Riley Knapp Interview: AI and Mastering, or Human vs. LANDR

0:19 Luke F. Walton What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Music More. We had exactly zero pause between the last podcast and this one. I am joined once again with Riley Knapp, and we are going to start off the conversation about AI mastering as well as his company that he is running with some awesome, awesome dudes that I know from USC as well.

0:38 Luke F. Walton And we're going to dig into it. The first conversation that we were having, I was describing LANDR and kind of the A-B test that I unintentionally did. I didn't mean to do that to you.

0:48 Riley Knapp that to you and how Riley just absolutely destroyed LANDR um not in the like weird Fox News destroyed kind of way but in just like an actual like oh yeah this is way better and way more musical um and so I wanted to start off the conversation talking

1:01 Riley Knapp creator replacing rather or creative enhancing AI and kind of where you think generative fits into that where you think AI and the mentality of developers is at and just kind of your take on just that high level overview of kind of where we're at with AI and music yeah

1:19 Riley Knapp For sure. So my gut reaction with the AI world, everything that's happening within the music space, whether it's generative or workflow, is that You need to join it. There's

1:30 Luke F. Walton Cool.

1:30 Riley Knapp no beating it

1:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

1:31 Riley Knapp at this

1:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

1:31 Riley Knapp point.

1:32 Luke F. Walton Right.

1:32 Riley Knapp So first

1:32 Luke F. Walton I feel that.

1:33 Riley Knapp and

1:33 Luke F. Walton I

1:33 Riley Knapp foremost,

1:33 Luke F. Walton feel that

1:34 Riley Knapp whatever

1:34 Luke F. Walton too.

1:34 Riley Knapp your feelings are about it,

1:35 Luke F. Walton Yep.

1:35 Riley Knapp you need to at least understand that it's here.

1:38 Luke F. Walton Mm

1:38 Riley Knapp There's

1:38 Luke F. Walton hmm.

1:38 Riley Knapp someone else in the room now. You need to acknowledge them. That's You need to respect it.

1:43 Luke F. Walton That's spooky.

1:44 Riley Knapp And, you know, as much, it is spooky, especially when it's a digital mastering dude who's just taking all these projects trying to be like, I want to have a word with you, man.

1:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

1:52 Riley Knapp But it's important to understand it, to recognize that it's happening. happening i

1:57 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

1:57 Riley Knapp think that there are you know gonna be a lot of jobs that are replaced i think that there's going to be a lot of work lost um it's going to change the way that people hear music and enjoy music uh it's it's it's going to change a lot you know the amount of people that i the amount of new clients that i have that reach out to me and send me a a LANDR version

2:18 Luke F. Walton Really?

2:18 Riley Knapp a mastered version oh

2:20 Luke F. Walton No

2:20 Riley Knapp dude i

2:20 Luke F. Walton way.

2:21 Riley Knapp would say out of new clients i would say it's 60 75 percent of the time When they send me, hey, so I have land and I did this, can you beat it? and

2:29 Luke F. Walton No

2:30 Riley Knapp you know before

2:30 Luke F. Walton way!

2:31 Riley Knapp we even get a project started and I don't it's crazy and I always respond the same I'm like listen you enjoy this I think I can I think I can add a new element to this I can add a human feel I can tweak it to the point where you want it very specifically I can fine-tune it but at the end of the day beating it may not happen you may enjoy this version for whatever reason more than my version

2:56 Riley Knapp first you know what i mean

2:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

2:57 Riley Knapp so i promise to give you something different uh

3:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:00 Riley Knapp something unique and customized to what i think your sound is but it's up to you at the end of the day to make that decision um it's a cool it's a cool thing you know and a lot of the time i mean honestly i beat it i don't think i've not beaten it yet but uh a lot of times it is due to the fact that i can customize or i can maybe add a note you know i'll send it back and they're like hey this is actually this is cool could you just make it a

3:23 Riley Knapp you know a lot of times i'll be like could you i like how the LANDR version has this sound up in the top the mid-range whatever

3:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

3:28 Riley Knapp it is and

3:29 Luke F. Walton yeah.

3:29 Riley Knapp i'm like i understand i can do that and it's kind of a nice blend and it's almost

3:33 Luke F. Walton Okay,

3:33 Riley Knapp a nice um

3:34 Luke F. Walton okay.

3:35 Riley Knapp It's a nice way to kind of keep yourself in track and to make sure everyone's happy. Right. And it's a nice bar to kind of reach for,

3:42 Luke F. Walton Okay.

3:42 Riley Knapp you know, when someone does send that. That being said, I don't like the fact that it's taking a lot of jobs.

3:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

3:48 Riley Knapp You know, there's a lot of conversations already happening now with mastering engineers, a lot of my peers. Even mixing engineers, there are new AI mixing softwares coming

3:56 Luke F. Walton Yep.

3:56 Riley Knapp out.

3:56 Luke F. Walton Totally.

3:58 Riley Knapp it's going to take a lot of jobs it's already affected my work uh i would say in a significant way and you know now that there are different mastering programs and they're white labeled within distributors within different

4:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah, no,

4:12 Riley Knapp platforms

4:13 Luke F. Walton that's true.

4:13 Riley Knapp you

4:14 Luke F. Walton Right on

4:14 Riley Knapp know DistroKid distro kids

4:15 Luke F. Walton you can just check

4:16 Riley Knapp master

4:16 Luke F. Walton the box and

4:16 Riley Knapp your song

4:17 Luke F. Walton it's mastered.

4:17 Riley Knapp soundcloud master your song you know all these different things it's so easy to use and actually today uh i'm not sure when this is coming out but today

4:26 Luke F. Walton no

4:26 Riley Knapp LANDR just released their plug-in version of the mastering ai

4:30 Luke F. Walton way i didn't

4:30 Riley Knapp mastering

4:30 Luke F. Walton know that yeah

4:31 Riley Knapp so use it right on your master bus you know what i mean uh it's going to change a lot and there's no avoiding it there's no avoiding it i'm so lucky that i got into the game when i did and i've kind of developed the skills that i have and i come from from a wholesome place because i think that's what's going to separate me and keep me afloat but at the end of the day there's no denying that it's already it's taken a significant

4:52 Riley Knapp significant amount of my business. And it's also adjusted people's tastes to

4:56 Luke F. Walton Yep.

