deadmau5 on AI music production: “It’s pretty scary in the sense of how stupid music already is”
“Unleash the beast, you know – holy shit would that ever open up the niche market for actual musicianship.”
Fiona Garden for MusicTech / Getty Images
Deadmau5, AKA Joel Zimmerman has shared his opinions on the future of AI music, and its uses for real musicians, beatmakers and songwriters.
In an interview with MusicTech, Zimmerman made it clear that he has already been testing the water with AI-assisted audio sample browsing, exclaiming that he was excited by its capability to detect the instrumentation of a sample.
“It knew what a snare drum was and where the kick was, and all that stuff. And it took all these billions of samples and pooled them together, so you could like surf through them like that,” he says.
However, in the case of popular chatbots like Chat GPT, which we have previously tested the capabilities of in regard to writing lyrics, composing, music analysis, generation, and transcription, Zimmerman seems a bit more sceptical.
“It’s pretty scary,” says Joel. “But it’s scary in the sense of how stupid music already is anyway, so it’s not that frightening. Like, ‘This thing can make a pop song!’ Have you heard a pop song? Great. Let it go. Unleash the beast, you know – holy shit would that ever open up the niche market for actual musicianship.”
“[ChatGPT] is good. But it’s only as good as what it knows. It’s a huge training model, right? So take the collective stupidity of the world and make a robot fucking barf it out. It’s not gonna be that genius, but it ’s gonna get you what you want.”
It is not so clear if we can expect an AI-based record from the electronic music producer, but one thing is for sure, and that is that AI is going to be taking over the world one way or another.
Spotify is one of the big music streamers to take the AI-powered leap with their new AI-based DJ that boasts the ability to curate a music lineup while offering commentary on what is playing in a “stunningly realistic voice”.
For more AI music news, subscribe to the MusicTech newsletter below and receive news on music industry developments.
