AI and Mixing: Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Engineers?

0:00 Music Appreciation. What's good guys, it's Scoobert Doobert. I just got back from a thing called NAMM, which if you haven't heard about this is like music and audio's biggest trade show trade fair concerts panels

0:25 The best of the best are there and walking the halls and I got to have some conversations with some people that I really look up toPeople that I really admire and I wanted to kind of tell you guys what I was hearing at the show from an audio engineer perspective

0:37 And my take my response on it. So last year it was all about Dolby Atmos an immersive audioThere was still a big deal this year too. Saw this great Neumann Sennheiser immersive experience where they had likeI think it was 64Different speakers in a room and you walk in you're just completely you know swimming in that audio

0:58 Super super cool, but that wasn't as dope as that was that was not quite the buzz of the eventWas artificial intelligence AI and what it's going to do to audio engineering.

1:09 So everybody had these really bold takes andA lot of them are contradictory and so I'm trying to you know kind of weave my way through them And it's also got me thinking that I should have some of my friends that I talked to that actually work on this stuffTo come on the pod and chat about it.

1:25 I already had max on here a while backBut I feel like AI has changed so much that it's time to bring him on the pod And I'm going to try and get one of my other friends that's actually you know, there's a machine learning scientistThat's what he does day-to-dayFor some pretty cool companies and have him talk about it because the stuff that I hear from him and the stuff that I hear from

1:45 You know multi platinum Grammy award-winning people completely differentBecause I think that the guy that actually makes the stuff knows more about it than yeah these legendary mix engineersBut they're making some bold claims and I want to push back on it because they see a future that I do not see and I would

2:04 argue that if you're at the top sometimes it's harder to see what all the people at the bottom are actually doingSo let's dig into it a few different takes on it and I think that

2:14 You can you can see it just in the products that are being introduced so there's an audio plug-in company called wavesWaves makes, you know, virtual

2:24 Instruments virtual reverbs virtual versions of analog gear like compressors and equalization things that you can tweak the sound of digital inputsAnd a musical harmonically rich way in a way that if you had you know a four thousand dollar piece of

2:39 Outboard gear actual circuits and stuff that are changing the audio you can replicateYou know pretty close to that for a twenty dollar plug-in on saleBut the funny thing about them is that they keepRealizing that they aren't making enough money just by

2:56 You know selling these one-time $20 plug-ins so they started to monetize in different ways and this is pissing some people offincluding myselfwheretheyNow they charge for upgradesSo so you get a new computer.

3:12 Hey, sorry the $20 plug-in that you bought last year isn'tWorkable for this computer so now you have to buy the $40 upgrade and you do that forever every time you upgradeyour your softwareI activated Siri and That wasUncomfortable because I'm talking about AI and then she actually overloaded my system crashing Pro ToolsSo maybe the computers don't want you to hear this conversation

3:39 And maybe it's because I'm using waves plug-ins and they detected through AI what I'm about to say about themBut what they're trying to do is they're trying to innovate so props to them for trying to innovateBut the the way that they're trying to do it is by creating what are called signal chainsSo when I talk about plug-ins and recording engineering a lot of what you're doing is making micro decisions about

3:59 I'm running this into this into this into this that turns into a macro decisionSo I'm going to use this little bit of equalization to add a little bit of tinniness to the sound and then I'm going to use asmoothing out reverb that will take away some of the tinniness sharpness but

4:16 Alive the pleasant airy sound to a vocals now you have more of a pop vocal because it has airIt has presence, but it's pleasant and it's easy to listen toWhat they're trying to do is automate the entire process of mixing so instead you say hey Dave Pensado or Jaycen Joshua, Joshua you are going to create theseplug-in chainsThat instead I'm going to let the AI look through this the audio go

4:43 Oh, this kind of sounds like a female vocalist and I click that I want to make it sound popSo it's going to use a pop vocal chain program by Dave Pensado onto my stuffSo now I don't have to mix anymore. I just basically let virtual AI Dave Pensado mix for me

4:59 And the people that are participating in this are looking at it and saying I quoteThere's no job for mixing engineers in the near future.