4:56 Riley Knapp maybe

4:56 Luke F. Walton Yep.

4:57 Riley Knapp something I don't necessarily agree with.

4:59 Luke F. Walton Right.

4:59 Riley Knapp And I'm like. wow so this

5:01 Luke F. Walton Uh

5:01 Riley Knapp is what-huh. people think sounds good

5:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:02 Riley Knapp now and i think it's only going to become more and more you know i'm

5:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

5:05 Riley Knapp worried that the the warmth and the human touch of music that we love and being able to really crank a song up and not have it feel a certain way is going to go away you know i think that people will be used to i mean look at how much tiktok has has changed the way that people hear music people come to me the other thing that people say is yo i love how this sounds and they'll send me a tiktok video and it's you know tiktok

5:27 Riley Knapp the TikTok distort the and Yeah. they're like I love how that sounds and I'm like i'm just gonna throw it in tiktok you

5:34 Riley Knapp yeah know like i'm like i'm great like i'm like how do i even do this i mean it's it's clipping i don't even there's these built-in limiters and algorithms that tiktok the compression is doing i'm like how do you even do this i've told people you know someone should make a tiktok plug-in

5:48 Riley Knapp dude someone should make to just to like compress ir response it exactly yeah i like it i like it

5:54 Riley Knapp exactly but it would just be good to you know be able to provide that sort of sound it's changed the way that people listen to music though i mean you listen to

6:01 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

6:01 Riley Knapp recordings 10 15 years ago that are clean that people

6:05 Luke F. Walton Yep.

6:05 Riley Knapp spent so much time

6:06 Luke F. Walton Totally.

6:06 Riley Knapp making sure there was no distortion all

6:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:08 Riley Knapp this stuff and now it's like oh my god you know i can't even listen to some of these things at like half volume i'm like

6:13 Riley Knapp Yeah. oh this Yeah, for is sure. fatiguing i've got i've got you know hearing damage after this this one thing you know um so i think on the i think on the the creative front uh i guess the the post-production front ai will

6:31 Riley Knapp will help and hurt and i and i'm not sure where i where i stand with it i i respect it i i appreciate a lot of the the different technologies that are coming out and i think it's very cool uh

6:40 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

6:41 Riley Knapp and i and i'm i'm like i said i'm impressed so let's just you know let's acknowledge it and not be too disrespectful to it um that being said i do think that there is so much so much to look forward to in the world of ai i'm actually i'm actually

6:57 Riley Knapp pretty bullish on it and i think that there's a lot of of ways that people aren't really thinking about to use it as a tool to

7:05 Luke F. Walton Yep.

7:05 Riley Knapp use it as a maybe an assistant maybe a uh creative partner whatever that is and you know that's um that's kind of where my company stemport comes into play and though when i created stemport it was not To be in this AI bubble, it was not because AI and ML were the cool things to talk about. It was pandemic times, you know, and it was out of necessity. It was a scratch your own itch thing.

7:33 Riley Knapp As I've said before, I was collaborating with so many people remotely. I was getting overloaded with files and spending so much time organizing and mixed prepping and everything that was not creative and not fun.

7:47 Riley Knapp that I was starting to not enjoy my job and I was like I need to change something something about this needs to change so I uh you know I realized well a lot of my time is spent getting folders that are unlabeled mislabeled uh you know labeled in crazy ways and

8:06 Riley Knapp basically dragging those files into my DAW organizing all the alike instruments together you know getting everything labeled properly color coding them getting the buses set up so I'm all routed together that process would take you know maybe 30 minutes to an hour per song depending on how many tracks there were and I'm very I'm very OCD when it comes to that so I was I was always making sure it was perfect and

8:31 Riley Knapp I would spend a lot of time doing it and I said to myself, why isn't there an app that can do all of this for me?

8:36 Riley Knapp Mm Why -hmm. is there nothing that can simply, no interface where you can drag and drop a whole batch of stems in, whatever they're labeled, it can listen to those stems as a human does, it can label them properly, group all of those alike stems together so your vocals are all together, your drums, bass, etc.

8:53 Riley Knapp uh organize them in different you know whatever uh order you'd like your stems in if you like your vocals at top your bass at bottom and everything else in the middle whatever it is how

9:03 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

9:03 Riley Knapp come nothing like this exists so i reached out to my uh one of my great friends and now business partner blade and i was like hey man I think this is an idea that's worth

9:13 Riley Knapp Yeah. pursuing. Yeah. You know, I'd approach them at that point with like, probably 10 other ideas before that that were absolutely insane.

9:21 Riley Knapp I love And he, you know, he kind of was like, let me sit on this and call me back. And he's like,

9:24 Riley Knapp Yeah. yeah, I can't find anything that exists that's like this. Let's dive into it. it's been a journey and

9:31 Riley Knapp Mm it was like I said machine learning and AI weren't even big discussions at this point you know this was not anything that AI and machine learning were really only being used for the medical field when we started this so that was kind of our barrier to entry and those were the kinds of applications that we were trying to figure out well how do we mimic this how do we you know take organization and turn it into a music app and

9:56 Riley Knapp Mm-hmm. It's been a very fruitful couple years, and we released our beta in April that we're going to ride out through the end of the year that I'm very thrilled with. So the app identifies, so it analyzes all stems, listens to them as a human would, identifies what instrument is contained within each stem, labels that stem with that instrument.

10:19 Riley Knapp uh like i said organizes all alike stems together and you can order those different groups whatever order you want but the other cool part is that we developed a naming convention feature to it so you can name those stems whatever you want and add any information or metadata whatever it may be each stem so if you're you know a mixer and you're bouncing out mix stems to send to universal you know you could have it instrument underscore kendrick lamar underscore umg

10:48 Riley Knapp be underscore the date you know whatever whatever specific

10:50 Luke F. Walton Yep.

