What Happens When No One Needs Your Music?

Speaker A: Matter. Because go. It says go. We're going to go. Welcome, good evening, good morning, wherever you happen to be. Welcome to the 205th episode of ADSN Audio, Deep Space Network. Thank you ever so much for being here. We are live, not quite 10 past the hour. A little bit, Little bit on point, uh, today. Um, so, yeah, apart from everything else, we are here. It's lovely to see everyone. There's plenty of people in chat. Hey, Thomas, um, is feeling tired. Probably hoping maybe the jet lag is still getting there. There's nothing more serious. We have smiling errors here, um, in the chat as well, as well as Abby. Hello, all.

Speaker B: Hello, all of you. Hello.

Speaker A: Um, I'm joined by Eon Lake, who is here freshly, um, fed and watered and everything's going to be awesome. Um, yes, um, our main event, Our main event for this week is, uh, we're having a look at, uh, the new announcement by YouTube in regards to their AI music policy. Um, and we're going to stay away from this whole notion of AI Bad. I want to use it as an opportunity to, uh, look at next steps and what that means for us independent artists, generally speaking. Um, but before then, just a little bit of a psa, um, as they say. Um, for those who are inclined, uh, and want to know more, the, uh, Ableton 12.4 was released, ah, yesterday. Um, see here, it's nice and big and bold in blue. As you can see, we've got 12.4 update on Ableton itself. And then we have move and note 2.0. Um, um, and it looks very exciting. Um, so we are going to be diving deep into that, um, next week. Um, obviously when it was first announced in beta, we went through what is all there, Stem Separation, Chorus, Ensemble Erosion, and most importantly, at least on my end, lingq Audio. Um. Oh, apparently you can get free ideas into your inbox. Not quite. I think I already have those there. But that's okay. So, yeah, we're going to be running about that next week. Music to your ears, Eon?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I think so. The only problem is I have to buy another computer to make use of the live link because my studio machine's too old. Um, shame that. Because otherwise I'll be quite excited. Um, not that I'm not moderately excited.

Speaker A: I think it works with Move as well, though.

Speaker B: True. And I will be updating Move. Absolutely. Kind of. I'm kind of almost more interested in that update personally. But.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, we'll have to see.

Speaker B: Symphonic Chorus is always good too. I mean, who doesn't love that.

Speaker A: Exactly. Um, yeah, like I said, we are going to be diving deep. I've just installed it on my devices yesterday. This morning I was playing around with a little bit of link. Um, but I want to do it properly. So I'm going to give it another week and just m kind of mess around. Um, if there's anything in particular that you want us to look at or cover, feel free just to let us know either in the comments or in the discord, um, because then I can kind of base a show around that essentially, um, looks to be quite exciting, I would like to say, messing around with link between two computers this morning. Um, and it is a lot of fun. It does play around a little bit. It's cool. So I have to see, um, maybe Ian, you can have a look at the move, uh, updates. You can focus on that and you can tell us what you find in there.

Speaker B: Yeah. Auto Shift and Erosion two effects from Live are now available apparently. Okay.

Speaker A: M. Well, we're gonna have to see. Gonna have to see. Um, so yeah, let us know. I'll put the qr, uh, and the link for the discord in the description. It's there. Just let us know. Put it in the group. There's an ADSN channel there. Um, also the link if you are listening on Spotify or anything else is also in the, uh, description. Um, if you like a good old URL, um, and you want to scan a QR code, that is totally fine also.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Uh, anything else on that eon or do you want to get straight into it?

Speaker B: No, just. Sorry, uh, Thomas, you're feeling a bit sick still.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's not what you need. It's not what you need. Um, not good. No, it's not.

Speaker B: Hope you feel better soon.

Speaker A: Absolutely, man. Um, funny, you could put suit like, you know, we use Soothe, uh, plug in VST and we put it on our music and it sounds amazing. Funny, you could just put it on your soul and just feel that stick.

Speaker B: Cancel that yoga class.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Who needs enlightenment when you've got bending

Speaker B: yourself around, breathing heavily?

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, no need to meditate when you've got oak sounds. So we'll go from there. But yes, uh, this is what I wanted to bring to the table today. And I'll just share kind of my source material so we can all get on. Um, it is from, uh, Digital Music News and basically, um, YouTube is now allowing content creators to sub out copyrighted music, um, instantly for AI generated music. So, you know when you put something up and you get flagged as something is copyrighted, which means you can't monetize. And if you do it enough you can get the video taken down or even banned, etcetera, etc, etcetera. They are bringing in the functionality where you can just sub it out for something that is AI generated. And this. Yeah, and this, this took my, uh, this took my interest so to speak, because obviously the initial reaction is, ah, AI music, everything is uh, everything is going to hell and all that stuff. Um, and I think that is the reaction of many. But I wanted to kind of come and bring it to you guys so we could kind of have a discussion about what this is and what this means, um, and what it means for us, more importantly, because I've been, I've been in the space recently of looking things from a negative space and then trying to flip them on their head and see the silver lining and everything. Right, um, um, and this could be seen as an opportunity, this could be seen as a, as a way forward, so to speak, where we can vector new paths and I'll get into that. But Ian, um, having read the news, what do you make of it?

Speaker B: I was lost in existential comedy there for a little second. My head, um, sounds like a good place to be. My immediate response, uh, is oh, who have they partnered with in order to do this? Because it's, it sounds like a business deal really, doesn't it?

Speaker A: So it does.

Speaker B: Presumably they've partnered up with somebody and I don't know, I mean maybe for some people this would be kind of useful. I don't know if there are, you know, non music related youtubers perhaps who, um, instead of having to find copyright free music and stuff that they can use on their videos, they can just opt for some to be inserted. Um, I don't know, I found myself wondering where it will go really. There's a lot of, lots of talk about, you know, AI generated music, music that's wholly or partly generated by AI. And I suppose people, you know, these practices and how this stuff gets handled is hinges on the ability to tell AI generated music from human music, which I don't know. Again, where we are now is. It's just a snapshot. We're a period of time where that's possible. But I don't know, is that always going to be possible? That there is a system that will know that it, whether or not it's AI generated or not.

