I think people often compare AI vocalists with AI generated art because they both have 'AI' in the name, but in reality they're completely different. Synthesizer V is no different from a MIDI piano: the producer inputs lyrics, melody, and note lenght; then the VST delivers a sample. All AI does is make the sample better, it doesn't create art any more than a computer creates electronic music. The hand of the artist is still completely present. We're having the 70 year old arguement of 'is it still music if a real person isn't playing an instrument?'. The second most important point is that Dreamtonics has the basic sense of morality to pay the vocalists they hire to create their software, whereas those who create AI generated art don't even have the basic respect for artists to ask their permission.
That's what I tought. I'm also thinking about this scenario: now we can train AI to emulate anybody's voice in less than an hour. Somebody will eventually create software like Dreamtronic's, make it open sourced, and we can put this emulated voices to it, and boom! We will be able to create music with great late singers like Freddie Mercury, George Michael, etc. Amazingly great and scary and confusing at the same time.
@@TwoThreeFour YEP. And at first they won't sound real, and people will turn up their noses at it... and then it will get better and better and better, and one day it'll fool people. We're already there with everything else - my non-music friends can't tell a real drummer from programmed drums, a real orchestra from a sampled version. OK, I probably can't either, if they're done really well. But when it's Frank Sinatra singing a duet with Jimi Hendrix, it'll be interesting to see how it goes down...
And we already can. DiffSinger let's you dump any voice into it and learn to sing. And it's already better then the early versions of SynthV. This is scary and also very intriguing. Just think of what we can create.
@@clehaxze Every time technology gives more music-making power to the people, some will feel threatened. They felt that way about early recording technology. Tech is always going to advance - we can embrace it, or bury our heads in the sand. But it can really suck for people who spent years learning to do something, only to have a machine replace them. I think it's more important than ever to be a lifelong learner.
When oyamano was making the new teto voice bank she said she wants to "gift" the world her voice to allow anyone to sing. This is not stealing other people's work and rearranging it with an algorithm.
you don't understand the difference between ai used in synthv and ai used to generate images. as previously said by many other users, ai is used in synthv in order to make the audio sample sound better. the vocals itself aren't ai generated- dreamtonics hires and pays a vocalist to record samples. there is CONSENT for usage here. meanwhile, image databases like stable diffusion simply ripped images off the internet, shoved them into their database, and began copy-pasting without any form of permission or consent. this is THEFT. this is why people are anti ai. if this was a closed system where artists had to give explicit permission to use their work in extange for monetary payout, it would be much more tolerated. take a minute and listen to the other comments. other people in the vocal synth fandom have already reiterated this multiple times, but you refuse to understand. ai vocal synthesis, as used in synthv, will never be part of your art stealing theft ring.
Synthesizer V is a godsend for me because for decades I've been able to write music and lyrics, but only the past year have been able to actually implement them together because I don't have the voice for singing and have always had health issues where I would never be able to do it well anyway. I had actually given up writing lyrics for years because it just pissed off and frustrated me to no end that I thought I'd never be able to actually use it.
One of the few pieces of software that are actually inspiring to use. Feng Yi is my favorite vb at the moment, she's able to move me to tears at times.
I’m sorry but I heavily disagree with this entire take, because for one, vocal synths such as synthV, VOCALOID or UTAU aren’t made to trick anyone, and it is in no way unethical like AI Art is. Unlike with AI art, the voice providers are paid for vocal recordings and it’s meant to be for people who can’t sing themselves, but it still requires a user to actively do the vocal edits/tuning in the process Maybe next time you should check your research notes
@@ElianaDAngelo well, the tweaking is where the fun part is for a lot of people in the vocal synth scene, including me as well. Just like how humans can each have a unique singing style, vocal synths can be edited/tuned in many styles, whether it be on the realistic side (some vocal synth producers who have this kind of style are KIRA, Giga-P and Cillia), or in the more stylized/inhuman/unrealistic margin, much like how most mainstream vocal synth producers in Japan do it (examples include Hiiragi Kirai’s rough and gargly/growl-ish style using the vocaloid flower, or hachiouji-P’s robotic, pitch snappy style). So to have the AI advance so much to the point where you barely have any control over the tuning process yourself would kind of ruin the charm, don’t you think?