10:50 Riley Knapp naming conventions you take um which was another huge time suck right so i've just spent you know an hour organizing this whole song getting it all together i've now mixed it now i need to reprint all of these stems and relabel and organize them for this specific naming convention uh and that was a huge thing that was uh that was really exciting for us and we realized okay well this this isn't just

11:15 Riley Knapp This isn't thank you. This isn't just for musicians and people working in as creators or in the pro audio space. This is also for institutions. This is hopefully going to create a gold standard for organization, which is something that everyone in music knows does not exist.

11:32 Luke F. Walton Right. Totally.

11:32 Riley Knapp It is just, you know, these databases that these companies and institutions work with are chaotic and it's really It hinders a lot of opportunity. I mean, whether it's sink opportunities, whether it's catalog opportunities, there's a lot there that.

11:49 Riley Knapp We're just getting paid. Yeah, exactly.

11:52 Luke F. Walton you know just like your stuff gets used somewhere but it's labeled a little bit wrong or it's over here and it's in this it's in this catalog wrong and they didn't list you as a writer because it didn't have your underscore on it or whatever all that kind of stuff that that's really real it's millions of dollars a year where people are just totally missing out and those just go to the big companies

12:11 Riley Knapp absolutely go in those little black boxes of money that you know fund all the ceos golf trips but but yeah that was uh that was basically the the idea behind stemport and right now as i mentioned we're in our beta there's a lot lot more coming we're super excited about it we we've had a lot of great people on board it already there's a lot of excitement around it the technology is in its infancy still but is only growing and with this sort of

12:41 Riley Knapp With the AI clouds kind of parting a little bit and all the excitement calming down slightly, the less exciting AI applications such as Stemport that are not necessarily the most creative, not necessarily the sexiest things are being looked at more and people are realizing, oh wait, there is something that can do all the busy work for

13:03 Luke F. Walton Yes,

13:03 Riley Knapp me so I can just create.

13:03 Luke F. Walton exactly.

13:04 Riley Knapp And I think that's super important. I mean, that's in my opinion. This is getting back into the overall AI theme. But in my opinion, the reason why people enjoy creating is to create things, is

13:17 Riley Knapp Yeah. to be a part of it. People don't enjoy being served things on a silver platter. Sure, maybe it's nice if you could.

13:25 Riley Knapp write a happy birthday song to your mom with AI and send it over to her just to save time and

13:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

13:31 Riley Knapp be cute

13:31 Luke F. Walton yeah,

13:31 Riley Knapp and whatever.

13:31 Luke F. Walton right.

13:32 Riley Knapp Sure. But at the end of the day, those who want to create will create. You want to get your hands dirty. You want to be a part of the process. And if there are applications that can help that part of the process while

13:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:44 Riley Knapp taking away the busy work, the boring stuff, the reasons why people stop doing the work in general, then I think that's a huge benefit of AI. And I think that's a very, very untapped part of this industry.

13:56 Riley Knapp I agree. And it's something that we all have to grind through. And it's like a barrier for scaling or whatever to turn it into a real career. And that's why I'm so excited about AI that helps, that is like creator.

14:14 Riley Knapp focused rather than creator replacing um like i was doing i did grimes ai her um voice changer thing um

14:24 Luke F. Walton and it was super fun i got to it's like a super easy cloud interface i'm just uploading little wave files and it's changing my voice to hers you know like i can i can sing background vocals and then have her sing some of them me sing some of them and it was just this cool like oh i'm interfacing and collaborating with this machine in a kind of an interesting way and then i've tried other stuff where it's like hey write a chord progression for me it's like

14:45 Luke F. Walton that

14:45 Riley Knapp Yeah.

14:45 Luke F. Walton you took my fun like

14:47 Riley Knapp Yeah.

14:48 Luke F. Walton that like i it was also boring it's like the coolest thing about a lot of those ai things is that it's made with ai it's

14:56 Riley Knapp Yeah, exactly.

14:57 Luke F. Walton like then it's not cool

15:00 Riley Knapp exactly right yeah and a lot of those things are all kind of open source so it's they're all redundant softwares and at the end of the day you're like why am i even why am i touching this you know people people are seeing the excitement and people

15:12 Luke F. Walton yeah

15:12 Riley Knapp are joining that excitement train but then once you dive deep enough you realize oh my gosh i can't even get skin deep on this you know this is it's not even that it's in early stages it's just that a lot of these use cases are pointless to your point

15:26 Luke F. Walton Right.

15:26 Riley Knapp Why would I want someone to write chords for me? Now, you know, the argument could be made, well, maybe it inspires something new.

15:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally.

15:33 Riley Knapp Maybe you're stuck on a bridge,

15:34 Luke F. Walton Right.

15:34 Riley Knapp maybe whatever it is,

15:36 Luke F. Walton I could see that.

15:36 Riley Knapp you know?

15:37 Luke F. Walton I could see that.

15:38 Riley Knapp Yeah.

15:38 Luke F. Walton But it's like, it's kind of a non-problem. like

15:41 Riley Knapp Right.

15:41 Luke F. Walton it's like i

15:42 Riley Knapp You can.

15:43 Luke F. Walton mean maybe if maybe if i want to be super fast and i was doing like and i wanted like say the the sync work that i was talking about earlier and i just wanted to phone that in and just be like write me a dubstep bass line boop dubstep bass line i

15:56 Riley Knapp Yeah.

15:57 Luke F. Walton mean i guess

15:58 Riley Knapp Yeah.

15:58 Luke F. Walton it's

15:59 Riley Knapp Yeah.

15:59 Luke F. Walton boring

15:59 Riley Knapp Yeah, exactly. It is boring. It is boring. I think that there are. There's the boring aspect to

16:06 Luke F. Walton Mm

16:06 Riley Knapp it, but

16:07 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

16:07 Riley Knapp I think that we're on the precipice of...

16:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:11 Riley Knapp working with AI and

16:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:13 Riley Knapp creating a human touch with AI.

16:15 Luke F. Walton And that's super exciting. That's the exact opposite of boring. Yeah.

16:19 Riley Knapp So exciting. Yeah. So there's actually a company that I'm consulting for now that's called RipX and they've got RipX. It's one of the coolest softwares. I reached out to them initially. I found it just digging through random AI forums and trying to find different cool new tools that are out there.

16:37 Riley Knapp stumbled upon this software and it's it's a standalone DAW it's its own DAW that essentially is built with AI and it's it's a future audio workstation so the whole

16:51 Riley Knapp the whole purpose behind it is to be a completely separate workflow than other DAWs and

16:57 Luke F. Walton Cool.

16:58 Riley Knapp it works in a completely different way Yeah. uh for example you know you can drag in a two track you know whether it's just a wave of a song or an instrumental whatever it is uh within the DAW it immediately splits apart every instrument uh into whatever classifications you want you could even hyper define it like if there's a violin in there that's not being detected you can go in and click on the violin note and then

17:18 Riley Knapp you know type in violin and it will create a whole new thing and read every

17:22 Luke F. Walton Cool.

17:22 Riley Knapp violin part so you can so you can do that Yeah. uh you know there are endless possibilities within the software you can kind of it also has you know a melodine function note to note so everything's separated you can go and tune one note of your vocal you know let's say your session your hardware is corrupt hard drive is corrupted but what i've been super excited about and why i'm coming on board with them is the opportunities with generative ai uh

17:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for

17:44 Riley Knapp so

17:44 Luke F. Walton sure.

17:44 Riley Knapp using this as a an edit and mix capability for

17:50 Luke F. Walton Okay.

17:50 Riley Knapp generative ai is unbelievable i have been using it i'll get these terrible music generations from music lm and audio crap stable audio is good but still is not that great you know chaotic not cohesive robotic sounding not human drag these generations into rip x find maybe i'll mute the drums maybe i like the keys part whatever it is

18:15 Luke F. Walton i yes

18:15 Riley Knapp can go i can move around all the notes i can create new chords out of these sounds i

18:19 Luke F. Walton cool

18:19 Riley Knapp can completely redo this entire piece and pardon me getting over sickness uh but i can completely redo all the sounds and create this unbelievable human sounding piece that i would not have been able to make with absc with any synth

18:37 Riley Knapp instruments that i own Yeah. you know and it is cool to to be able to let's say you know your dubstep example you know write me a guitar solo for this dubstep song in c major whatever it is

18:49 Riley Knapp you know boring if you just if it does it you drag and drop it and it's like but dragging and dropping and then being able to adjust everything to throw the random delays to reverse to chop it up to humanize it to make it this unbelievably cool and human thing is so exciting man i mean i've been making sample packs of ai of ai music

19:10 Luke F. Walton Cool. That's awesome.

19:11 Riley Knapp that that also i mean i'm i'm

19:13 Luke F. Walton That's

19:13 Riley Knapp sending great. it to people

19:14 Luke F. Walton It's a great idea.

19:15 Riley Knapp it's it blows my mind people

19:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:17 Riley Knapp are like this is beautiful you

19:19 Luke F. Walton Yes.

19:19 Riley Knapp know i'm

19:19 Luke F. Walton Yes.

19:20 Riley Knapp i i've always been just a fan of like beauty within music like i would say my my specialty is coming up you know maybe with the either i always said i'll make the saddest or most beautiful song on your album like come to me for that if you want like most high energy all that not you're not going to be your guy but finding these things and and creating this intensely emotional experience with these ai pieces has been so fulfilling it's given me a whole

19:45 Riley Knapp a

19:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

19:45 Riley Knapp whole new whole new creative process to be excited about

19:48 Luke F. Walton Cool.

19:48 Riley Knapp and has really kind of made me understand okay we can work cohesively with this there's symbiosis with AI and humans and

19:57 Luke F. Walton Yep.

19:57 Riley Knapp I think that that is going to be the thing that creates a whole new sound of music I mean Back, you know, in our last podcast, you mentioned the hyperpop scene

20:09 Luke F. Walton Yep.

20:09 Riley Knapp kind of being created by, you know, old punch piano cards and whatever it is, these new genres being defined by these new ways of creating music and new sounds.

20:20 Luke F. Walton Yep. Messing with and breaking technology and pushing it to limits. And yep.

20:25 Riley Knapp Exactly. And that's where we are right now.

20:27 Luke F. Walton totally

20:27 Riley Knapp So I think it's an incredibly exciting thing.

20:29 Luke F. Walton you know it's kind of like when the synthesizer came on the scene and it starts with like you know here comes the sun monophonic moog just doing its thing still really cool

20:42 Luke F. Walton and then you flash forward to like the 80s and it's just completely redefined what music possibly can be this

20:49 Riley Knapp Yeah.

20:49 Luke F. Walton is this is a very similar moment i totally agree and i i and i also agree with you like to write it off and to not like play with it is is like writing off the synthesizer like do that at your own peril because

21:04 Riley Knapp Absolutely.

21:05 Luke F. Walton that thing's coming and i i so carrie actually carrie singer was the guy that got me to start really using melody in off-label music like like i would um you know import polyphonic stuff and then tune everything or change everything and performance and do different form and stuff on internal voicings versus external voicings and now they they added in a lot of stuff with like harmonics and things that you can do um that was that was a light bulb moment for me of

21:34 Luke F. Walton we can start like if Melodyne can do that and granularizers and those those like little chopping tools that are really cool in Ableton now can do what they're doing just add in that third piece of AI feeding a bunch of these tools in the same way that like Eurorack kind of synths

21:50 Riley Knapp Right,

21:50 Luke F. Walton kind of

21:51 Riley Knapp right.