Speaker A: I like to think it's a bit of an uncanny valley. Right. Like I was in, I was Coming. I had a. I had an event, I think it was yesterday morning, and it was, uh, tech elementary, yada, yada, yada. It doesn't really matter. But what they had was they had an AI generated song on this initial introduction slide for these kids.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that's part of their thing is that they have to go to Suno or Udio and they have to generate music because. Because that's the best thing to do for education. Right. Um, anyway, point. Point being, without going down that track, point being is that, um, my colleague pressed play on. On the slide while my back was turned, and I got. Oh, that's AI And I. Instantly. And I instantly. Just instantly. That's just. That's AI. And I've gone. Am I here?

Speaker B: You went.

Speaker A: I did went.

Speaker B: And then you came out. Well, as far as I'm concerned. Let us know in the chat. Who went. Was it me? M. I think we should keep a score of this as well. I'm pretty sure I'm winning either way, but that's why I suggest it.

Speaker A: We don't. Yeah, we don't count, uh, technical difficulties before the show. Just you.

Speaker B: I'd be done, um, if that were the case.

Speaker A: Yeah. There's a long way back, basically, that you're the. You're wolves in that. In that notion. Um, point being, as I was saying, um, my brain went, oh, that's AI I don't know what it was. I. And I. I didn't really think about it too much. And it was. And that's okay. And. But then, you know, there have been other times where, uh, I've been listening to YouTube in the background and someone has put in it, or it's put an AI track on and I've been vibing, and then I've realized, um, that it is AI so it's going to get more difficult, for sure. Right. But right now we're in a good space about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm constantly surprised that AI is aimed at the. At the music market in. In any sense. You know, if you're looking for a high profit margin, who on earth thought music was it? But anyway, here we are. Um, I think it's got more to do with the fact that it's a challenge, you know, for an artificial intelligence to produce music that is, you know, on par with humans. Um, is it a good service? I don't know. I mean, do people want that? Possibly they do. I mean, maybe not us, but, um, maybe there are people that, you know, can't be bothered with faffing. Around, um, libraries and you know, royalty free sync music or whatever. And I do think though, you know, I don't know, I'm inclined to think that it would um, it would create a kind of a. A class of video, you know, that has almost like phone hold music or something like that, you know, where, you know that. That became quite pretty much a race to the bottom. It started off with like, uh, it's music on the phone. It could be anything. Could be like, you know, anything from the top 40 or whatever. And then it became just like highly repetitive, um, extremely questionable music. I think maybe we're doing that. You know, where's it going? I don't know. The market will decide. Unfortunately. This is all commercial stuff. Right. And the market will decide what it wants. And if people start, I don't know, disfavoring or watching videos that use ao, uh, music less than, I don't know, maybe it will make less money. It'd be interesting to see what the take up is from an intellectual point of view.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that runs in line with a lot with what Frequency Control center was saying here. It says things uh, will just become more separate. The actual creative art, uh, of something and the quick win of AI. I don't really care what it's like option, which is a valid, It's a valid kind of idea to go m. I like the idea. I like the. You said the word challenge, right? And I like that idea. And I like the idea of uh, this being a challenge to our world in a sense. And not in a. Not in a kind of like, not in a negative sense, but kind of arising to the occasion. Smiling errors, um, in the discord for the show. Let me pull it up so I don't miss misquote. Ah, but Smiling Errors had a really good point. Um, where it says, uh, a creative person will slash can evolve their output. They should always be capable of doing something new. Whether they get to be heard in a world of constant artificial output is another thing. So we've got two ideas here. This idea. I've lost you now. Here we are. This idea that, you know, it is our responsibility and it is our job to kind of shift and respond in a way that is true. Both true to ourselves and true to the artistic intent. Um, what is less in our control obviously is this notion of what. Whether or not we get even further drowned out by AI. Because I mean people are seeing it. I mean again, Frequency Control center is seeing it in the. In the design World at the moment, this influx of AI, we're seeing it in gaming, we're seeing it in digital art, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: It's in everything. Yeah, but I, I think the point that most people, I say people, I don't, um, the current thinking. Right. The point that everybody seems to overlook is that this is going to be a bait and switch. Um, these things always are. It's kind of like um, you have a model that is blitz scaled with, you know, investor money. It doesn't make any money at all. You just grow it as fast as you absolutely can in order to take over a market. And then once you've got rid of the competition, you can put your prices up, start turning a profit. So it's a bit of a, an embrace, extend, extinguish sort of approach. However, uh, um, in a lot of businesses, you know that that's going to be quite decisive because once people have realized that uh, you know, what was just, what was cheap and convenient is now just convenient, but also quite expensive, unfortunately the alternative is now out of business. So it's the only game in town and job done. Whereas with music and music creation, I just don't think it will play out the same way. Because you're not going to stop people from making music just because it's not profitable anymore because. Well, it hasn't worked so far, has it? Yeah, I mean more music than ever is being made by us, I mean, uh, equally by AI at the moment. But I mean it, it will not stop people from doing it because it's a unique expression of our humanity, of our soul. It's. Yeah, you couldn't shut up if you wanted to. It's not about money, you know, so you're applying a commercial sort of strategy to something that extends beyond that. And I think that in some industries like music to some extent, there will be a counterweight that will balance that because of that. So uh, so basically when you know one, once the convenient option, you know, provided by AI becomes more expensive because they've got to pay for these data centers somehow, then you, your previous supplier is still there because they're not going to stop making music, you know. All right, they may not. There may not be the same people in business. People might have to make adjustments, but there will still be people making music to some extent is what I'm saying. It's not going to squash all competition because people will make music if it makes zero money. You know, they will.

