Busting the Biggest Myths about AI Music [Bobby Owsinski]

Much talk and misinformation is going around about AI’s role in the music industry. This post from Bobby Owsinski should help clear things up…

by Bobby Owsinski from Music 3.0

There are a lot misconceptions about AI music, mostly because of all the click-bait headlines about AI that one sees almost every day. After working with more than 100 AI apps, plugins and platforms, there are a number of things that I’ve learned that definitely bust some of the AI music myths that you might have. Here we go.

1. AI is going to take my job as an artist/musician/producer/songwriter.

Maybe if you’re pretty mediocre at what you do it can, but if you’re even competent at all you’re going to beat its results every time. As of now, AI is a great tool for helping you do a music or audio job better and faster, but sometimes it doesn’t even do that as it may require massive amounts of tweaking.

2. AI is going to usurp my creativity.

AI is really nothing more than a smart calculator. Text-wise, if you give it two words it’s going to provide an educated guess at what normally should come next. The same goes for a series of melody notes or chord pattern. Think of it as a term paper in school. If you turn in a blank page you get an F. Ask AI to write it and it will get a C or B-. It still needs you to get it to an A.

3. All I have to do is type a simple prompt and I’ll get brilliant music with a keystroke. 

It doesn’t work that way. All of those great examples that you hear online have taken many hours of tweaking to get to the end result that you hear. It’s been estimated that less than 10% of the music generated is usable.

4. Those Drake, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Ariana Grande, etc tracks will take over streaming networks.

Have you heard the audio quality of these? They may fool a consumer but a music pro will reject them every time. It’s listenable at best, but not even to a barely acceptable pro level. And you know what? Because of the computer horsepower involved to generate AI music, that’s probably not going to change for some time.

5. I can immediately use any AI-generated song on Spotify, YouTube, or any streaming platform. Nope, not even close. Just about every streaming platform now will reject a 100% (or near 100%) AI generated track. Even Tunecore will reject it. And by the way, you can’t copyright it (thanks to a recent US Copyright Board ruling) or win a Grammy with it.

6. I can download the AI-generated tracks directly into my DAW. 

Maybe, but here again we have that pesky audio quality issue once more. The very best resolution that you can get is 44.1kHz/16 bit at of some AI’s, but you also will have to pay for that privilege, maybe as much as $99 per month. You can download a MIDI file and work from that though.

7. I can use an AI-generated track behind my YouTube or TikTok video.

Maybe. Again certain AI platforms have restrictions on where you can legally post a track they generate. Again, it comes down to payment. You get fewer restrictions the more you pay.

8. I automatically own the copyright on an AI-generated track.

Usually no. Once again, many AI music generation platforms have restrictions on who owns the copyright. You can own it (or at least control it) if you pay for the privilege, but it doesn’t happen automatically. Many platforms in fact state that you cannot use the output on social media.

9. AI audio plugins operate the same as text-based AI’s like ChatGPT. No, they’re not as sophisticated when it comes to the user interface. In most cases, there’s just a LEARN button that analyzes the audio and comes up with the settings. In some AI plugins, all the AI is under the hood in how the tone is replicated and there no AI UI features.

10. AI is moving so fast that whatever I learn now will be outdated next week. It’s moving fast for sure, but not so much in the music world. Many AI music generators are super deep with a long learning curve. Any improvements should make them hopefully simpler to use. Whatever you learn about it today is just knowledge that you’ll build upon tomorrow.

I could keep on going busting these AI music myths, but the bottom line is that you should think of it as a tool that will give you new and interesting ideas to help in your music creation. If you haven’t tried to use AI for your music yet, download my AI Music Cheat Sheet and try a couple. It won’t take long for all your fears to melt away.

Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on recording, music, the music business and social media.