TimR

Not really. There's no actual skill in assembling something the same over and over again. Practically anyone who has ever worked on a production line can do it. They have children doing it in some countries. I used to put bottles on a conveyor belt in a bottling plant. No skill, just a bad back. Robots do it now, thank god. This is why AI will only replace certain mundane tasks.

That's basically replacing a key requirement of what it means to be a musician. Although it will be interesting if it can do that in real time with other musicians and then improvise.

Quite. It's only free while we do their Beta testing for them.

It's the new world order. We all become one assimilated culture all speaking the same language, living by the same rules, using the same currency, eating the same food. I think there's a book about it.

Quite. The CGI should enhance the storyline, not be the whole film. AI in music should be there to do the same. Improve, not replace.

Friends often come along. My son is keen (he plays drums) but he's now living and working abroad. My wife has been to one gig since we got married (nearly 30 years ago).

Interesting fact. Everyone's ear canals are different lengths and shapes (that should not come as a surprise) which means everyone hears things differently to everyone else. If you swapped your ears for someone else's, your brain would really struggle to understand what it was hearing. The same is true for eyes. What one person's eyes present to the brain as red is different to what someone else's do. Which is OK, because we calibrate our ears so that an F# is an F# no matter who you are. It does mean that one resonant frequency for one person would be different for someone else.

YouTube creators create A and B versions of titles and thumbnails to see which gets most attention. Maybe AI will do similar, or maybe it will the be humans' job to listen to tracks for quality control. Ultimately AI has no sensors or hormones to measure whether what they produce is working. Comedians and live musicians get instant feedback from audiences. Whether or not they listen to the feedback or not depends - there are plenty of artists who have spent years looking for audiences who 'get' them. 🤣

As humans we get bored very quickly and thrive on new and exciting things. While AI just copies stuff that is already there, it'll get boring really quickly. Part of the attraction of any 'latest hit', is the anticipation of the next release and how will it be better than the last one. Scrolling through Facebook is losing attraction very quickly as it seems like huge AI farms, scraping posts and reposting as original content, have taken over. The cheaper the tech becomes, the harder it will become to find quality original content, we are already seeing this with every angst ridden teenager with access to garageband releasing an Album. It's a spiral to attract the Lowest Common Denominator, TV went down that route and YouTube is slowly following.

My BandMix profile is still live. There's no reminder emails sent to you asking if your profile is up to date. I don't think people actively update adverts when they've found someone.

This is exactly what record labels used to do to showcase new artists' material. Why not a person? The advert isn't great and I think probably clumsily worded, maybe they are a Russian Oliogarc's son/daughter. I too, very recently, have been involved in a vanity project, however it wasn't clearly advertised as such and I was writing my own basslines and paying a share for rehearsal rooms. It was fun as I didn't expect it to go anywhere and the music was reasonable, but I got bored in the end of endless tinkering and changes to songs that were already written and ready to gig as far as I was concerned.

Even worse, 11 people have got worked up enough to reply. Some of them multiple times. 👀

instrtuments

Human memory is very unreliable. Everytime you recall something it gets changed ever so slightly and written back with the changes. This is why two people can have completely different versions of the same event and why police use notebooks. Playing music is the same as telling stories. Everytime you play something, an embellishment creeps in, another member will adjust to the embellishment, another member will adjust to that adjustment. Any covers band who says they play it exactly as the original are deluding themselves unless they're regularly referring back to the original. I've had issues when practicing at home and finding the song completely different to what we play, at that point there is no point in referring to the original recording other than for V,C,M structure and chord progressions. Even bass lines will have changed to create an arrangement that works with our instrumentation. We play a lot of pop that has strings, brass, synth, piano, orchestra, drum machines etc. We have Drums, bass and guitar.

Please be careful, I suspect if you do work it out, the universe will instantly disappear and be replaced by something more complex.

Charity events organised by actual musicians are the exception that proves the rule. They can be done well and I for one don't mind playing for free. A large part of the ticket sales will find its way to the good cause. And my drummer only needs to bring his snare and cymbals*. *The guitarist will bring his amp, huge pedal board and 3 guitars. The singer will turn up just as we are called to the stage.

That will be because the charity will be regulated and its activities audited. Which is different to someone off the street organising an event and donating the profits to a charity of their choice, or raising money for a local good cause. Charity comes in different forms.

In my current band the drummer makes the call. If he has to bring more than a snare drum and cymbals - he wants paying.

I once played a charity gig for extensions to a local church. It was for a dinner and dance at a local 5 star hotel. We went in for £1600 and got 'knocked down' to about £400 after the organiser laying it on thick. We found out tickets for the evening were £100 each. There was an auction of promises after the meal - it went on and on and on. We had been there at 5 to set up. The Auction made £20,000. We finally went on at 11:30, played for half an hour! That was about £60 each for 2 hours travel, 2 hours set up and pack down, 6 and a half hours sitting around and 30mins of playing. After that we were very careful to do our research for all gigs.

Depends whether its a corporate charity gig at a posh hotel, a small local festival, or a local church hall gig where no one gets paid.

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at.

Bedroom virtuoso players who can't play with other musicians or lay down a track when the red light comes on?

I suggest some people maybe taking some comments too literally. 😀

I don't think it needs a refret. I replaced the pre-amp with a very cheap one last year which isn't fantastic, but the bass is only worth a hundred quid at most. I'm better off moving on to a better new bass. I did put Gotoh machine heads on it which I'd probably fit to a replacement Ibanez.

It's similar to auto tune on vocals. Used on every recording - then when you see a real singer they don't meet expectations. I think we may already have covered bass players who can play several complex tunes at home in the bedroom along to the recordings, but can't play at a simple blues jam.