Speaker A: Um, absolutely, I would. And I don't disagree with you at all people always make music because it's, you know, it's the extension of their soul. I get that. I suppose within the self eating, post capitalist system where, you know, you have to make money somehow and uh, you have to. And uh, money can be. It is pretty much wholeheartedly based on exposure by that. By our point right now, whether that be a reel that does pretty well or whether that be being put on a playlist or whether that be putting on a radio mix or something like that. It is that exposure which is fundamentally necessary to, you know, the artistic way, the structure. You know, back in the day it was a poet on the streets of Vienna wandering around writing poems for people. But these days, you know, we are somewhat reliant on, uh, being part of the content creation process. Be that through collaboration, be that being. Or someone saying, oh, uh, can I use a track on this, for example?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I just think it's, I think we're going to see a more tiered result and I think, I think, um, it will, it will become a thing in its own right. So it will be a thing of convenience and maybe some people will welcome that and that's fine. Um, but I think also it may become, it could potentially become a stigma, you know, or some, or some, or an irritant. Some people don't. I don't really like AI generated music. It really annoys me. I like these videos, but I don't. I find the music a bit irritating. I mean, they may not care as well equally, but I think it could happen. And there could still be a prestige thing where you want to use the best ingredients. Do you want real music? I don't know. Am I dreaming?

Speaker A: Am I.

Speaker B: Maybe I'm asleep right now. Um, I think, you know, ultimately both will exist in the future. Um, Smiling Errors made an interesting point about trying to compare. It's like trying to find, um, the positives in the electric loom as weavers, which is. I love, I love the analogy. Nice one, mate. Um, but again, if you look at that analogy, I think, you know, the mechanical loom, um, yeah, it's able to produce cloth at a much higher, a faster rate of a perhaps substandard quality. And you still, you know, when you're trying to set up your T shirts for sale, because that's what we are, right? Glorified T shirt salesmen, um, and women, of course. You know, what's the first thing that you see? Oh, well, like, uh, organic, you know. Yeah, you start seeing tears already. Right. And, and there is still, um, A market for artisan products of all types, you know, food, furniture, uh, you know, there is a desire and there's this, there's this assumption that human handcrafted, something that has been poured over ultimately has more value than something that has been cheaply mass produced. And I don't think that will go away in the future. It will. However, you know, change is inevitable. But there is some things that don't change sometimes I think.

Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, you make a very good point. I mean we are, you know, in this day and age we still look for the hand woven and the handcrafted, uh, artisan style, uh, products and that people always gravitate towards that because there are some people who, you know, disagree with the idea of mass manufacturing, which is again, totally fat, totally valid. The. I suppose that brings us to the question of, okay, well where else then? Right? Because it looks as though YouTube is going down this road of, you know, content creation being AI. Uh, I see more and more, um, videos which are AI generated images which have got a nice Ken Burns effect with an AI generated voice telling a, telling a perfectly good audio version of a Wikipedia article essentially, which has gone through ChatGPT, which is, you know, if, you know, if I, if I am trying to remember, um, if I'm trying to remember some particular bit of history and I don't want to read today, then that works, right? But it's, it doesn't. I suppose what I'm saying is that what that is doing is pushing that artisan stuff out, right? Pushing that kind of content for the love of it kind of situation. More and more. I see. Unless they're already established creators. I see lots of creators essentially. I mean we've done it for years, you know, play the algorithm game, you know, and have to kind of gravitate towards something which may not be their calling, but knows that's going to generate clicks and hits. So the question becomes, where else do we go?

Speaker B: Well, that's just it. Yeah. Because I think, you know, if something's free, then you're the product. It gets said a lot and it's very true. And I, I don't know, I'm inclined to think that there's a weariness to the kind of output, uh, that, you know, ultimately chasing money, money, money, money ends up with, you know, because by necessity plays to, you know, human psychology and becoming more and more polarized and extreme and so on, just as shock and you know, to maintain attention of people who have degraded attention. What I think will happen is we'll Just move away to other things that feel more comfortable. Uh, I hear lots of people these days who are just not comfortable with social media and legacy ways of sharing what they do from an artistic point of view. And I think it ultimately sort of pushes you towards finding alternatives. I've seen a lot of people trying to set up alternative, um, scenes, you know, where you register a username and you can put your music on there and so on. The idea is it's a co op and you own a share in it by being part of it and so on. Um, you know, there are a lot of things that are popping up because they seem to believe that, you know, people will be turning away from some of the older platforms in response to just uh, a bit of a weariness to, you know, how they've ended up and, and the feel of it and whether or not it provides something that ultimately, ultimately you like and want more of rather than just kind of a bit hypnotized by. Yeah, it could be that comes to nothing but that it does persuade platforms to start prioritizing things slightly differently. I don't know, I already find like that there's like a set number of voices that you get auto voiceovers in. Right. And when I hear one of those voices it irritates me and I uh, just want to skip immediately.

Speaker A: Look at that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I could be a bit of an old, you know, what in that sense be identifying myself as ripe for the coal. But I don't know. I think a lot of these things there's a. I think it will settle. Find a natural point, you know, uh, the convenience of things I think will continue to be used as long as they're useful. M so if you start using convenience tools for your videos and you find that you get less watches or something because maybe they annoy people. This is a lot of ifs here, right. If that happens then, you know, you'll probably change things, won't you?

Speaker A: I like to think so.

