“The tools we use to make music are made in the image of technicians, not musicians,” says Bronze.ai CEO Lex Dromgoole
“AI gives us an opportunity to reevaluate all of that.”
Credit: Getty / Yuichiro Chino
AVA London Conference: Lex Dromgoole, CEO of AI music tech company Bronze.ai, has explored the theory that music today, made using tools that’ve been created “in the image of technicians”, sounds more machine-like. He’s also suggested that AI technology could allow us to “reevaluate what we can actually bring to the table as humans”.
The AI industry leader made the statement during a recent panel at AVA London Conference at the British Library on Thursday 29 February. Entitled Surviving The AI Apocalype and hosted by AI company Voice Swap. The panel explored the benefits and issues posed by AI and problems that could arise in the future as a result of the technology.
“The current expectation for music makers now is that you have to have a serious level of technical proficiency in terms of software,” he said. “There are a lot of very imaginative people left on the sidelines.
“The tools that we now use to make music are made in the image of technicians, not musicians. AI gives us an opportunity to reevaluate all of that,” said Dromgoole. He went on to say how computational models like parameters and sliders were complex and rooted in technical music terminology, which many musicians can’t grasp. However, he believes AI can help design more intuitive and understandable interfaces for music production.
“I would argue that the tools that we use now to create music have made us as humans act more like computers because of how technical they are,” he said. “For the last 20 or 30 years, we’ve already been making music that sounds more and more like it’s been made by a computer.
“From an artistic point of view, as well, it actually gives us the opportunity to reevaluate what we can bring to the table as humans, that these models can’t.”
Lex Dromgoole, CEO of Bronze.ai, is a seasoned audio engineer with credits including Björk and Arcade Fire. Bronze.ai is a software platform where users can create AI models of their music, generating new iterations with each play. Collaborating with artists like Arca and Disclosure, Bronze offers endless variations, as seen in Disclosure’s anniversary version of Settle.
Keep an eye on AVA Festival for details about AVA’s upcoming festival in Belfast, and check out bronze.ai.
