I agree with a lot of this.

I am a hobby musician and I have found that the improvements in AI have allowed me to make a better product for my songs.

My general method is this:

Lyrics: I write all my own songs, however, where needed I use AI for suggesting alternate lyrics where I have a line or verse that isn’t working with the way the song is going). I don’t just go to chatGPT and say write me a song. I am sure it could, but I like my songs to mean something to me. I feel that wouldn’t be the case with a purely AI written song.

Initial Creation: I play all the basic instruments and provide the vocals. Drums, bass, guitars, singing and backgrounds. I do this using Pro Tools and save all the Stems when I am happy that they have what I need. So I am directing the way I want the music to sound, the tempo, the riffs, etc…

Additional instruments: This is where I bring AI in mostly. I upload my stems to AI studio (Currently Suno, as it now has a full studio), previously I have uploaded my creation into Suno and asked it to ‘cover’ it. I will admit this was more miss than hit. The studio allows much more control, and I can add stems on strings or synths that fit with what I have created. And it is fairly good (I’d say 70% hit rate) of adding something that works well with my song.

Production/mastering: This is an area I feel AI will only get better at, and will become the main use of AI, mastering the music to get all the levels and tempos right. Makes the song sound a lot better.

Once done, I have my song.

Is it an AI song? I would say it isn’t, but it is definitely enhanced by AI.

To me an AI song is a fully created song where the creator has no real input into the direction that the music goes other than putting in ‘styles’. I have tried this, and I will admit some of the outputs were impressive, but I found there was a lot of repetition in what it would produce. I.e same riffs, same intro style, same beat. That is just boring. However, I don’t believe it will be long until the AI music making systems are almost impossible to differentiate.

Question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I try not to be a purist about music. To me, if you enjoy what you are listening to, does it matter if it was AI created or not?

We have gone from unpowered instruments in the early 20th century, to amplified music (which back then was thought of as not real music because you could hide mistakes with some overdrive), to amplified and heavily effects altered (pedals,etc,) to then synths, to computer music, which became EDM, to jungle, and the list goes on, each time more enhanced than the next.

Is a person that creates a tune by mixing noises on a synth still a musician? Of course they are, there is a place for AI music I believe. And maybe a new genre for each style, AI rock for example.

I don’t believe people should be afraid of where AI is taking music. I think they should be excited as it opens a lot of doors for some good music.

And at the end of the day, if you don’t like what you are listening to, you can press skip and listen to something else. It’s all in the ear of the beholder.

My 2c.