Speaker B: I mean if there were no take up, um, then they'd stop selling it. That's not going to happen. But just to use an extreme case to kind of illustrate the point,

Speaker A: okay. On the back of all that, because all that's perfectly valid and I hear what you're saying, I suppose when it comes to like tangible ideas of e.g. eon Lake self promotion and putting your place in this world. M and this, the increasing cloud that is AI coming our way, where does it put you in regards to what, where you consciously put your art and where you want to Be seen now,

Speaker B: isn't that the question? It's a question that I'm genuinely struggling with. If I'm honest. My profile on social media has almost vanished over the last couple of years.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: As a, as a progressive and general reaction to, um, the fact that your music can be used without your consent for purposes you don't agree with. I don't want to train any AI models. I only want to train myself. Um, and because of the way all the distributors are changing the terms of service so that, you know, this is written in and you've already agreed to it and so on, in my mind I'm kind of writing off what's already there, but I'm not putting any new stuff out and I would like to share clips of me doing stuff and so on, but I don't trust the platforms that I would put it on not to either use it to train AI models or um, yeah, have it ripped off in any way format now maybe, maybe that's an exceptionally arrogant and presumptuous attitude and you know, I'll uh, hold my hands up if that's the case. But I just, I don't trust these platforms. I don't want to put clips on Instagram anymore. I used to do that. I had plans to do stuff on YouTube but I don't know enough about how well their content ID is going to work. And you know, I'm not prepared to sign off, you know, sign away the rights to anything because it's, it's all I have right as a musician. It's one of the benefits of not being tied to a label, to a large organization or whatever is you own everything and you might own all of nothing, but it is all yours. And I just, it's a bit of a non negotiable one for me. So this is where I am genuinely interested in what people in the chat have to say both on Discord and, and in the chat for the show. I want to know what people think about this. Is it just me that's thinking about this? The fact that, you know, we've seen these stories of people who have posted like song in progress and then found uh, you know, a couple of days later that somebody used AI to finish their song and release it and copyright strike the original song, the original video was stolen from, that kind of thing's going to put me off a bit. Is it just me? Do people not care? I don't know.

Speaker A: I mean, absolutely, uh, yeah, you know that, you know, those are some extreme examples, um, which Very much. Uh, very much. And for good reason. Paint a, paint a sordid picture of putting our stuff out on the Internet by that rationale, then we're left with the. Going back to the 60s and 70s, having everything on CD, cassette and gigging and then just selling it out in the real world.

Speaker B: There is that. And I, I do like the simplicity of a lo fi solution like that. Don't tell. Yeah, don't tell the Internet and it won't know. I'd like to think it's not just that, that, that isn't the only option because it feels quite nuclear, doesn't it?

Speaker A: It does feel quite.

Speaker B: All of this stuff is supposed to exist for a reason, right. Supposed to provide some sort of service. But I think the service has fallen by the wayside and it is just, you know, interest harvesting now and advertising which, you know, doesn't really work, you know.

Speaker A: Do you think then on the. Okay. On the back end of that? Because like, for example, I mean, in. Take Instagram. Instagram wouldn't be what it is if it weren't for the fact that it has the ability to put music in their videos and to share links from YouTube, Spotify, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think it'd be half the platform that it was. Right. So there has to be a certain amount of, there has to be amount of user, uh, compliance. Right. And again, I suppose this comes down to, this comes down to we, we care about this because we've got, uh, we care about this stuff because we're invested in it. Right. And we care about this stuff because it's our way of life. Whereas we are somewhat in our own echo chamber and we're in our own little bubble. And to most consumers, you know, it's not so much of a, it's not so much of a importance, it's not so much of a knowledge thing. So like, maybe there's, maybe there's a spreading the word before, uh, hitting the nuclear button. Maybe there's a spreading, uh, the word and saying, hey, this is a situation which needs your attention.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I don't know. I wonder how much my, my personal finger is on the pulse. I mean, I read a story the other day about how corded headphones are coming back into fashion. People are using them more and more because they just, they just work. Right. You didn't have, you don't have any issues with charging and you know, them running out of battery and having. Yeah. The Bluetooth hassle. And I thought, oh, okay, well, I mean, I can, I can understand that. But you know, were it not for, uh, somebody writing an article on it, I wouldn't know that was happening. I wouldn't. And it surprised me a bit. I mean, it makes sense to some degree, but it still surprised me. I thought, you know, the desire is always for the tech, you know, give me tech. But this just goes to show you that, you know, sometimes it's convenience, sometimes it's just, you know, what people want, sometimes they don't want what you think they want. You know, people talk a lot about AI, but it's framed all about. It's framed entirely from the point of view of companies that are in AI, that do that, produce models for commercial use. So this is all based from a hacker, we make money from AI point of view. It's not based from any other point of view that you might have. It's not based in like, is the amount of power and cooling required to create this worth the benefit that it produces? Do you know what I mean? Because again, from the blitz scaling model of economics and so on, it's just like, well, we'll make money later. Firstly build it and make it massive as well as big and, uh, get it to scale as quickly as possible and then we'll worry about money. So, I don't know, maybe just re. Angling a lot of this stuff is the answer. But the thing I take from it all is you never can be quite sure what people are going to want if they decide to express what they want.

Speaker A: It's true. Uh, they can, I know, they can surprise you, I think. Yeah, people want ease of use, people want things without. People want things without fussing for it, basically.

Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing is, while all this stuff is going on and everyone's attention is on that, I think there'll be other people beavering away in the background doing something different and doing something, you know, perhaps, um, transformative maybe, you know, so I, I believe people will be looking to, looking for alternatives. You know, the common way people think about this is it comes in waves. You've had Way Web, then you had Web two, then you had Web three. You know, I think people will be looking for, you know, social media two or three and uh, and a different way of doing things. And I just think we'll just move on because as musicians we've had to be flexible for a long time and it's all about being flexible.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is.

Speaker B: So, you know, while, while they're busy with the, uh, you know, what's Happening on these major platforms. I think other things will spring up that interesting and perhaps more useful to us.

