As music production continues to evolve, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has played a significant role in changing the landscape, especially in the last few years. AI tools have brought a new level of creativity, convenience, and efficiency to the production process. In this blog post, we will take a look at the top 5 AI tools for music production.
Masterchannel is an innovative platform that utilizes AI technology to revolutionize the music production industry by providing a fast, affordable, and high-quality solution for mastering. What sets Masterchannel apart is its ability to produce high-quality masters that rival those of a human mastering engineer. The platform achieves this by replicating the techniques and processes used by experienced mastering engineers.
Masterchannel’s reputation as a top-quality mastering tool is evident from the fact that it has been used by GRAMMY award-winning artists. The platform’s AI-powered algorithms require minimal effort, making it an ideal choice for both beginner and experienced music producers seeking professional-sounding masters tailored to their needs.
Masterchannel offers an unbeatable value proposition by providing unlimited mastering for a low price, making it an affordable option for music producers who want top-quality results in just a few minutes. As an added bonus, Music Hackspace has managed to secure a discount code for users. Simply enter MUSIC_HACKSPACE_20 when joining Masterchannel’s unlimited tier!
AudioShake can take any song, even if it was never multi-tracked, and break it down into individual stems, creating endless possibilities for new uses of the music in instrumentals, samples, remixes, and mash-ups. This opens up a whole new world of creativity for artists who might have otherwise been limited by the availability of tracks.
The key feature of AudioShake is its ability to recognize and isolate different components in a piece of audio. For example, if you have a rock song with drums, guitars, and vocals, AudioShake’s A.I. can identify each component and separate them into their own tracks. This means that you can use the isolated tracks for new purposes like sampling, sync licensing, re-mixing, and more.
In addition to its stem separation capabilities, AudioShake can also be used for re-mastering and to remove bleed from a multi-tracked live recording. This makes it a versatile tool for music producers and sound engineers who are looking to enhance the quality of their recordings.
Beatoven.ai is a music composition tool that empowers content creators to craft unique soundtracks for their projects. With just a few clicks, users can specify their desired genre, duration, tempo, and mood, and Beatoven.ai will generate a track that perfectly fits their needs.
But that’s not all – the platform also provides a range of customization options to fine-tune the music to your liking. From adjusting the volume and instrument selection/removal to adding multiple moods and emotions, Beatoven.ai gives you complete control over your music. Once you’ve created your perfect track, downloading it is a breeze. Plus, you’ll receive an instant license via email, so you can use your new music with confidence.
With Beatoven.ai, you’ll never have to worry about copyright issues or spending hours searching for the right music again. The platform’s fast, easy, and intuitive interface makes music composition accessible to everyone, regardless of their musical background.
Synthesizer V is a virtual singer software that leverages the power of AI to produce high-quality vocal tracks that sound natural and life-like. By utilizing advanced deep learning algorithms, Synthesizer V can analyze voice samples and generate realistic vocal performances with remarkable accuracy.
One of the standout features of Synthesizer V is its comprehensive toolkit that enables users to fine-tune and control various aspects of the vocal track. With built-in tools for pitch correction, expression control, and tuning, music producers have everything they need to create stunning vocal performances that are tailored to their specific needs. It also has an extensive range of customization options, allowing users to experiment with different tones, styles, and vocal characteristics. Whether you’re looking for a soulful, emotional performance or a powerful, energetic vocal track, Synthesizer V has got you covered.
Overall, Synthesizer V is an essential tool for any musician, producer, or content creator looking to produce high-quality vocal tracks with ease and precision. Its intuitive interface, powerful features, and unparalleled accuracy make it a must-have for anyone looking to take their music production to the next level.
Musiio’s AI-powered solutions are designed to provide music lovers with a more personalized and enjoyable music listening experience. Their flagship product is a content recommendation system that utilizes machine learning to analyze music and generate accurate, relevant tags and metadata. This ensures that music companies and streaming services can efficiently organize and categorize their vast music libraries, making it easier for listeners to discover new music and artists they love.
In addition to content recommendation, Musiio offers a wide range of other AI-powered solutions for music companies and other customers, including content moderation, content identification, and copyright protection. These solutions help music companies to streamline their operations and reduce manual effort, while also ensuring that they comply with copyright laws and regulations.
Conclusion AI has brought significant advancements to the music industry, enhancing the production process overall. The top 5 AI tools for music production we have highlighted in this blog post – Masterchannel, AudioShake, Beatoven.ai, Synthesizer V, and Musiio – have all made significant contributions to the industry, improving efficiency, creativity, and convenience. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more exciting developments in the future that will further enhance the music production process and the overall music listening experience.
Interested in learning more about AI in music technology? Check out one of our courses!
KYUB residency: 4-workshop series with IKLECTIK (UK) and the Institute of Sound (Ukraine)
Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut
Music Hackspace is teaming up with IKLECTIK to curate 4 workshops in December 2022, as part of the KYUB programme, a residency project with the Institute of Sound (Ukraine).
If you’re an artist based in Ukraine, you can apply for the residency programme. Selected artists will be awarded a 1-year Going Deeper membership with Music Hackspace, a 1-year license of Max+RNBO, a 1-year license of L-ISA Studio and 500 EUR.
Join the courses to learn about new exciting creative technologies and connect with artists from Ukraine!