21:51 Luke F. Walton work it's like you have generated AI on the front end of that Eurorack as though it's your oscillator

21:56 Riley Knapp Mm hmm. Yeah.

21:57 Luke F. Walton It's

21:58 Riley Knapp Modular

21:58 Luke F. Walton crazy.

21:58 Riley Knapp setups, man. Exactly.

21:59 Luke F. Walton It's

21:59 Riley Knapp It's going to

22:00 Luke F. Walton be crazy.

22:00 Riley Knapp it's going to be a completely different workflow. And

22:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:02 Riley Knapp I think it's going to be an incredibly exciting time.

22:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:04 Riley Knapp I'm going to cough really quick.

22:05 Luke F. Walton You're

22:05 Riley Knapp I'm sorry,

22:05 Luke F. Walton good.

22:05 Riley Knapp but chop

22:06 Luke F. Walton No worries. I can mute this.

22:09 Riley Knapp chop that out.

22:10 Luke F. Walton I use AI.

22:11 Riley Knapp Yeah, exactly. Use AI.

22:13 Luke F. Walton You

22:13 Riley Knapp There it

22:13 Luke F. Walton have

22:13 Riley Knapp is.

22:13 Luke F. Walton it. Yeah.

22:14 Riley Knapp No, but man, I really do think that that that's a great example. That being said, I would challenge it even further. And I would say.

22:22 Riley Knapp the synthesizer was kind of meant to synthesize sounds that existed that being said it was obviously very different and you know the piano sounds or whatever the synthesizer was trying to create the drum sound let's see all right away you know what i mean we're so not drum sounds but they created this whole new whole new genre of sound um i think now we're entering the time of the of

22:48 Riley Knapp sounds not coming from a source that we're familiar with

22:52 Luke F. Walton Cool.

22:52 Riley Knapp um

22:53 Luke F. Walton Yep.

22:53 Riley Knapp and i and i think we're we're entering a whole new stage of workflow i mean even with synthesizers you would play those synths into pro tools you would still have the same programs to edit and chop and ableton of course comes out and all the different features inside of it totally changed the daw game ableton's incredible made people realize oh this is music can be so much more creative

23:14 Luke F. Walton Mm

23:14 Riley Knapp than just chopping audio files and trying to manually do loops and whatever it may be but i think we're entering the time of the entire workflow is going to be different and i think you know i think that there will be new products coming out maybe you know generative audio workstations gauze you know there's going to be certain technologies that

23:36 Riley Knapp break down how music is made and how music is customized and I think there's going to be a lot of danger within that you

23:43 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

23:44 Riley Knapp know for example if you can obviously drag in any song break it down into every individual element print out MIDI from that audio you know use that as a starting point in your favorite VST you know at what point are you kind of stealing work and at what point are you uh you know using work using prior work as as an inspiration so

24:05 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

24:06 Riley Knapp there's going to be a lot of danger within it but I think that's kind of inherent I think that's something that we've all just got to got to get used to and I think at the end of the day if it's hard enough to tell that this was based off of something very specific then

24:21 Luke F. Walton Mm

24:21 Riley Knapp it doesn't

24:22 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

24:22 Riley Knapp really matter that's my opinion you know if I was to to solo an Andre 3000 vocal mess it up do all this crazy stuff to it and I showed you know 100 people and no one could recognize that vocal I think that's original and I think there's a lot of good there and I think there's a lot of creative potential and again the the barrier to entry being lower

24:44 Riley Knapp creates new opportunity for new inspiration and for people to create new art that pushes not only music, but the whole world further,

24:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:53 Riley Knapp you know.

24:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:54 Riley Knapp And I think we just have to acknowledge it because we're not going to stay at the same plane for,

24:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:59 Riley Knapp you know, the next 900,000 years.

25:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:02 Riley Knapp We need something to change.

25:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:03 Riley Knapp And some people are going to get burned in that process. And as shitty as that is to say, it's the truth. And I think we've just got to recognize it, not be grumpy about it. And, you know, as someone who creates, has created so many things,

25:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:17 Riley Knapp I have to accept that on my own too. I have to be able to say, Okay. oh. If someone used this to train that or someone chopped out

25:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:25 Riley Knapp all

25:26 Luke F. Walton Sure.

25:26 Riley Knapp the stems to this song, I need to be totally fine with that.

25:28 Luke F. Walton For sure.

25:29 Riley Knapp And I

25:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:29 Riley Knapp am. And that being said, let's get even deeper into the AI game.

25:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah, man.

25:35 Riley Knapp There are new worlds, there are new programs coming out that are really changing the world of music and the world of samples, credit, all of that. There are programs coming out that you can tokenize with hard metadata, every

25:52 Luke F. Walton Wow.

25:52 Riley Knapp sound or loop that you've created. Not only that, but then you can train it with certain algorithms. There's a company called Psalms AI that has worked hard, hard, hard, hard. I've spoken with the CEO a lot.

26:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:09 Riley Knapp And he's a really inspirational dude. And they've worked hard to create these algorithms that can detect musical DNA and the musical genome and be able to say.

26:18 Riley Knapp this piece actually includes dna from this piece we can prove it in this way therefore this person should be paid out x amount based on that amount of dna used in this piece um and though it seems impossible right now like so many people are like this is impossible so you're saying if if audio craft pumps out a generation of a guitar solo or something you

26:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:42 Riley Knapp know they can you They can objectively say this is based on a Schubert song,

26:47 Luke F. Walton yeah

26:47 Riley Knapp you know, or this is based on whatever it is and he deserves 3% of these royalties and pay it out like a PRO. That will be the future.

26:55 Luke F. Walton yeah

26:55 Riley Knapp We're

26:55 Luke F. Walton i believe

26:55 Riley Knapp getting it.

26:56 Luke F. Walton that i believe that and i think that that there's like a win total win-win there like i was just talking with somebody uh who does a bunch of splice packs i know that you have some experience there too um but he was talking about how interesting it was that people just take his guitar loops loops just boop in a big like hip-hop track and

27:14 Riley Knapp Mm hmm.