Speaker A: I get that there's a couple of things I kind of want to branch off from that. But uh, firstly with the smiling areas in regards to your, in regards to the nuclear option, the idea of just uh, going to gigs and selling CDs, um, so mining areas, then you still need a presence on the platforms to prevent someone from ripping your CD and creating a fake profile with your music, which is valid, which I suppose you're not at that, at that side you're more policing things and you're not investing your time in putting your. If your gripe is with the, the farming of your music or using it, it being used to train an AI, if you're not, if you're just policing, then that's okay in that regard.

Speaker B: Yeah. When I say I don't want it to go towards training an AI, it's not because I expect that AI to go right. The most cost efficient thing that I could possibly do is bring out the next deal. I just, I don't think it would ever sort of study my music in order to replicate it. It would just be part of, you know, a huge data grab in order to replace musicians. Maybe it's an ideological thing, um, uh, from my point of view, and other people may feel differently, I get that. But yeah, I wouldn't expect anyone to, to use AI to actually copy me, Literally copy me.

Speaker A: That'd be the first thing that.

Speaker B: Arguably still exists. You know, just don't do anything.

Speaker A: Oh, I mean, I wanted to bring up another. We did a, uh, we did a whole thing about copyright. Uh, it must have been about a year ago now. And I, I, my nuclear option on that was just throw copyright out the window. Right. If you think about how copyright came out, how it came to be, it's a law very much based in the early, uh, modern period and I think the 1830s, 1840s or something. Correct me, where copyright was to stop people from writing down sheet music. Right. And stop making their own versions of sonatas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker B: Right. Well that stopped. I don't think it was copyright that did it, but.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, but I don't think that's

Speaker B: a huge problem these days.

Speaker A: But that's kind of what it was based upon. Right. And it's just kind of grown from there on out. Um, and you know, we talk about copyright when it comes to things like sampling and when it comes to like interpolation and stuff. Like that. And there's still a part of me, there's still a part of me that thinks all this is just, all this is just a load of crap, right? This idea that our art is intrinsic. There is this thing that this art is intrinsically something that is copyrightable and put in that can be legislated. This idea that, you know, I've made something from my soul and therefore it belongs to me. I put it out into the world, but also I get to say, I get a say on um, what can and can't be done with it, if that makes sense. And uh, I might, I might, I might be in the minority here. This might be a bit of an unpopular opinion and half of it is academic, but it's also something I still meditate on. It's like when I put, say I put, put the. In the Waco Light, right. I put that into the world, right. The album means a lot to me and I put it out into the world, but someone listening to it is going through, it's going through their filters and going through theirs and can mean something completely different to them. Um, and it's not really mine at that point, you know what I mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, but it's not, it's not um, it's not smiling errors is saying it for me in the chat. But yeah, it's also not, you know, they take it down to the market and sell it. They're just using it themselves, you know, so there's ownership and there's ownership but you know, copyright doesn't really exist for that. Copyright exists for those who have a lot of money to protect that revenue.

Speaker A: True.

Speaker B: More than the little people like you and I. Although it's supposed to extend across everything the same. I think Sony, uh, Sony and BMG and people like that would have a lot more interesting copyright than we would

Speaker A: perhaps do you, does this, does this then affect your relationship with the idea of, you know, a content creator comes to you and says, hey, really, like Deep State, can uh, I use one of the tracks to uh, on my, on my YouTube channel, for example? Would that affect your decision making in that regard when it comes to copyright scalping, etc?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've declined it in the past.

Speaker A: I have you?

Speaker B: Um, yeah, I said thank you but no thank you because they wanted me to give them certain rights.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And it said no, unfortunately.

Speaker A: Oh no. I mean it's not unfortunate. It's your, it's your decision, isn't it?

Speaker B: Yeah. And again, you know, I'm not trying to make a huge amount of money or anything. I'm just doing something that I love, but at the same time, it is important to me and I'm not just going to hand it over so that, you know, somebody else can benefit.

Speaker A: I get that. That makes sense.

Speaker B: So, I don't know, it doesn't really change anything in that regard. And I suppose Smiling House is right about, um. You know, even if you're not using these platforms yet, it's probably wise to maintain a presence on a name. There have been a few new platforms that came out that I registered for and saved by name so that no one else could.

Speaker A: So you've got. You've got an Eon Lake account just so that you. You can have yours.

Speaker B: I'm cyber squatting on a few services. Yeah. That I don't use, but I have an account.

Speaker A: It's good practice. I suppose. It's great practice.

Speaker B: Um, that could get dull though, because there are a lot of them. Um. Yeah.

Speaker A: I don't know, is it, Is it a losing fight in that sense then?

Speaker B: Um, I don't know. That just made me think of the Bruce Lee quote. In order to lose, you have to first, I don't know, accept the idea of defeat.

Speaker A: Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, Totally fair.

Speaker B: All right. I mean, you can put quotes around lose and define it however you will. And it depends how you look at it, I guess, is the answer to that. It's not an answer, really. It's a bit of a cop out. But, um, that's kind of where my head's at.

Speaker A: That's fair. That's totally fair. I mean, if it's. At the end of the day, we're all doing our own thing. Right. And what. How and where our music goes is like you say, if we're not part of a label or anything like that, fundamentally, it's down to us.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could be willful and capricious about it if you like, if you get the opportunity. It doesn't have to make sense.

Speaker A: No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all. We'd love to know what you guys think about this. Um, yeah.

Speaker B: Particularly about putting music out in this day and age, you know? Seriously, is it just me that doesn't trust social media platforms not to harvest something from anything that I share? You know, it's, um. Yeah, I'm even thinking about the meta tags and information on videos and stuff like that. There's, you know, you're giving them your location and stuff. It's. Is it just me? Do I need to get A tinfoil hat, um, and some therapy.