@@ElianaDAngelo There've been synths that want to try that. Like Emvoice. Which has been a complete failure and is the laughing stock of the vsynth industry.
Plus, like one commentator mentioned, i feel like one aspect you left out was the growing culture in said vocaloid/vocal synth scene, with not just music involved, but also music videos, choreographies, covers (both vocal synth and human vocal covers), even entire events and concerts. It is still more of a niche genre, but it inspired many to start with music thanks to this culture and i apologize if i was a bit harsh with my wording in my earlier comments
Nice video, interesting perspective on ai art. I don't necessarily agree, but I'm not passionate enough about it to spend energy writing a youtube comment about it lol. One thing you left out which I think is an incredibly important part of vocal synthesis (at least right at this moment) is the community/culture that surrounds it. There's a history you can look to from the release of the vocaloids kaito and meiko, to the voicebanks of natalie and eleanor forte. A lot of the people that you will see using synth v are also involved in this community, and if you ever end up releasing a song with a feature from natalie, you're going to come across it yourself at some point. Hell, the reason I'm here in the first place is because someone shared this video in a vocaloid server I'm in. This pseudo-idol culture might be offputting at first, but theres a lot of talented & passionate people involved, making not only music but also music videos, original art, choreographies, 3d models, et cetera. In my mind, vocal synthesis is a multi-media affair. I don't really blame you or anyone else for missing this point cuz this video is a tech showcase, and also dreamtonics has made an active effort to distance itself from this idol-lite culture. However, 3rd party companies like Eclipsed Sounds are more involved with the community, have 2 extremely fucking good voicebanks to boot (seriously, check out Asterian. He's an oktavist voicebank). With all that said though, it's just software, even hatsune miku was made with the intention of being a silly little program to make your own vocals with. I just find the organic nature of the community building around vocal synthesis very inspiring, and definitely worth a mention, especially if you're looking for people that are WAY too good at using these programs. There's a metal song that uses kevin to do full on screamo vocals which is just insane to me. Anyways, if you end up reading this, I hope you have a nice day :D
I was going to mention vocaloid but opted not to because I noticed their visual marketing is shifting away from that at Dreamtronics and also the topic would lose some focus. Should just be a video on its own.
The community is the worst thing about this program. Most audio artists, and solo artists that would be the prime market for this, do not care about the anime culture that they seem to push along with the software. I for one have never cared at all about the characters and do not want my music associated with the characters, it is a great audio tool with very poor marketing.
@@prophetofthesingularity my guy, that aspect of the community is the reason you even know about it, it is not poor marketing, theyre just putting their product out there for people to do whatever they want, if you only want to use it as a music making tool then do so and dont bitch about the anime fans making awesome covers and fanart of the vocal synths
@@prophetofthesingularity the marketing is the characters. maybe it is too old-fashioned at this point, but the reason vocal synths blew up was because you could assign personalities and design looks for the characters, who function like mascots. not to say that the vocals can't speak for themselves, but it is easy to have an accompanying visual to associate the music with especially in visual form. not everyone has to conform to this, but i'd rather the anime art attract those who are interested in vocal synths as an instrument instead of tech bros who think that ai is the replacement for human artists, when vocal synths fall flat without human influence (whether that be manual tuning or sampling from human vocals).
