How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Music Industry

There is no doubt that Artificial intelligence has made  a significant impact on the music industry.

We see the rise of AI powered tools and music software programs which include the application of AI in music composition, performance, mastering, learning and digital sound processing.

AI has also made it easier for people to create professional sounding music from any device at affordable rates.

Given below are some ways artificial intelligence is changing the music industry.

1. Generation Of Music

With AI, people can get access to plenty of music creation and remix tools which help them generate their own beats and create their own music.

AI generated music is gaining increasing popularity and we even see many AI generated albums being released by popular artists.

Online personality and musician Taryn Southern said that she uses AI to write her lyrics and vocal melodies to the actual music and uses that as a source of inspiration. Her song ‘Break Free’ has bits of AI composed parts which were modified with instrument switches and key changes.

Some of the popular services for creating music include IBMWatson Beat, Jukedeck, Melodrive, Google Magenta’s NSynth Super and Amper Music.

There are various other AI tools which help both amateur and professional musicians create their own music.

• PhonicMind – PhonicMind is one of the best vocal removertools which uses AI techniques to achieve the best separation quality. After processing, you receive 4 tracks including vocals, drums and bass. You can use this tool to produce high quality karaoke tracks out of any song.
• Magenta – Magenta is a Tensorflow based project by Google which allows users to generate a new model by training an existing model in music. Magenta Studio is a plugin to Ableton Live which is a well known DAW used by musicians. You also get other tools like Drumfly, Groove and Continue.
• LANDR – This audio mastering tool uses AI to let users master the tracks. It enables the creation of output filters by matching production elements with album grade music.

2. Streaming Music

AI plays a huge role in music streaming. On streaming platforms, this technology is used to analyze the listening habits and music preferences of millions of users. It is great at recognizing common  patterns within millions of songs.

The music streaming platform Spotify has an AI powered feature like Spotify’s Discover Weekly which provides a personalized list of music for each listener every week depending upon their artist preferences and streaming habits.

AI is actually responsible for Spotify’s huge popularity and success. Currently Spotify has more than 285 million active users and owns 40% of the global music streaming market. It has acquired several music and machine learning related components.

Spotify’s AI technologies recommend songs to its users in several ways. Depending upon the way you approach different artists and songs, the number of times you play certain songs on repeat and other actions you take, Spotify recommends you songs with similar parameters.

And the interesting part is that millions of users are examined at a time, so you can discover others who are viewing similar playlists.

Because of AI there is no need to purchase vinyl tapes, records of CD’s to listen to music. You can stream music online from any device and any place. Music streaming platforms can also utilize AI to increase storage, improve search engines and other functions.

All the big players in the music streaming industry use AI and machine learning to improve their services. Similar to Spotify’s Discover Weekly, Apple has  a service called Genius Playlist. Here the user gets to select one song from the list which will be used to generate another playlist consisting of songs similar to the selected song.

3. Music Mastering, Monetization And Education

There are many companies which use AI technology to process data and track music usage all over different platforms.

For example, BMA which is a music company in Barcelona uses audio fingerprinting technology to identify similarities in different sounds and machine learning algorithms to track the similarity of compositions.

Music mastering can be super expensive for many aspiring musicians who are just starting out. With the help of AI, there are many music platforms which operate on a freemium base and provide complete service under subscription.

There are also several music tools which provide feedback on your progress when you are in the process of learning how to play an instrument. Overall, AI powered technologies help create royalty free music for creators, affordable music mastering platforms and other music learning apps.

One company which uses an AI powered mastering engine is LANDR. Its AI engine is trained to extract data from millions of mastered tracks and combine it with knowledge from other music engineers.

It also offers distribution services to the popular streaming platforms and allows artists to keep 100% of sales and rights.

4. Prediction And Discovery Of Hit Songs For Record Labels

With AI driven technologies, recording labels and companies can analyze different songs to see what is likely to be popular with consumers. They can use the demographic information they obtain to analyze whether a certain musical composition will appeal to listeners.

For example, Musiio, the music tech company in Singapore uses AI driven technologies to identify the best songs for record labels and streaming services. Musiio analyzes tracks for information like recording quality, probability of success and other useful traits. The founders state that this company can solve volume issues in music, offer actionable insights and increase revenue.

This company was founded by Hazel Savage who has 12 years of experience in the music technology industry along with Aron Petterrson who is a machine learning developer and coder.

5. Creation Of New Sounds

AI has led to many possibilities for the creation of new sounds and beats. Although AI generated tunes lack originality most of the time, it is still great at producing solid tunes which musicians can work with to produce hits.

AI technologies like machine learning models and algorithms use deep neural networks to analyze the characteristics of sounds in order to create a completely new sound based on them.

For example, NSynth, the machine learning algorithm  which was released by Magenta in 2017 uses this technology to create new sounds by utilizing the acoustic qualities of the original sounds.

Conclusion

I hope this article gives you some insight on how AI has completely revolutionized the world of music. It is predicted that AI will open many more doors for new musical possibilities in the near future.