Speaker A: No, I mean, it's valid, isn't it? It's valid. It's like I, I go back and forth on this myself and I still put my stuff out there and I still, you know, I've got a, I've got an active social media presence. I, I do advertise my music on social media and you know, I, I, I make videos that's got my music underneath them and I do do that. And, you know, just part of me is like, little old me, you know, you know, I'm just here doing my thing. Um, and I, I, I think about the idea of my work getting scouts and I'm like, okay, sure, you know, wouldn't make the AI, you know, dry heave or anything. Um, but I, I do have, I do go back to the, I default to the conversations that I have with people who are human and are not part of, you know, big music or anything like that. And they're genuinely, you know, they have a resonance with what I've done and they, you know, they, they appreciate it. And I, on that kind of human to human scale, it's like, oh, that's cool. I can, I can do that, you know, um, and there's a, there's a space for someone to, you know, uh, feel a little bit better throughout their day.

Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: M. One, one final thing before we move on today. Um, the dilemma is exposure. After you've been heard, you can retreat to your own servers straight to consume, like amontobin. But what if, but what if no one knows that you exist? Which is a fair point.

Speaker B: Yeah, but this sort of thing was done before the Internet.

Speaker A: M. Again, also valid. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, so, yeah, I mean, there's definitely, I mean it's a common argument. You hear it a lot. And you hear even more from those that are totally bought into the, to the, um, the streaming hustle and, and uh, you know, very into Spotify particularly. And they, they don't see what they're doing as redundant in any way. And, and they would say, well, you know, I tried band camp, but it's no good for promotion. And I wouldn't necessarily say that that's wrong. Um, it's probably a good thing. Yeah, maybe there is an argument for having some sort of exposure, but I don't know. It feels a little bit like turkey's, you know, voting for Christmas.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Um, which if you're outside of the uk, turkey's a, could be Thanksgiving. Yeah, Thanksgiving. Um, yeah. Um, it's A fair point. It's a fair point and maybe you

Speaker B: need to strike a balance. But yeah, there is more than one way to, you know, rise to some sort of prominence. And I don't know, I believe a little, quite a lot in the concept of a thousand true fans. I, I don't want to be, um, doing a Taylor Swift here. That would not appeal to me.

Speaker A: I'd love you to be twerking on a big arena stage.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I'm definitely going to get some of the boots, but God, that's a horrible thought. But you know, the idea that you don't need a massive following, just a, ah, relatively small following of people who are actually genuinely loyal and interested in what you do is all you need. Um, and that's, that makes more sense to me really. I'm not. That's the kind of popularity I would be chasing and, and that's the sort of thing that could be more scene related rather than, you know, with this tool I can reach everyone in the known universe and have them casually listen to me along with billions of others. It's just not a strong argument to me. Sorry.

Speaker A: That's fair.

Speaker B: I know it's worked in the past and will continue to work for some people, but I find myself not, not really buying into it. And I could be wrong. I reserve the right to be wrong at all times.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we all do. I think it, you know, it's a good thing to do. I'm curious. I'm waiting for, I'm waiting for Stillhead who pops up. He says, I was quite pessimistic about AI a few years ago. Um, I'm wondering. I think most people are wondering, have you changed your mind still?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And, and tell us more, why don't you? We'd love to know.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I'd like, I'd like to think the whole resource thing will balance what it's used for. It's like, yes, you could use it to make a, a video of a dog, um, skateboarding but you know, is that a responsible use of the resources required in order to create it? And, and if the answer is no, uh, in a world where water is going to become increasingly more important even without the advent of AI then you know, maybe we'll start to think a little bit more about what it is we're doing.

Speaker A: It's fair. I mean, I'm similar in a similar regard. I used to use a precursor to AI to uh, in my previous job of uh, essentially making sync licensed music. Um. M. You're essentially using it as essentially a fancy sound selection tool. Um, uh, and fancy automation lines, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but you were still, you were kind of curating the track, right? You were curating the, and you were, Instead of writing two or three tracks a day, you were writing about between 10 and 12 tracks a day. Um, the idea of it being you set all your parameters and then you, like I say, you curate these sounds that come through and the songs have a similar structure. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, etc. And that was fun. Not going to lie. A lot of fun, Great fun. Um, learned a lot. I, and I just, I, I, I struggle to, uh, I struggle. I mean, I've, you know, I work in the school where they're pushing, they're pushing AI and so I've, I've, you know, I've played around with Suno, I've played around with Udio, that kind of thing, and just, I just don't, I just don't get it. I just don't get the fun of it. You know what I mean? Um, um, uh. Oh, here we go. Still, it follows up. But now I view AI as an opportunity for the real artists to stand out in the sea of AI Garage.

Speaker B: Whoa.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's the challenge. Right? That's the challenge. Right.

Speaker B: I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker A: How wonderful. Thank you for sharing that, Thomas. Um, absolutely. I inherently agree that is the wisdom of the show. Genuinely. Like, this idea that, um, you know, this is an oncoming challenge. It isn't. Is an ongoing challenge for coming. And I'm like, I'm ready, man. Like, have you, have you seen what I can do with an arpeggiator? Like, come on, you know what I mean? It's a little bit of a raps,

Speaker B: don't we, both of us.

Speaker A: It's like, I, I, I do. I was, yeah, again, I was having a con, a completely different context, but I was having a conversation with a mate, uh, at the weekend and it's this idea that you can see the cloud come in. You're like, all right, let's, let's dance. You know, let's have a dance and let's, let's go for this, let's, let's give this a try. Because as soulless as AI Garbage is, even a good AI track can never replicate the connection that you get when you listen to another artist with their, who's bearing their vulnerability on canvas, uh, so to speak. And I just, I just, you know, it just makes me Want to be more vulnerable. It makes me want to be more expressive and it makes me want to be more adventurous with the things that I'm doing.

Speaker B: Mhm. Well, that's a good thing, I guess.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean it only needs to be unprofitable to fail.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I don't care about money. It's fine.

