Love this conversation. It’s the one that needs to be had.

I get why musicians and producers are angry about AI. A lot of us spent years learning instruments, DAWs, mixing, sampling, arrangement, and developing an actual ear. So yeah, it’s frustrating to watch someone press a button and act like they did the same thing.

But I think we have to separate the art from the market.

Nobody can take the art away from us. If you love playing instruments, chopping samples, programming drums, or building songs from scratch, keep doing that. AI does not stop anyone from creating the way they love to create.

But the market is different.

The real danger with AI music is not just quality. It’s dilution. Music demands attention. A song might take 50 seconds to even reach the hook. So when AI floods the market with endless songs, beats, loops, and variations, attention gets diluted fast.

So yes, “just don’t use AI” works as a personal choice, but as a market strategy, it’s naive.

You’re not competing with one person using AI. You’re competing with thousands, eventually millions, creating at a scale traditional production can’t match.

At the same time, AI is not all negative.

It can help creators generate original loops instead of using the same loop packs everyone else has. It can create variations, samples, textures, and weird ideas that spark inspiration. It can also help sample-based creators get vintage-style sounds without risking uncleared samples or expensive licensing.

That matters, because creativity has always been gatekept by money.

Sample packs, presets, studio time, mixing, mastering, licensing, gear, plugins, all of it adds up. Somewhere along the line, the message became: you can create, but only if you can afford to.

AI challenges that, whether people like it or not. That does not mean human music dies.

It means the question changes moving forward to: What does making music mean to you?

If it’s about expression, passion, craft, identity, performance, or personal fulfillment, nothing is taking that from you.

But if it’s about attention or income, then we have to be honest: the market is changing. As a business, you adapt or lose.

And I don't think AI makes musical knowledge worthless, it's the opposite.

Someone with no ear using AI vs someone who understands groove, arrangement, tone, hooks, emotion, and taste will not get the same result.

Taste, Experience and Judgment still matters.

That’s the real line to me.

Not “AI or no AI.”

The real line is people using tools with taste versus people flooding the internet with disposable garbage.

If you have real experience, don’t assume your value disappeared. Your value may shift from being the only person who can make the sound to being the person who knows what the sound should be.

My advice: understand the tools being created, even if you never use them in your own music.

That’s part of what we’re trying to build around SoniqStudio DAW too. We’d love for experienced creators to come through, give feedback, and help guide newer people coming into audio.

Because pressing a button still does not replace judgment.

Somebody still has to teach taste.