5:09 It's literally what they're sayingI'm not saying that Dave Pensado said this but Jaycen Joshua didHe was basically saying that out of the 100% of mixes he works on the top 5%The top 5% will stay human the rest those 95% will be AI versions of himselfFirst of all come on manReally Like you're a great mixing engineerI give you props but like really you're going to create a robot version of yourself

5:35 And that's going to be so much better than everyone up and coming so we might as well give up nowIs that really the message you want to send out in a mentorship panel

5:44 The AI is going to take my job, but not yours because you are so much better than an AIIt's like uh, you knowThis is this is what this is what the you know up and comers are hearing and and that's kind of what'sSouring my take on AI a bit because I think that the perspective that a lot ofSoftware engineers and recording engineers from the top are coming with is how do we automate out as many people as possible

6:07 Take their jobs and take their moneyOn the opposite side you can also do things that I want AI to do like automate my workflowsRecognize that I you know, maybe I tend to run this plug into the next so maybe we make it easier with a one stroke clickOr an auto fill for me to continue doing thatSo allow me to still make my decisions my creative decisions because mixing is highly creative

6:32 And allow me to automate that within parameters that might save me timeBut still allowing to make decisions creative decisions if you want me to automate the entire process of mixingYou couldn't miss the point more

6:48 Why are you even making music why are you a mixing engineer if that is your takeYou know, I it's it's funny because I the panel that he was on had

6:59 Derek Ali, MixedByAli and the stuff that I've learned from him have has revolutionized the wayI think about music the way that I listen to music the way that I mix musicAnd he was on the panel he pushed back a little bit against that but I don't think he pushed back hard enoughBecause knowing where Ali comes from he approaches every mixLat letting the mix tell him what to do not telling the mix what to do

7:21 And this highly prescriptive AI kind of based thing isIs doing the exact opposite it's letting the the data inform the creativity rather than letting the creativity inform the dataAnd I just think it's missing the point and I think that waves

7:37 And the current performance is starting to realize that and I think that those that flip that script eventually will realize itAnd I also think that it belies a deep misunderstanding of what AI even isSo when I talk to my buddy who hopefully will come on the pod

7:52 He talks up he talks about what you know, what is he actually doing? What is actually the math? You know, this is notScience fiction.

8:00 This is actually this is statisticsThis is stats that most of us kind of learned in high school or in in college justYou know applied a bunch of timesIn in very clever waysBut fundamentally what you're doing is you're taking a problem set You're building a solution to that problem set and you're applying that solution to a new problem setIt's essentially what a lot of computing even is

8:25 It's essentially like like think about the concept of algebraNot the execution but the concept where you have an unknown variable a known variable and you set some sort of relationshipsYou're able to find the unknown variableAI is not that differentwhen I'mAttempting to solve a problem with another problem's solutionI sometimes reduce variables that are very important to be able to get there

8:54 So if you haven't used chat GPT yet, I recommend you actually do itSo you're not just misled by the articlesJust google chat GPT you'll have to make an open AI account, but it's freeDo that use a dummy email address do whatever you wantBut play with it push it a little bit see what it can do and realize its limitations becauseUltimately, it's going to lie to you it'll lie to you convincingly

9:18 But you can tell it hey write about x, y and z and it will do its best to do thatBut it will make mistakes they even have disclaimers like this is not factual whatever it's going to do its bestIt's going to plug into the internet if you notice um, you know barredGoogle's version does the same thing and sometimes even worse because it's plugged into the internet

9:37 In real time unlike a chat GPT and so it's able to grab you know sources that obviously the internet is flawedDon't you mean you say that but

9:46 My point is is that if you think that AI is instantly going to flatten the entire creative processIt's is recognizing it not just it's a tool.

9:56 It's supposed to make things easierAnd it yes, it will be able to automate some of the drudgeryBut that that's what I have like, you know, things like Soothe or Gullfoss they're using AI algorithms to look at the resonant peaks the stuff the ugly stuff and take it away in real timeGreat perfect awesome. Thank you

10:20 What I don't want you to do is say hey, I'm going to write your entire synth partMaybe maybe write a starting point that sounds kind of funYou know maybe like I have writers block and I want to press a button and it'll give me some suggestionsThat sounds kind of funBut to just be like hey, no don't worry.

10:37 Somebody better than you is going to write entire vocal chainboring man Starting point maybe maybe if I'm trying to work really really fast. I don't actually care what it sounds like

10:47 You know like in like some quick sync music where you're making custom stuff and you're trying to do it in an hour and a halfBecause they're only going to pay you a hundred dollars for the demoMaybe maybe but to say that that's just going to take away everybody's workIs just it's it's not just arrogant.

11:03 It's just like wrongSo far far off Then you then you talk to other companies like I was talking to somebody from splice which is a great company and what they do is

11:11 Help you identify, you know drum samples and it's a sample library where you can find a kick drumFight a snare drum find a hi-hat really great search functionality able to go through genre and vibe and all that kind of stuffThat's good AI.