Speaker B: Use it for something else instead.

Speaker A: That's fine. You know. You know, if I have my way, money won't exist in the next 10 years. So we're okay. But you know, I'm still holding out for that. Um, Thomas, uh, files up. Ah. Follows up first. We thought nobody would ever again hire a photographer or pay an artist for an image. That hasn't happened yet. And the same regarding music, which is fair. Again, another fair point. I don't think it's all doom and gloom. I just think we have to come at it. You know what I mean?

Speaker B: But yeah, we also need to. To remember that, you know, this is music. And were it not for AI to be something else coming along, it's always changing.

Speaker A: That's true.

Speaker B: You need to keep your eyes peeled and see what's what.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: But I do think that there will be a bit of a renaissance in meaningful human interaction.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: In the real world, things like that will start to count for more. Yeah. Performance maybe more of a thing.

Speaker A: I'm hoping. On that note, I'm hoping that Survey Channel got a recording. He did a gig at the weekend.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, absolutely. Um, plans are working for free and hoping that my landlord feels the same way about rent. Um, maybe have to say I do like my landlord. He's a good guy. Um, I have to see. But yes, I think. Uh, anyway, coming back, Survey Channel did a gig at the weekend that and it looked fun. And I hope that you post a video survey if you're listening. Is that going to be a thing? Um, but I mean I. I hear you and I think right. Human. Human interaction. More live shows again that ties in with electronic music gear. Uh, just being more and more portable. I don't. Have you seen. Uh. It's not 59 Pearland anymore. He's rebranded Rosen something.

Speaker B: See, I'm m thinking Rosen Cramps. But that's.

Speaker A: Anyway, he's rebranded and he. See he's going to super booth this weekend and every. He's got an entire setup and it's in a bag and he's taking it with him on the flight.

Speaker B: Yeah, I really liked the. The is. It's got power supplies and interfaces mounted underneath. Yeah. Stands that I think I liked that. Uh, that's clever. Very neat.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And appealed to my, uh. Yeah, I did. I did like that. It was very, very organized.

Speaker A: Very organized and compact. Mhm.

Speaker B: But yes, I had seen that actually. Yeah. I've not heard it yet though. I've only seen pictures of what he's come up with. Heard any performances yet?

Speaker A: It's going to be back to front. If I show is. It's. It's Rosencrantz.

Speaker B: Oh, right. It is Rosencrantz.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's his surname. So yeah, so totally. It's getting more and more portable. We don't really have an excuse. More gigs, um, more project management. But that's okay. That's fine. Let's um, let's uh, move across. I want to. In the name of talking about the community things. We kind of stumbled into this.

Speaker B: Speaking of humans making music. Making music.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Um, I'm gonna. Shady Ridge put a couple. I think it's two weeks ago now. I mean, what we, uh, doesn't matter when we are. But, uh, a new track, a new, uh, album, uh, by rsn, Perpetuity number one out on Shady Ridge Records. Um, and this is definitely your kind of thing. Eon. Because we've got two tracks here. Perpetuity 1.1. Perpetuity 1.2. The first track is 19 minutes and 43 seconds and the second is 28 minutes and second. 30, 13 seconds.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker B: Long form stuff.

Speaker A: Long form stuff, absolutely. It's released on 24th of April. Perpetuity 1 is a work of floating depth and meditative expanse. The album unfolds like a continuous breath in which the most diverse ambient layers are gently superimposed, interwoven and yet flowing freely. Initially delicate and tentative, the sound build. The sounds build up the layer by layer into a dense acoustic fabric. As the pieces progress, the movement slows down and the textures become denser and gradually glide into a monumental drone state. Seemingly endless moment of sound vibration and space. God, sounds good. The music never loses itself in monotony, but instead thrives on subtle changes, barely perceptible movements that seem like wind in a vast landscape. Steve, please stop, uh, doing that to my rug. Um, towards the end, this massive sound structure begins being dissolved again. A shimmering, barely tangible iridescent shimmer remains. It is as if the music is evaporating, returning to the nothingness from which it came. How's that for a. How's that for a blurb?

Speaker B: Sold.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Um, what I'm gonna do, uh, is I'm Gonna put the link in, uh, the chat. It is already in the description if you want to grab it. Uh, the, the track is 19 minutes long. We're not going to play 19 minutes. Um, but we're gonna play. We'll play a few minutes just to kind of keep it going. Um, yeah. So let's go from there. We'll start at the beginning. Might as well. So we'll see you in a little while.

Speaker B: Mhm, M. M. Mhm. Must do a bit there.

Speaker A: That's because I muted myself. There we go. What a beautiful bit of ambient going on there.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, it feels like it's just getting started really as well.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, yeah, there's another 15 minutes there.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Um, uh, still, Ed, I'm working on a mix and you guys started this track. I've been frequency sweeping to find that ringing frequency. Um, can happen still, Ed. Sorry about that, man. Um, but it does happen sometimes. Yes. Um, very much. Ah, an album that looks like it takes its time in a world of virality where things got to be done in three seconds. It's beautiful to see something that um, just evolves and takes its time. So that's definitely one to explore in totality. Um, absolutely. Any thoughts?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a look at that one. It definitely appeals to me. I do like something long form that can, can hold your attention as well. So, um, we'll see. Kind of Thunder, the label as well, I have to say.

Speaker A: Yeah, everything.

Speaker B: I do love everything about it as well. Even the design looks like something I might have done.

Speaker A: So I was thinking it's very up my street. Yeah, it's very, it's very deep state in that regard. It's cool, man. It's what you need. Um, link is in the description and I've just put it in the chat if you want to go check it out. Support Shady Ridge Records. Always putting out something fascinating. Different. Josh does a wonderful job over there.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you like CDs, there are only eight left.

Speaker A: Go get a CD. Um, have to see. That brings us towards the end of the show. Eon. Uh, what have you got in store for this week?

