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Let's Play "Predict the Future of Music Software"


Anderton

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Is it going to go away? Become more popular? Change direction? Lose relevance? Gain relevance?

 

I'm doing a panel discussion on the Future of Music Software and would love to throw in some opinions from y'all for comment. DAWs, virtual instruments, andy of it is fair game. I don't want to say anything yet to skew the comments, but I will eventually so you'll have something with which you can argue :)

 

Ready...set...go...!

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The future is neither better nor worse, just different...

 

VR consoles and outboard effects boxes will come into vogue. You will be able to choose from a number of consoles and effects boxes, and create virtual racks of equipment. You will be able, through expansion kits, be able to recreate in VR your favorite recording studio or design one of your own. AI will interpret the incoming audio sounds and adjust them from the actual recording to match the acoustics of the room in the VR environment.

 

AI assistants will also become prevalent. You will be able to have the most popular and respected producers and engineers sit down at your VR console and show you how they will mix your song. In addition to assistants, AI will also allow you to have some of your musical heroes provide backing tracks or instrumental accompaniment.

 

All of this and the associated cost involved will lead to three types of recording producers

 

  • Those in the home studio who can at best afford maybe a small VR console and nothing more, and so are left in the current environment much unchanged from what we see today.
  • Professional studios who can afford all of the latest tech wizardry and look down their noses at the those who can't
  • The traditionalist who will continue to use the old consoles, effect boxes and the traditional wares of the recording studio. There will emerge a niche business that provides support and parts for these older devices.

In addition to the recording in a VR environment, performances will also be done in VR. Anyone with enough money can stream their own concert, using AI performers for background vocal and instrumentation. Members of the audience can purchase a copy of the show following the performance and relive the show anytime thereafter. This will also cause a number of small local theater houses to close do to a lack of bookings. Additionally, those in the business of providing the support for a live show will also find themselves unemployed. Pirates will also get very good and intercepting these streaming performances and providing them for free as a download on the 'dark web'.

 

This new technology will also cause impacts on the justice system. Major studios will continue to demand that the government seek out and prosecute pirates. There will be numerous copyright lawsuits, as lawyers gear up to determine if a VR recreation of an analog console or other hardware device violates copyright.

 

There will also be issues concerning the use of the AI performers who provide background vocals. This will come from families of the deceased performers who are recreated in VR environment. Disney Corporation will be at forefront of these lawsuits as they attempt to expand copyright to include the artist themselves (to prevent anyone from recreating a performer) and to expand the length of copyright to the life of the artist plus 150 years for an individual, and life of the artist plus 225 years for any corporation that owns the rights to the performer.

 

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Augmented reality is more likely than virtual reality. Think Pokemon Go for music :lol:. Supplementing the studio or stage environment you're working in and not being totally immersive like VR.

Behringer's DeepMind 12 has an AR interface available for it that's a crude example of what might be available in the future.

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The future of music software? "Alexa, write me a hit song about my journey to Mars."

 

I can't see any practical use for VR in music that we listen to or compose. Forget it! It's only going to be a toy that we get tired of after a while.

 

But it all depends on what reality you're virtualizing. I can see applications for creating new instruments in software that can't physically exist (at least in a practical world). We can already do that, but maybe some of the VR techniques can allow us to play instruments that we can't play physically. Think about if, in your simulated virtual world, your arms were six feet long, Or that you had three or four arms. Think about the piano you could play in virtual real time.

 

But this isn't really about music creation software, Personally, I would have a big problem using a mixing console with no there there, where all I have to do is move a hand to change the level of a track in a mix. I need a physical anchor to know what I'm doing, not a virtual one. I've proved that to myself by recognizing the difficulty that I have with mixing using only a touch screen. I move the wrong control a lot. And, boy would I ever not like to be wearing goggles that show me a picture of a mixing console and my hand approaching a knob. I think that someone who grew up playing computer games could get used to that, but I grew up listening to the radio and flying model airplanes.

