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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

If you're aiming for the musician market, I'm 100% sure you're wrong.

There's some basic algo-comp in Logic and Ableton already. But generally, musicians really hate the idea of having a machine writing all of their music for them.

This even applies to musicians who only work with loops, and to DJs who only work with complete tracks.

I think there are business models for algo-comp, but this isn't the best one. I'm not sure JukeDeck is necessarily heading for the deadpool, but it's maybe 50:50 at best.

Also, the production values on good stock music are very high - higher than here. Try https://www.shockwave-sound.com/ for some examples.

I think JukeDeck isn't quite up to the lowest quality tracks on there, and it's a very long way short of the better tracks.

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> If you're aiming for the musician market, I'm 100% sure you're wrong.

Then why at least 3 musicians in this thread have requested MIDI export?

> Musicians really hate the idea of having a machine writing all of their music for them.

You don't get the point. I'm not saying that all your songs should be composed by a NN. This is valuable as a starting point (phrases, chords, chord progressions, melodies, etc). Then you build on top of that (or transpose accordingly). You know, there are those days as a musician when things just don't sound great and you need a spark.

I've been producing since I was 12 y.o. in MS-DOS. I know the market pretty well and I have producer friends that own recording studios and write songs for professional bands (rock, metal, etc). And I'm 100% sure they'd buy the concept because they've previously asked me for related tooling.

The technology is the key here, and could be used as another tool.

I wouldn't call a person a musician if he needs some software-generated content to jump start his creativity.

And "real producers/DJs/artists don't use Fruity Loops", yet some of them are making quite a lot of money from it...

A "real" musician probably takes cues from other music, other sounds in the world. Why discriminate against algorithmically created sounds?

Firstly, I didn't mention FL Studio at all. Why do you attribute a notion to me without any sign of me thinking so?

Secondly, there's a clear distinction between taking cues and reusing a harmony or a melody from another source. People have always done it and will do it more than ever, if they have the right tools.

Of course, it only matters if we still think about music as more of an art form than a production of non-material goods. Hope we still do.

I didn't attribute it to you, but your comment was analoguous to this common criticism of some popular artists today, and reminded me of them.

Similar ways of diminishing other people's work are used everywhere, but are typically a result of being more or less elitist. "Not a real X if you didn't do it in way Y or use tool Z."

For some, the process is more important than the outcome (or just as), but I think it's wrong to impose such opinions on everybody else. Just my opinion, of course.

> But generally, musicians really hate the idea of having a machine writing all of their music for them.

... unless they develop the algo that writes the music. E.g., think Autechre and their Max/MSP patches?

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