Speaker B: Uh, um, fun, fun, fun. Um, I've got. I'm still messing around with, um, modular stuff in software.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. I like vc.

Speaker B: Yeah. Fixed vcv. So I'm still using that. It's got all the in. I've got all the instru, um, modules in that. I love instrument stuff.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Um, and I'm still using soft tube modular. But my MS.20, I don't know. For some reason, it was only this week that I clocked properly that it's got an envelope follower on it. Um, because, I mean, it's got an internal, an external input and most senses like. It's an external input so you can put it through, um, through the, the uh, amp stage and the filter. So you can filter things, which can be fun. Right. Especially if you've got oscillators and stuff and you can sync it all up and whatever. But the MS.20 is a bit different in the sense that, um, you can play it with a guitar. I don't know if you've ever seen that. It will determine what pitch you're playing. And it has an envelope follower and you can play the synth using another instrument if you so choose.

Speaker A: Cool.

Speaker B: Well, what it also means is, yeah, you can do what I've been doing, which is get a drum machine and plug it into the external input and use the gate triggers from that, the envelope follower from that, but still use the keyboard for the pitch.

Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. Okay.

Speaker B: Deterministically patch it because the cable is normal to the, to the oscillators, but you can, um. But if you plug something into the external, it overrides that, but you can re. Patch it but still keep the, um, the envelope follower from something external. So I'm going to be messing around with that as well. Obviously means you can do it on an MS.20 Mini and a Behringer K2 as well.

Speaker A: Okay. You'll have to report back on that because it sounds like a fascinating little exploration.

Speaker B: I'm just hoping I'll get more rhythmical leads out of it, you know, more interesting tonalities as well.

Speaker A: Oh, okay.

Speaker B: So, yeah, got lots of experiments to do this week. I've got lots of ideas, um, to work through and it's been quite a productive last week for, for doing stuff anyway. So, um, just keep it up, keep going, do some more experiments. It's fun.

Speaker A: Experiments and play. Right. No expectation about an outcome. Just seeing what happens when you do this.

Speaker B: Now, just regular steps towards a goal. You know, if you take a step a day, you'll. You'll get there. Yeah, I always did before, I always will now. If I just. I've been working in the mornings more as well, which seems to work better for me.

Speaker A: Okay. So, yeah, fresh your face, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, if you're. If you're like me, you have busy days and you end up very tired by the time, you know, you finally get a chance to do anything. Maybe just go to bed and get up early instead and try then.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Even if it's 10 minutes to half an hour, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Just doing something just to make, uh, the morning yours, so to speak.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a better way to start today. It's better than doom scrolling.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Breaking the fourth wall. Beautiful.

Speaker B: What about you?

Speaker A: Um, I have opened up the trove of tracks that I made during, uh, a trans dimensional passage on Amazonic Balchan. I haven't said that in a while. Um, and so I've got a load. I've got a load of tracks which I wrote while I was producing that album. So now it's time to go back and produce those and start opening up those little boxes.

Speaker B: Well, they take it. They just weren't Bach one enough.

Speaker A: They weren't what, sorry, Bauch one enough.

Speaker B: Oh, well, it's almost sonic enough.

Speaker A: Well, it tells. It does. It's like when I'm. When I'm producing an album, uh, I'm usually also tweaking the hardware. It's usually like when I'm figuring out that and how that works.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And as it evolves I write other tracks. Um, and this, this will eventually, I believe I'm decided yet, but essentially I believe it's going to tell a bit like what I did with Fragments, where it's going to give me some insight into what's lying beyond, beyond mazeum, which is Masonic. The adjective of mazium is Masonic. Um, and I hope it's going to shed a bit more light on that part of the universe, that kind of thing. Or it might not and it might just be a bunch of tracks that I wrote and. Yeah, I don't know, haven't. Haven't decided yet. But I'm gonna. It's the first time I've worked with Beats in a while. It's all been very ambient, apart from the stuff that I've been doing, more up tempo and more mushroomy. Uh, it's the only time I've been working. First time. I'll come back for drums in a while. So that's fun and challenging and. Yeah, that's fun. It's cool. So I think that's what I'm going to do. What I've done is I've taken everything off of the main laptop that I wrote them on, bounced out all the stems and I've put them on my, on this laptop here, so. And everything's internal. Right. So like I can take it anywhere. So I Might go do a bit at a tea shop. I might go do some on the tram. I'll do some at work, you know, in a meeting. I was in a meeting the other day and I was just sitting there tweaking a saturator because why not? You know, that kind of thing. So hopefully from the work. From. No one from work is watching. Um, but hey, I love what I do anyway, so that's my job. That's my. For the next couple weeks and going to go through the new 12.4 because I'm really excited by the idea of link. Really excited.

Speaker B: I'll be having a look at the move stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah. So if you are still here and you are watching and you're interested, you're an Ableton user and you want me to have or us to look at anything in particular, please let us know. Head across to the Discord, put it in there, then I can have a look at it. Join the Discord community. Um. Uh, yeah. And thank you ever so much for being here today. You could be anywhere in the world. You chose to spend your time with us. Really appreciate it. If you want to show your support and keep the lights on. Uh, that is the QR code to our Patreon. Um, pledges start as little as $2. Don't have to, but if you wanted to, the option is there. Everything's a decision and everything is your decision. So if that's your decision, that's totally cool. Uh, thank you ever so much for being here. Eon. Any final words to the people before we go today?

Speaker B: No, just, uh, thanks for the company and, uh, please remember to tell me if I've. If it is just me, do let me know so I can seek appropriate help for my rampant paranoia. But, um, yeah, otherwise, thank you for being with us.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Group therapy sessions are in the Discord as well. It's always a good place to be. We'll be back next week. Uh, hope you have a lovely one. Um, and yeah, take it easy. Keep making music. Much love.