Cave of Sounds: 8 instruments, 3 continents, 10 years
Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut
Cave of Sounds: 8 instruments, 3 continents, 10 years
Tim Murray-Browne is our guest blogger this month. 10 years ago, Tim was was in residency at Music Hackspace, the first artist residence we ran, in collaboration with Sound and Music. During his residence, Tim designed an ambitious interactive installation that is still going today. Its story is an exploration of the hacking culture, the prehistoric roots of music, collaboration and serendipity. Cave of Sounds is touring the world, find out more on the installation’s website.
Hello from Milan! I’m Tim Murray-Browne, and Cave of Sounds has just opened here for a year-long at the Museum of Science and Technology. Eight digital instruments, each made by a different artist, are networked into a single interactive sound installation, which is then exhibited for visitors to play with.
Cave of Sounds in Milan
Cave of Sounds launched at Music Hackspace in 2012, having been selected by Sound and Music as their first composer in residence. Ten years on, it’s toured three continents.
After four years on a PhD researching the essence of “interactive music” as an artform, my head was filled with theories of what music is. Most prevalent was Christopher Small description of music as a playground to explore the possible social relationships between people, free from the consequences of literal reality. We shout, harmonise, clash, resonate, shout, sit quietly, dance, flirt, show off, lead, follow. The whole gamut of interpersonal dynamics is there.
Cave of Sounds was originally called Ensemble. The single word interchangeably describes a group of people, a set of instruments and the sound they make together. I imagined prelinguistic people sitting around a fire evolving music as the gateway to the dynamic web of relations and roles that makes human teamwork so formidable. From this perspective, ensemble is the fruit and the necessity of music. It is the practice of individuals becoming a single force of consciousness.
I observed that in the music hacker scene, a single individual is often instrument-creator, composer and performer. I’d see people perform together on a stage. But in this space, creating and hacking technology is a musical act in itself. So what happens if we create the instruments together? Like how we improvise together in a jam, except with the instrument-building bit. Would we end up with an ensemble to match the spectral balance of the orchestra? Would our individual musical identities still shine through in the outcome?
I put out the invitation to the community for people to join an experiment where we each build an instrument for a new ensemble. Eight got involved: Dom Aversano, Susanna Garcia, Wallace Hobbes, Daniel Lopez, Tadeo Sendon, Panagiotis Tigas, Kacper Ziemianin and myself. As we each set about building an instrument, we met every few weeks, sharing ideas, prototypes and skills. It took ten months.
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That initial vision of prehistoric people around the fire persisted, as did the egalitarian and grassroots ethos of the scene. The circular arrangement of the instruments was agreed because we wanted no hierarchy. At a hackday, Dom dropped presented the project as “a cave of sounds” and the name stuck.
I pushed to avoid any official performances of Cave of Sounds. It’s exhibited for visitors to play. To introduce professional performers would subordinate the other players. It would set a standard. Without official performers, we avoid defining how these instruments should be played. What the audience does can remain as open as our experience of creating it was. This kind of ensemble is emergent. Bottom-up, not top-down.
I might have thought leading a bottom-up process would be a lightweight undertaking, but I remember finding it stressful. The more unpredictable the pieces, the more peculiar the task of keeping them together. It was stressful too. I remember helpful words from Atau Tanaka, one of my two mentors on the project: the work is the process so its success lies in remaining authentic to that process rather than its outcome.
Cave of Sounds at the Barbican, 2013
The outcome turned out better than I could have imagined. Through serendipity, we were able to debut the finished work for one week in the downstairs lobby of the Barbican. The sound of the eight instruments richocheted off the brutalist concrete pillars.
Kacper’s Lightefface is a lamp and an array of sensors each controlling a different harmonic of a fundamental. Panagiotis’s Sonicsphere is a hand-sized sphere that you shake and rotate to play and bend notes. Dom’s Campanology lets you move your arms to play percussive rhythms based on the algorithmic patterns of churchbell ringers. Tadeo’s Generative Net Sampler has invisible trigger zones that play sonifications of the internet’s background noise. Susanna’s Mini-Theremin modulates sampled audio as your hand gets closer. Wallace’s Joker is a conduction-based drum machine that relies on the player wearing a mask to function. Wind, my contribution, lets you play a flute by flapping your arms about.
The Animal Kingdom
The pièce de résistance (in my opinion) is Daniel’s The Animal Kingdom, which uses custom computer vision code to analyse the shape of hand shadows people cast to play an array of animal and synth sounds.
Cave of Sounds in Rome
When people play together, lines join them together in a central projection. If they continue for a little bit, the sounds evolve with the harmonies becoming more complex.
In its original form, Cave of Sounds required two of us to be continuously present to periodically fix, reset and recalibrate the instruments. But more challenging – from a touring perspective – was that each instrument ran on its creator’s laptop. Few in our world are able to give up their laptop for a week or two.
In 2017, I received funding from Arts Council England to build a team to re-engineer the work into a tourable format. Further support came down the line from British Council in Athens, the Museum of Discovery in Adelaide and now the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.
An evolving installation
The most striking difference in this new version is the visual form: an octagonal centre with plinths and dancing LED lighting stretching out, designed by Sets Appeal. But internally, everything has been reengineered. Code rewritten, Max for Live patches converted into a standalone C++ programs, all audio rendered through a single MOTU soundcard, PCs scheduled to reboot each night and a single switch for gallery staff to turn it on and off.
The writer John Higgs observes our tendancy when reflecting on the past to project neat narratives that disregard the raw chaos of what actually happened. The story above is the me of today finding the simplest path through it all. In 2012 we were strangers. Today the eight of us are still friends. We’re spread across three or four countries now but still catch up on zoom. Collaborations still happen between us. And so perhaps it is natural that the bond of musical collaboration is the most salient strand of the story for me.