DJ Fresh: “We don’t want the music industry to end up in the hands of technologists who don’t care about music”While there’s never been a better time to be a music consumer – basically all the music you could ever want to listen to is available at, at most, a couple of clicks – this is not without its drawbacks. 
Perhaps the most glaring is that artists are struggling to be fairly compensated for their music by the tech giants who have ushered in this golden age of music consumption. For example, it was recently revealed that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek earned more in the past 12 months alone than any artist ever has on the platform.

READ MORE: Daniel Ek confirms “deluxe version” of Spotify is coming soon with high-resolution audio

And while tech giants tend to be consumer-problem solvers by nature, they aren’t always sympathetic to the fields they so often disrupt.
As producer and AI startup founder DJ Fresh explains in a new interview with MusicTech, there is a real danger of the music industry ending up “in the hands of technologists who don’t care about music”.
It’s why he chose to create Voice-Swap, an AI voice modelling service aimed squarely at music producers.
He explains: “There is a feeling, within the company, that we are fighting for the cause of artists,” says DJ Fresh, real name Daniel Edward Stein. “And not just artists; we respect the importance of labels, rights holders, distribution companies. Basically, we don’t want the music industry to end up in the hands of technologists who don’t care about music.”
Stein says that in the midst of the global AI boom – which is affecting the music industry in so many ways – Voice-Swap aims to keep things ethical, and ensure fairness between artists and labels.
“Some of the less ethical people just view this as a gold rush,” he says. “They don’t really care if they mess things up because they’ll just jump on the next tech fad in a few years time.”
He goes on: “However, a lot of the people involved in Voice-Swap have had long careers in the music industry and we care a lot about our reputations.” Such professionals at Voice-Swap include Benn Jordan, Declan McGlynn, Michael Pelczynski, Ausrine Skarnulyte and Nico Pellerin, among others.”
For more information, head to Voice-Swap.
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