27:14 Luke F. Walton it's just kind of it and it's like that's that's it would be way cooler if it was tokenized in a way that now he has persistent royalties and he can eat for the rest of his life based on the music he made

27:26 Riley Knapp Oh, man, I have heard so many. commercials and actually the other day i

27:33 Luke F. Walton Uh

27:33 Riley Knapp heard

27:33 Luke F. Walton -huh.

27:33 Riley Knapp a podcast theme song that used one of our splice samples

27:36 Luke F. Walton You're kidding!

27:37 Riley Knapp uh dead serious i'll hear them often like to the point where to the point where in the past i did get frustrated and i was like

27:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:45 Riley Knapp i mean come on i'm like this is a national commercial that's our guitar loop or whatever um

27:50 Luke F. Walton Oh my god.

27:50 Riley Knapp and

27:51 Luke F. Walton Oh it's my god.

27:52 Riley Knapp exciting but you're like come on man you know that being said that's what you signed up for that's what splice is um I think it hurts more when it is just a drag and

28:01 Luke F. Walton drop dragon

28:01 Riley Knapp and

28:02 Luke F. Walton drop exactly

28:02 Riley Knapp it's shameless,

28:02 Luke F. Walton goes back goes

28:03 Riley Knapp you

28:03 Luke F. Walton back

28:03 Riley Knapp know, exactly.

28:04 Luke F. Walton to the thing you were just talking about with the like do you manipulate do you do anything yeah yeah

28:08 Riley Knapp Exactly. I'm like, you know, throw in Melodyne, throw in RipX, throw in something, change it around,

28:12 Luke F. Walton do

28:12 Riley Knapp do something.

28:13 Luke F. Walton something flip it please for the love of god flip the sample yeah

28:16 Riley Knapp Like instrument replace it, you know what I mean? Like turn it from a guitar into a saxophone, just do something,

28:22 Luke F. Walton totally

28:22 Riley Knapp something that makes it different. uh but at the end of the day damn you know if i predicted what your song needed three years ago with this yeah flashback then and fantastic

28:32 Luke F. Walton it's pretty cool too because you're like your your stuff's getting out there like you created this musical dna and it's it's out there it's in the world it's influencing people

28:42 Riley Knapp Certainly, certainly.

28:43 Luke F. Walton yeah

28:43 Riley Knapp But I'm with you. I think that having some sort of way to tokenize it and split it down into DNA and royalties and be able to pay people based on that, it could be super crucial. Easily.

28:54 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah

28:55 Riley Knapp The easily part is where I'm still like, how would that even work and

28:58 Luke F. Walton they

28:58 Riley Knapp how would

28:59 Luke F. Walton make this it

28:59 Riley Knapp happen?

28:59 Luke F. Walton intentionally difficult man like some of this stuff is just it's really hard to get your money intentionally

29:04 Riley Knapp Absolutely. Absolutely.

29:05 Luke F. Walton intentionally yeah yep

29:06 Riley Knapp with with existing catalogs Yep. and stuff i mean you know like if there's a you know a song from the 70s or 80s and you know you're you're training a model on stems and each player should be paid do you think they have track of who actually played on that song like do you think they've got just like a paper sheet like oh billy bob played drums on this and like oh the horn player was sick this day so we hired it you know

29:07 Riley Knapp Especially with existing catalogs and stuff.

29:09 Luke F. Walton totally

29:10 Riley Knapp I mean,

29:10 Luke F. Walton the

29:29 Riley Knapp So

29:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

29:30 Riley Knapp X,

29:30 Luke F. Walton right.

29:30 Riley Knapp Y, and Z. No, not a chance. So it's got to be kind of a new standard going forward. And I hope that it can create a whole new system. And honestly, I hope that it replaces the PRO system as we know it.

29:44 Luke F. Walton I think

29:44 Riley Knapp I think that's

29:45 Luke F. Walton that it

29:45 Riley Knapp an archaic

29:45 Luke F. Walton is ripe

29:46 Riley Knapp system.

29:46 Luke F. Walton for disruption.

29:49 Riley Knapp Yeah,

29:49 Luke F. Walton okay um

29:49 Riley Knapp absolutely. How are you feeling about the AI boom?

29:54 Luke F. Walton the AI move I actually the more I think about it the more that I am kind of confronted with our place in history I actually think just generationally as like younger millennials we're in a very unique spot too of like human lifespan could increase exponentially soon

30:14 Luke F. Walton There is the potential that, like, we are on this precipice of the classic music started, like, this year, or, like, ended this year, rather. Like, it's, like, 1900 to 2023. That was the classical period of recorded music. then

30:34 Riley Knapp Yep,

30:35 Luke F. Walton it's

30:35 Riley Knapp yep

30:35 Luke F. Walton marked by this drop you know like we could be living through that and we might it's probably most likely that we are and that we will and we'll have some sort of impact in how that actually is actualized and that is an incredible responsibility not to run away from but to like influence to be a part of and so i i look at it because i have to be optimistic because being pessimistic is just going to sap my energy i'm not going to do anything

31:02 Luke F. Walton thing by

31:03 Riley Knapp Right.

31:03 Luke F. Walton being optimistic i can actually have energy and have something to bring to it so i am optimistic about where generative is going how we can use it as a collaborator like you're saying and then also the ways that we can improve workflow that's most actually not like in descending order it's actually in ascending order i want to be able to level up in the same way that people that have assistant engineers do like make those easy decisions for me make it

31:30 Luke F. Walton named and sorted and ready to go so that i sit down and my laptop or on a console in 45 minutes i have a mix that's what i want because that's freeing me up to be my most creative and then also give me tools like soothe and gofas and stuff that you know can can polish it up a little bit that i can be like ah there's some resonances here i could either surf through the whole eq with a really tight q and find it and drop it down or i could just throw soothe on it and like dial in my settings in 20 seconds

31:57 Riley Knapp Exactly.

