Depth and Interview Preparation [Week 2]

To continue developing my assignment topic, The Future of Electronic Music, I intended to explore other precedence. I researched things I was interested in that came up during the creation of my insights.

The creation of ‘Gated Reverb’

During the creation of Peter Gabriel’s album ‘Melt’ in 1980, a mishap occurred that created a music culture in the 80’s. It’s called ‘Gated Reverb’, and it’s a punchy snare-like drum. The sound was created through the use of a new audio console. It included a mic hanging in the recording studio that allowed the sound engineers to talk to the band. These audio consoles were primarily used for optimizing music for CD and radio. However, the extra mic accidentally picked up sounds from the band, especially the drums’ sound. What caused the happy accident was the mic’s compressor. The compressor had an amplitude that only allowed sounds above a certain threshold to pass through. This amplified the loud sounds and nullified the quieter sounds - creating a reverb that faded quickly. The sound was popular with the band, which made it onto Peter’s opening song ‘Intruder’. Later in 1981, Phil Collins released the popular song ‘In The Air Tonight’ which gave the sound it’s popularity in the 80’s. It also led the way for future music alteration.

The world’s first AI-composed album

Benoît Carré is a French producer known for working with big stars. Together with a machine created with Sony, he produced the world’s first AI-composed album. He created the alias SKYGGE as an encompassing name for his works made with Flow Machines. According to him, the machine does indeed write original melodies. However, a human is needed to stitch the songs with structure and emotion. SKYGGE’s album ‘Hello Word’ features a multitude of genres to showcase AI capabilities.

Flow Machines works by analysing several musical scores to spot the patterns. In return, it will deliver its own tune creating with the melody pattern found. The user can give the machine whichever songs they want. For the song ‘Multi Mega Fortune’ in the album, Michael Lovett gave the Flow Machine some of his favourite American R&B tunes. It would then give 8-10 melodies in return. He would sift through the songs, then do it again. Eventually, a few little tunes are stitched into a full piece. It is regarded as a music production assist tool rather than a creation tool.

As technology becomes more advanced, humans will look to automation to alleviate hard work. We are in the era of automation for music production already - optimizing user experience is one of the main goals for software and hardware companies. I found that some of my previous insights covered the automation of DAWs. I tried to build upon those to imagine the future of my topic through the automation lens.

Automation Insights

1. Machine learning advancements will allow AI to generate music pieces and genres. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR6bin0NZSE)

2. Automation will be built into future DAWs, making them accessible.

3. Machine learning will open up more creative opportunities in music production. (https://www.youtube.com/embed/yRAbTiqAsVk?autoplay=1&rel=0&wmode=transparent)

4. The quality of songs will increase as automated processes support new and pro producers.

5. Machine learning will eventually be able to replicate the music of a deceased musician.

6. AI interfaces will simplify DAWs for new users.
   

I also brainstormed some reasons that my experts want to see me. With these reasons, I can approach the interviews with confidence and respect - and ensure that my questions are those that they expect. The majority of my experts are linked to my father, and I’ve included mention of it.

Reasons my experts want to see me

1. They are interested in sharing their knowledge

2. They are curious about my assignment

3. I am the daughter of their friend/business partner

4. They have the free time to provide

5. Helping me, in turn, grows favor with my dad

6. My university assignment is new to them

7. They are being regarded as an expert in music production

8. The type of interview conducted is casual

9. It may serve as a break in their workday

10. They feel an obligation to teach the younger generation

Here are some questions that I intend to ask my experts. I separated them by a theme to refer to it, depending on the direction of the conversation.

Potential Questions

Personal

What is music production for you?

Did you ever see yourself working in music when you were younger?

How long do you see yourself working in music?

What was the best/worst thing to happen to music production, in your opinion?

What kinds of things have you worked on in the past?

What is your opinion on how electronic music is changing?

Music Production

When did you first start producing music, and why?

What was music production like when you were young?

Who inspires you in music production?

Do you produce for a particular genre?

Do you believe that machine learning and AI will affect music production? If so, how?

How do you feel about the interactivity of music? Do you believe that it will evolve?

Do you believe that virtual reality will change how we interact with music? How significantly?

Industry

What kinds of people do you work with within your industry?

How did you come to be in your career?

Where do you see the music production industry in 20 years? How about 50?

Who inspires in your career?

What kind of user-experience improvements do you see for future DAWs?

Is there anything exciting coming for the future of your industry, if you can disclose it?

Automation

How do you feel about AI influenced music?

Will future DAW’s become more automated? How so? Do you believe this will increase the quality of music produced?

I may add and/or change some leading up to the interview. I will also highlight some key ones depending on who I am speaking to.

Bibliography

Marshall, A. (2018, January 12). Is this the world’s first good robot album?. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180112-is-this-the-worlds-first-good-robot-album

SKYGGE. (2018, June 20). Exploration of ear worms in 'Hello World', an album by SKYGGE and A.I [Graphic]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwilNFuY5b8#:~:text=Exploration%20of%20ear%20worms%20in%20%27Hello%20World%27,%20an%20album%20by

Vox. (2017, August 18). How a recording-studio mishap shaped '80s music [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxz6jShW-3E