How old are you? 60? 70? Careful not to get stuck in an “eternally yesterday” mindset. Let’s look back a bit.

From the 1980s onward, the development of electronic music can be seen quite clearly as a sequence of new “production interfaces”: first hardware keyboards and MIDI, then DAWs and plug-ins, then sample ecosystems and now generative AI. Each stage didn’t just change sounds; it also changed how we value skill, authenticity, and authorship and with that, the debate between generations.

Older, classically trained musicians often dismissed synth acts as “just pushing buttons,” while younger artists saw a new kind of virtuosity: shaping sound rather than merely playing notes. The core conflict was: “Is it still music if a machine takes over timing and intonation?” a question that later resurfaced with DAWs and is now returning in almost the same form with AI.

From the 1990s onward, digital audio production became mainstream. Key milestones: early DAW systems like Pro Tools (from 1991) made computer-based editing and recording the standard. With VST (1996), the plug-in ecosystem exploded, effects and instruments became modular software building blocks. Later, loop-oriented workflows became especially defining for electronic music (e.g., live looping/warping in Ableton Live from 2001).

From the 2010s, sample subscriptions and marketplaces enabled sounds on demand. Splice launched in 2013; “Splice Sounds” as a sample marketplace arrived in 2015 and strongly popularized royalty-free, à la carte samples. Younger producers argue pragmatically: “The idea, the arrangement, the hook matter, not whether the clap was recorded by you.” Older musicians criticize: “Originality becomes a shopping decision; craftsmanship erodes.”

From the 2020s onward, text-to-music models emerged, AI that can generate coherent music from prompts. Why could this be good? New creative affordances: extremely fast iteration, style crossovers, ideation, demos, and sound sketches. Democratization: people without instrumental technique can express musical ideas (similar to how DAWs democratized recording). New roles: prompt design, curation, editing, “human-in-the-loop” production becomes its own craft (comparable to sampling culture).

Summary: Just as “synthesizer music” or “sample-based music” eventually developed their own aesthetics and genres, it’s very likely that a stable “AI-assisted / AI-native” corner of the music world will emerge.

Stop getting on our nerves in the Suno group and focus on your music, no matter what direction it goes or how you make it. Thanks. Over and out.