31:58 Luke F. Walton i want that that's square one and then from there it's like okay yeah i'm bored i want to play with a new tool i always love playing with new tools every single album i buy something new ideally something that doesn't cost very much so software is the perfect thing rather than like a hi-hat you know it's like gosh these things are so expensive um drums are so expensive god So yeah

32:18 Riley Knapp expensive. Brutal, brutal.

32:19 Luke F. Walton i'm trying i've got my crappy ride and i've got my my hi-hats that are They're pretty good. They're pretty good. They're getting

32:27 Riley Knapp Oh,

32:27 Luke F. Walton there. But anyway,

32:28 Riley Knapp yeah.

32:28 Luke F. Walton buying a software thing that can generate some stuff and give me new ideas or spawn me on a new album cycle path, that's the best because that'd be cost effective, time effective, and would open up creative play and experimentation. So I'm all for that as well.

32:43 Luke F. Walton particularly if it's not trying to replace the entire process but instead like synth plant do you see synth plant 2 drop that thing's ridiculous i have to get it like it's i have to buy it and that's that's what i'm talking about is um if you haven't seen it just just look it up if you're a musician or not musician alike just check check out the demo video of what that thing can do you can import sounds it turns it in the user interface is very beautiful and creative in terms of

33:12 Luke F. Walton In terms of how it's trying to position like musical DNA and growing this plant and stuff like that. But that's what I'm looking for. Set me on a new path I never would have explored without the technology.

33:24 Riley Knapp Certainly. Yeah. Introduce me to new things. Show me a new adventure that I can go on because

33:28 Luke F. Walton Yep.

33:28 Riley Knapp at the end of the day, I want to go on this adventure and

33:31 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

33:31 Riley Knapp explore everything and touch everything and be a part of everything. You know, it's kind of like as you were talking, I was almost comparing it in my mind to like, would you would you rather be in an avatar who is fully controlled autonomously playing a soccer game or would you want to get in that game and play soccer yourself?

33:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

33:50 Riley Knapp you know like at the end of the day we want to play you

33:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

33:53 Riley Knapp know

33:53 Luke F. Walton man.

33:54 Riley Knapp maybe the avatar the benefits would be okay you can just simply put on this headset and you've already arrived at the stadium your cleats are on your jersey's on you're ready to go so it's you know taking out all that busy work of driving to the stadium of getting food on the way putting on your cleats washing your clothes you know so you can just go from a to b but at the end of the day i want to play and people will never not want to play you

34:16 Riley Knapp an adventure and find new things so i think that is where ai is hopefully going uh

34:21 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

34:21 Riley Knapp there will obviously be people who who want to just say take me on a take take me on the adventure i want to sit back you know kind of uh her style i guess

34:32 Luke F. Walton Uh

34:32 Riley Knapp and and

34:32 Luke F. Walton -huh. Yeah.

34:32 Riley Knapp just you know and just experience this thing without having any effort involved but that's not going to be what changes the world what changes the world are going to be people who take advantage of this new partner that

34:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:46 Riley Knapp we have in

34:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

34:47 Riley Knapp technology and it's obviously not in just music but i think that the world is going to change rapidly i mean i i i think that there's so much potential for good i think that like you mentioned earlier people will live longer hopefully diseases are eradicated hopefully you know we can figure out with with these extreme models you know how to end hunger how to how to fix our broken planet um

35:14 Riley Knapp That's where a lot of the faith comes from. And it's just about being on the right side of it, hoping that regulations come in, hoping that people maintain a level head. And we as a culture can decide not to ignore it or be scared of it or to speak poorly of it. But like I said, acknowledge that there's someone else in the room now. We might not understand them, but we've got to work to understand them.

35:37 Riley Knapp We've got to see how we can work together because it's not going anywhere.

35:40 Luke F. Walton Yep. And all of the metaphors from the cow, the bag, Pandora's box to sorcerer's apprentice. It's not going anywhere. We have to figure it out. We have to control that power and treat it with respect as well of the danger that it could pose, but also treat ourselves with respect as we are the ones living through it. It just started. What are we going to do about it?

36:02 Luke F. Walton And on all respects and like the artists, I think are a big, huge part of. making that a conversation and also making it in terms of ways that people can understand because they can hear the work that we make with it they can hear the ways that we navigate it they can hear our complaints they can hear our wins like a weird little thing i mean music is so important like payment plans that came from music stores

36:30 Riley Knapp Hmm.

36:30 Luke F. Walton like just that that stupid little concept of like oh you can't afford this guitar like we'll break it up over time and like sinkery

36:37 Riley Knapp Did

36:37 Luke F. Walton and financial

36:38 Riley Knapp he really?

36:38 Luke F. Walton and stuff yeah yeah yeah

36:40 Riley Knapp Wow, I

36:41 Luke F. Walton The

36:41 Riley Knapp did not

36:42 Luke F. Walton whole know. timey music story was like the NAMM show, that whole thing started because it was a piano retailers association, a different acronym, and they started just by certifying pianos and they were this association of all these people that were trying to like, no, this is a real Steinway, this is a real piano.

37:00 Luke F. Walton and during that time that's where they started to have all these innovations because people wanted music at home and the player piano just took off because it was this crazy innovation of you don't have to play piano anymore to listen to piano in your house yeah

37:13 Riley Knapp Unbelievable. I did not know that. Wow.

37:16 Luke F. Walton and so they open up pavement plans and like tin pan tin pan alley turning into like copyright law and ip protection it's like music has had this very very oversized

37:27 Luke F. Walton like for its weight as an economy impact on the way that economics happens on the way that business happens and i think on the way that ai eventually will like materialize in the long term i think music's going to have an outsized impact on this whole

37:44 Riley Knapp Absolutely.

37:44 Luke F. Walton thing you

37:44 Riley Knapp Absolutely.