 

What I'd like to see in music software are things that make it easier to use when doing common things. Better documentation would be a good start. Much as I dislike reading a manual from a computer screen, really good interactive documentation would be helpful. Here's where some virtual intelligence could come in. Another thing I'd like to see is better standardization of the vocabulary and common functions. No matter what program I'm working with, I want to be able to use the same half-dozen or so keyboard shortcuts that I've been using for 25 years - Ctrl-S to save, Ctrl-X to cut, Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-V to paste . . . and on a touch screen, where's the Control (OK, the Apple) key? Sometimes it's a long press, sometimes it's a double-tap.

 

But I think that for a while yet, people will be making some good music on their computers and phones, and more people will be making bad music, no matter where the software takes them..

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I left off predictions about creating instruments that can't possibly exist or can't be played or whatever because I used to predict this' date=' and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in this. I would love for this to happen, but I just don't see a lot of people clamoring for this unfortunately.[/quote']

 

This is a problem. We're talking about stuff that only a handful of people are really interested in, and doing that kind of thing right costs a lot of money that a manufacturer won't recoup from just a few hundred sales. I've been playing with IK Multimedia's MODO Bass lately, not because I need it, but because I thought it was interesting and potentially educational (it is). But I want it to go further. I want to go further than choose which body style I want my bass to be, I want to be able to choose the wood, have it model that, and let me hear what difference it makes. Or make a bass that looks like a banjo or Prince's guitar, or have a longer or shorter scale length. The reality is that it has a lot of good bass sounds that you can diddle by swapping pickups, using different gauge strings, mounting the pickups in different position - things that somebody with a bass sound you like may have done with real parts. But it costs about $300, and is bass sound that important? To some, sure, but to enough people to get the price down to $50 or even $100? Doubtful.

 

 

 

 

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I'm heading up a project now at our local music school where kids who have never played an instrument nor have any formal knowledge of music get to sit down in front of a computer with a DAW and over the school year we teach them what they need to know to create music. Music that they want to create, not something somebody else tell them to make.

 

When planning for the project I was wondering what would be the hardest obstacle to overcome. DAW interface issues? What music knowledge they need to move forward? Their willingness to learn either technology or music theory? It proved to be neither. The most difficult thing is to get the kids to realise they need patience to create music. To realise that if the first idea doesn't work then work on the next one. It's quite obvious that some people (kids and adults) think that as there's a computer involved they really will not have to do much work to create a hit song. They've seen Aviicci or other artists on TV doing their thing so it must be easy and quick.

 

I'm hopeing for a DAW with assisted learning for the user in some way. I don't know how to program it by I do have some ideas.

 

But I still think that while the computer is a wonderful thing it's nowhere near as wonderful as the combination of the human brain and the human spirit when it comes to creating music that can move you and touch your heart.

 

If you see me at NAMM, stop me and say hello!

 

Cheers,

 

Mats N

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When writing music with a computer, you can't avoid gaining at least a basic background in the technology of recording and editing. No need to understand sampling theory or analog connections, nor of CPUs and drivers (assuming that the workstations will be set up and waiting for them to use). They can learn music theory or play by ear, but they will need to learn some way to make sounds and put them together as music. Assuming that they all use the same DAW setup, it should be easy to learn a small handful of commands and processes once they understand how a song is constructed on a DAW.

 

But what you can't teach is talent, good taste, and the muse. Probably the hardest part will be teaching them how to start. But then, isn't that the hardest part of any musical project?

 

Is there a way for technology to help in this effort? Perhaps some algorithmic composition software for those who don't play an instrument. I haven't played with Jammer since the

DOS days, but I see that the company is still around and still doing about the same sort of thing they always did, probably now with virtual instruments instead of creating MIDI tracks that you had to play with a real synthesizer. In those early days of computer based music composition, it was ahead of the pack (of two or three, Band In A Box being their main competition) in giving some freedom of expression to the user. After letting it do your basic tracks, you could play producer and tell it how to play melodies.