I really disagree with this take. Lemme come at this from the perspective of someone in tech, who works with vocal synths in my free time, of the AI and non-AI variety. The difference between AI vocal synths and AI art generators is the issue of consent and compensation. Given how AI works, the AI isn't able to create anything, not really. It basically makes collages made up of the training data. It can't make creative decisions. In commercial AI vocal synths, given that voice providers must consent to have their voice used, are paid for their time, and paid royalties on each sale of the database based on them, those ethical qualms we see with AI art are minimal due to the presence of consent. With AI art, we have thousands of artists having their works scraped and profited off of without their consent or knowledge, and no compensation is offered. The AI can't "take inspiration" from art, it just mashes things together, and has resulted in a LOT of stolen artwork. It's even resulted in situations where people have had the AI just make nonconsensual pr0n of them or another person out of NOWHERE, which is kinda disturbing when you think about it for more than six seconds when combined with the lack of consent or compensation. Voice providers for AI vocal synths are made VERY aware of the fact that people can make all sorts of content, including sexually explicit content, with their voice if the database goes up for sale. People who have their work scraped don't get that chance to say no. You also have to take into account that AI art is not protected by copyright and cannot be used commercially under US law, as there's little to no human intervention in the process of making the output. Meanwhile, SynthV still requires a person know the fundamentals of music, and requires a LOT of human intervention, since it's basically just like Vocaloid with clearer output and a user interface that doesn't make me want to slam my head into a wall. SynthV still requires a user to have skills. AI art requires nothing but spamming random words and sitting there for 3 hours for the algorithm to give you something with the right number of fingers and teeth.
When one artist takes inspiration or directly copies an idea (like a melody/chord progression/percussion) technically the original artist isn't consenting to that, yet transcription in music (and visual art) is essential to building a vocabulary and foundation as an artist. All of us create ideas based off of what has come before us. If I use an Autumn leaves progression, should I compensate someone for that? I would say no. when someone puts work into the public domain it is subject to people adopting ideas from the source material. This is why there exists certain musical conventions in certain cultures based on the re-contextualizing of ideas. In a similar way, a diffusion model, for example is abstracting its training data into 'noise' that can then be gradually pulled from over many iterations from a model to get back an approximation. And the word 'create' is doing a lot of heavy lifting on your end. When a human makes a 'creative' decision they don't sit there and go "I'm going to make a creative decision today" it is something that just sort of happens from a mixture of life experience and some combining of disparate information in the brain. Some set of circumstances based on Bayesian principals allows this to happen. We as humans receive thoughts that come from our 'unconscious' mind and then later rationalize them. If we are talking about a diffusion type of model we can roughly equate this to the way noise is used to generate an image based on training data and various ways they might abstract that data. A structure emerges over iterations of the idea. This isn't some thing where its taking a tree from one painting and pasting it with a bench from another. In the case of visual art, it's creating abstractions of the input data into a final output through an iterative process. It is not a 1:1 reconstruction in the same way we can't do an exact copy. In regards to adult content, be it AI or drawn/3d modeled by humans people are going to make fan art of real people. AI can get more authentic for sure but there is nothing really that can be done. Plus, any resources related to that I would rather be spent preventing distribution of content of people under the age of consent for obvious reasons. I think it is great that Dreamtonics is paying artists to train on their voices. I think it is something they should continue to do. That being said, more open AI standards are not going to do that and it is just a fact of life. It would be up to the courts and lawyers to decide on if it is okay to use a singers voice in payed software that is meant to imitate their likeness. Synth V does require quite a bit of input to get more nuanced performances for sure, but I think in the next coming years the training will be so good that we will be able to use text to dictate what way certain passages are sang ("Soft in the style of X singer") and the software within that define space of time that the text modifier is there will generate new takes. Or even suggesting melodic ideas based on what it hears harmonically. I feel the team at Dreamtonics is very forward thinking and I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like this has been discussed. As for the comments on hands in AI art, hands are really tough for humans to understand too. They are very complicated. Any time I've had to polymodel them in 3d art they always give me some trouble. It will just take more time for AI to really 'understand' how hands work.
@@ElianaDAngelo The difference between human copying and AI use of data is that oftentimes, humans will make their own transformations and mistakes or add their own little nuances to the mix - none of this happens with AI. AI will copy and paste, it's all that it really can do. If AI was truly transformative, or if its data was harvested ethically by consenting artists, no one here would have a problem with it, but that is not the case, and it's why the VAST majority of users of Synthesizer V are vehemently anti-AI art. Not to mention that a good chunk of vsynth producers are multi-talented and are also artists, and thus have greater insight into the nuances than "well humans copy too" which isn't the checkmate you think it is. You fail to understand that the issue is less so that a computer did it, and entirely that an entity, computer or humah, did it WITHOUT CONSENT. Nobody here cares that Stable Diffusion is an AI. Everyone here that is anti-AI art cares that Stable Diffusion did not get consent from artists to be included in their dataset, and that their work can now be used in material they object to, such as hateful content, NSFW content, or in very extreme cases where something has gone VERY wrong, NSFW content made without the consent of all parties involved or CSEM, and no real way to rectify it or opt out before it happens. When it comes to vsynths, voice providers have the possibilities laid out to them very clearly, and they have that option to nope out. That's the difference. Please note that I am saying all of this as someone who IS in the process of voicing an AI voice library for an open-source vocal synth, and as a digital artist, albeit a digital artist in the beginning of her journey, and as someone who is fairly familiar with how ML works on a fundamental level.