37:45 Luke F. Walton would think it'd be like biotech that would do it but i i swear it's going to be it's going to be something like on our end like you know you're you're getting inspiration from them but eventually they're going to be getting inspiration from you

37:55 Riley Knapp that is such a cool that is such a cool uh tidbit of knowledge right there and i do fully agree with that i think

38:01 Luke F. Walton It's weird.

38:01 Riley Knapp it's a lot to do with the fact that art is so consumer facing and

38:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:06 Riley Knapp it's unavoidable whether it's a commercial

38:08 Luke F. Walton Totally.

38:08 Riley Knapp on the radio tv

38:09 Luke F. Walton It's true.

38:10 Riley Knapp you know billboard on the side of the road everywhere art is everywhere creation is everywhere

38:16 Riley Knapp biotech isn't everywhere you know it might be it might be inside of the vaccines that you take it might be inside of you know the medications and stuff you don't know what's actually going on there i don't know anything that's going on in that world you know and and a lot of that is workflow based you know i i i think that the medical field will maybe be one of the last uh affected not due to technology restraints but due to cost i think having so much hardware that can do these specific

38:44 Riley Knapp specific things will be extremely cost effective or

38:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:47 Riley Knapp it's the cheapest or

38:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:48 Riley Knapp are it's

38:48 Luke F. Walton Right.

38:49 Riley Knapp the cheapest thing to do you know what i mean like

38:50 Luke F. Walton Totally.

38:50 Riley Knapp other generative imagery or music or

38:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:52 Riley Knapp uh

38:53 Luke F. Walton That's why they started with us.

38:54 Riley Knapp fog posts yeah

38:55 Luke F. Walton Totally.

38:55 Riley Knapp it's

38:56 Luke F. Walton That's why they started.

38:57 Riley Knapp it's exactly exactly that's that's a cool that's a cool like i said a cool tidbit of knowledge because so many people kind of uh poo-poo the music industry for being not a business you know and for not being important and you know stay over there little artists you know creatives are creatives but it's like no no no no the influence that we have whether you admit it or not is massive massive reach

39:21 Luke F. Walton Yes. And I think it's partly up to us to push back and tell those stories. stories and

39:25 Riley Knapp Mm-hmm.

39:26 Luke F. Walton i i also it aligns with where we've hinted at this in the last pod a little bit of the um like mysticism behind music and audio um i really think that part of that derives from humans have a harder time conceptualizing light than we do audio because it's just so much faster it's

39:43 Riley Knapp Mm

39:43 Luke F. Walton like speed

39:44 Riley Knapp -hmm.

39:44 Luke F. Walton of light it does all these weird things audio is it's audio like i get it it's kind of like the waves in the ocean like it's it's a wave it's If it's pressure, it's a change. I can experience that. We can travel that speed.

39:55 Luke F. Walton And I think that that grounds us in terms of it being such a dominant art and this mystical thing of it is one of the primary ways that we communicate with each other and also ground ourselves in the universe, the things that we hear.

40:11 Luke F. Walton in a way that light, I don't feel the sense of it propagating like bouncing off of things in the same kind of way that I can hear my voice change when I step into an elevator or a hallway and now I'm in a different environment.

40:23 Luke F. Walton And I think that all of that creates the impact that the music has as a business, music as an art, just audio has just in general in terms of changing mood and changing people and changing societies and cultures.

40:36 Riley Knapp Right, I agree. I think audio operates on a macro and micro level simultaneously.

40:41 Luke F. Walton Cool. Cool.

40:42 Riley Knapp And I think, you know, obviously you could argue light does as well. We see each other when you see it, when you see a beautiful person, when you see a beautiful sunset, you're impacted by that beauty that is light.

40:53 Riley Knapp But music and audio has a way of creating resonance on a macro scale if you go to a concert and you hear you know if there's a huge bass playing and it's in a certain rhythm your body and every bit of your body is vibrating with that the same as everyone else around you and that resonance is unbelievably powerful i mean all the science that goes into resonance in the human frequency and and i just think there's so much there that is

41:24 Riley Knapp unexplored uh unacknowledged and that can actually change so much about our world so i i think that it's just a cool thing to experience and um back to you know kind of like you said in our last podcast that was one of the first things that intrigued me to do music was this world of audio and how easy it was for me to make a feeling based on a certain vibration

41:47 Luke F. Walton I love it. All right. I've taken almost two hours of your time. I want to hit you with one last question.

41:53 Riley Knapp Let's do it.

41:54 Luke F. Walton um so the the show is called love music more this segment is called love music why so it's just a short pitch why why do you love music why did you do it explain to somebody else about your passion i just want to hear it from you so that we can hopefully spark that in somebody else why do you love music

42:13 Riley Knapp I love music because it is the most universal. language that can create the most powerful emotions, no matter what your background skill sets, hardships, anything that is that has affected you in your life. It is the number one thing that can transcend everything.

42:34 Riley Knapp And now with the barrier to entry being so low and so accessible for people, I think that It gives people who might not have ever considered themselves to be creative the chance to be creative and experience that high because it is a high that resonance is a unbelievably human experience. And at the end of the day, I think music is one of the most human experiences that we can all have.

42:59 Riley Knapp So experiment with it, you know, listen to it, enjoy it, play around with it and just engulf in it.

43:07 Luke F. Walton Thank you, Riley. Love this conversation. Where can people find you just in case they missed the last podcast?

43:12 Riley Knapp Absolutely. You can find me on Spotify. My artist project is RKCV, so you can find Spotify updates like all those places. My app is called Stemport. It is a workflow app for the pro audio community. Stemport.co, you can find it there. And then just Google me. I'm around.

43:31 Riley Knapp Love it. Yeah, be sure to hit up Riley. As you can tell, he's a very nice guy.

43:35 Luke F. Walton I am Scoobert Doobert scoobertdoobert.pizza is where you can find my links and thank you so much for listening to this podcast thank you for joining Riley be sure to subscribe rate five stars tell your friends

43:46 Riley Knapp Tell your friends. Thanks, Goob.

43:48 Luke F. Walton thanks man