 

A friend of mine travels around teaching a kids songwriting workshop and uses Waves Nx for mixing their rehearsal and concert recordings. Since in most places he has to mix on headphones in an untreated space, it helps him hear what he'd hear in a functional mixing room.

 

But this isn't the future, it's now. The future is making it better.

 

 

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The most difficult thing is to get the kids to realise they need patience to create music. To realise that if the first idea doesn't work then work on the next one. It's quite obvious that some people (kids and adults) think that as there's a computer involved they really will not have to do much work to create a hit song. They've seen Aviicci or other artists on TV doing their thing so it must be easy and quick.

 

Mats, that is a brilliant and accurate observation. I see it in the SONAR forums all the time. People who have a musical background, who've played gigs, know that music is an art, but making music - regardless of what you use to make it - is a discipline. So many people can't understand why the computer doesn't do what they want. They don't realize that a guitar won't do want you want, a piano won't do what you want, and a computer won't do what you want. If you master your instrument - which takes patience, time, and commitment - then the best you can hope for is to partner with your instrument.

 

Of course, this isn't a new thing. Casio keyboards are still sitting in closets because someone thought they'd make music easy. Apps are being uninstalled from smart phones because they didn't make music easy. GarageBand lies dormant on a Mac because it didn't make music easy.

 

That which has value is seldom easy. Relationships take work, creating art takes work, improving yourself takes work. People don't want to work, they want everything to come to them.

 

On the bright side, those who are willing to work have less competition.

 

(BTW I'm really looking forward to this year's Hall E Crawl! It takes work, but it's worth it :) )

 

 

 

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I'm very happy with where music software has gone, and I'm not really looking for a big departure in the future. I got started with DAWs in 2000, and the power we have now is stunning. When I went to my first Cubase clinic in 2000, I was blown away with what the software could theoretically do. The processing power and refinements we now enjoy have delivered on that early promise.

 

 

 

 

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As the machine grows' date=' AI will be able to predict the responses of target groups (demographics?) and tailor products accordingly; writing and producing music in this case.[/quote']

 

 

That is not a particularly happy thought. But it takes the Pandora-type concept of "you liked this music, so we'll feed you more of the same." Hopefully an algorithm will be developed that says "I see you like lots of different stuff, here's something that has nothing to do with what you're heard before. Hope you like it."

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That is not a particularly happy thought. But it takes the Pandora-type concept of "you liked this music, so we'll feed you more of the same." Hopefully an algorithm will be developed that says "I see you like lots of different stuff, here's something that has nothing to do with what you're heard before. Hope you like it."

 

No not particularly happy; just a bar nekkid observation. I imagine at some point evolutionary content will be introduced by way of the grand design and this may be truly awesome stuff. My species being there, not so certain.

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We`ve been talking about Virtual Reality for years here on HC. I think we`ll see the first attempts at it within 2 years. A company like Slate will probably put something out just to corner the market and they`ll expand on it. They already started with their plug in bundles and the touchscreen mixing. The next step will be to wear goggles...

 

I also think we`ll see more software companies start to make hardware that sort of mimics the hardware... I can see Waves putting out a 19" hardware component that mimics their software. This will give the user a real life kinetic connection to the software. The hardware will not make any sound, it will simply act as an interface. This may sound silly but I think thats whats missing with a lot of software these days... it all feels the same with a mouse. Manufacturers will tell you to "feel and hear the difference".

 

And as we already now, software will not only sound as good as the gear its replicating but will sound even better and will offer more options.

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I'm thinking (hoping) that if the software gets so glorious that anybody can be some version of VirtuaBeatles' date=' maybe there will be an eventual backlash and people will value music made by people's hands. So retro cool. [/quote']

Knowing you as I do, and given your holistic approach to playing, recording and composing...This comment by you is just so very Dave.

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