11:24 I can say hey find me a similar kick to this because I'm working on a record and I don't want everything to have the same kickBut I want it to be in the same world AI can do that and that can do if they can do it very fast and very effectively and it's like hey greatYou opened up a new door you opened up a new window rather than saying hey robot build the houseLike why would we have AI take like the only

11:48 Only joy that we have it should be like a dishwasherYou know, it's like do the stuff that I don't want to do

11:55 So that I can do the stuff that I want to do and guess what that's what AI is actually best atSo I think that the engineers that look at this wrongAre the ones that have so many assistantsThat they don't actually do the drudgery themselvesThey also work on tunes that already sound goodSo there's a dirty little secret about some of these top-top mixing engineers

12:20 People clean up the audio before it ever gets to them. They're working with world-class audio to begin with if you gave

12:29 Somebody that was good, you know good at what they did the same resources that somebody else didI don't know if they'd be sitting in that chairAnd I'm not trying to completely disrespectI'm just trying to humble like look at this humbly where if you have the resources where everything that hits your deskAlready sounds good and then you just are able to be creative in a perfect room

12:50 Of course, you're kind of succeed if you don't suckBut that doesn't mean that you want to cut the ladder out from under you, but maybe that is maybe that's that centralFeeling of insecurity because it's been so long since you've actually had to work like really hard on making something sound bad sound goodThen maybe you have a warped view of what mixing even is at that point

13:12 And that if I ever get on a panel if I ever if I ever cool enough and big enoughThat's the kind of energy I want to bring because I want to stay hungryAnd I know that's the energy that Ali brings to and so there's there's there's there's gonna be these like

13:26 Contravening forces on either side there's gonna have to be the splices and there's gonna be the waves with different views of where they canImpact creativity through AIAnd the other thing too is

13:42 AI is expected, you know, it's it's gonna do pretty much what you tell it to do and so if you wantum, if you want to like see a silver lining there is

13:54 Beauty in the prompt so the way that you're speaking to the AI the way that you're thinking creativelyYou can see it with AI art particularlyLike visual art that there people are being prepared now

14:09 To write good prompts for AI art and then you can see how chat GPT then could write its own prompts for you know

14:18 DALL-E who would make art and it all kind of revolves around itself and I can see how like that sound scaryIt'll get better.

14:25 It'll take that job and like kind of yeahBut again, AI does what you program it to do and it'll eventually be able to kind of program itselfAnd do its own thing but it's the same thing is like the randomize or humanize button on Ableton or Pro Tools Doesn't sound human and like yeah, you can extract feels butIn the same way that we're able to like seefaces

14:51 In a rock or on a piece of wallpaper or like you have to see faces that are not quite there or images or impressions of things

15:01 um because you're you're evolutionarily evolved to see faces and see people and and make sense out of nonsenseIt's that same impulse that will keep creativity being creativeumThere are these funny videos on the internet that's like the loose title is never let them know your next move

15:23 And the the concept of those videos is that just being the most chaotic person everSo like you go over and you you give somebody a high five as soon as you give them a high fiveYou um like get on one knee and chug a beer, but then you get hit by a bird

15:38 But the bird is actually a drone and then you start flying on the drone and then you land on a skateboardAnd you do a backflip like these crazyLike this and then this and then this the kind of stuff that you throw against the wall and no one would expectthatEnergy is creativity chaos and and playAnd there is aLevel of that that if you're not bringing that to your mixes.

16:01 Yes, your mixes can be automated But if you're not bringing that to your mixes, you shouldn't even be mixingPlay with it be creative take chances push musicMake decisions that an AI never wouldAnd if 95% of mixing engineers are acting like thatThen the people that are not only the a-listers, but also people like me that are coming upLet's show them what's up

16:30 Let's show them that every mix shouldn't be the same that every vocal change shouldn't be programmed byDave Pensado even though he's a legend and I've learned a ton from watching his interviews and stuff

16:42 Ultimately, it's my ears. I want to make music that sounds good to me not to a robot not to Dave Pensado to meAnd having that confidence and having that creative play and that chaos is what will beat the machine

16:54 And then maybe the machine can just help me out like Soothe, like Gullfoss, like SpliceYou know these tools that allow me to be more creative and not lessIf you enjoyed today's podPlease throw me a five star and subscribe to it helps other people find it tooThis is my little AI rant post-NAMM and you can check out my music.

17:13 It's scoobertdoobert.pizza Also, if you just search Scoobert Doobert on spotify you can find my stuff.

17:20 I have asemi complete list of the things that are at least on on spotifyYou know, I've got music that are exclusive to youtube to SoundCloudBe sure to follow the different thingsBut check out my you know Scoobert Doobert all songs playlist becausethatCan give you a vibe of where I'm at mixing lies and Creatively and hopefully that'll inform what you're hearing here tooSo anyway, thanks for listening see you next week