monitor controller Lake People build on their expertise in converters and headphone amplifiers, announcing the MC100 monitor controller.

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