Okay, so you aren't going to qualify any of your moral positions, address any of my points, and just repeat the same talking points everyone else is on Twitter in the same manner with no nuance. Just going through an NPC dialogue tree. I think that's great you are doing that project and wish you the best. But if you are just at the beginning of your journey, there is a lot of learning and nuance in art that I hope you come to understand.
Philosophical "what is art" argument aside, two very big things to remember with stuff like SynthV. #1: AI powered, or not, at the end of the days it's still a synth. it's not an AI song generator. you still need to know music to do something with it just like any kontakt library or VSTi, and #2: Unlike the vast majority of publicly available "AI art generators" this program is made with the express consent of the voice provider, who are well paid for the use of their data. This isn't scraping the internet for 10s of thousands of hours of vocal data. this isn't gonna "destroy the music industry" cause at the end of the day, as awful as it is, it's still less effort to underpay a session singer or lock an upstart in a predatory contract
Yes for sure. I still had to use my experience and skill to make it sound good. However with the scraping internet for data, this a complex subject for sure. But I generally don't see it as theft personally
Pretty weird of you to disregard all of those who give actual reasons and info about why your reasoning isnt exactly right but dont care because goo goo ga ga anime icon. Guess what, lots of synthesizer V voicebanks look like anime girls and anime boys. A great part of synthesizer V users are made up of vocaloid fans and anime icons, and if you bother to at least search it up, you can see how many vocaloids and various popular singing synthesizers are anime styled. Maybe you wouldn't have gotten backlash if you bothered to research what you're reviewing, you would've been psychologically prepared for all these stupid anime icons that dare to comment.
Great demonstration video! I think the main reason people would be upset about the progress of AI artwork/music production is the method of gathering datasets. the stable diffusion model's data was gathered without the consent of the artists who it stole from, and that's mainly where people's issue with it came from. There's a lot of fearmongering going on in terms of "will AI art replace the need for artists??" and I agree with you on the front that it almost definitely won't, but I maybe think this was the wrong video to talk about that in, since Synthesizer V AI collects data from paid and consenting vocalists. Stable diffusion is a great tool and a fantastic idea bogged down by the fact that it had to steal art from several thousand unknowing artists to build it's model, so I wouldn't really consider it relevant or wise to discuss the positives of it in a video about SynthV AI.
Oyamano mayo when making the teto voice bank said she wants to "gift" her voice to the world for anyone to make music with. This is an extension of a keyboard synthesizer with modern sound processing algorithms. This has no relation to ai artwork that's stealing original content.
If AI developers commissioned artists for the work they're training their models on the same way VSynth companies pay vocalists for their audio samples this would be a nonissue. It's not at all like a human being taking inspiration from the works of another human being, you've let the name fool you into thinking the machine is actually thinking; an AI trained exclusively on, say, photorealism, will never be able to produce anything but photorealism, because it's only able to synthesize new combinations of the information it already explicitly has laid out in front of it. If I put colored pencils and paper in front of a human artist who has never in their life heard of anime and then describe to them the concept of an art style largely characterized by visible linework, highly saturated colors, simple block shading, exaggerated body/face proportions, etc, etc, that person would be able to eventually give me something that looks like what you and I would consider anime in a way AI cannot achieve because it's not making anything new or thinking and likely won't be able to for decades. They're prompt-based photobash generators, nothing more.
It's basically hiring a vocalist, except that a normal person can afford it and use it forever... BUT, I doubt anyone using Synthesizer V would ever pay a singer, most people using it just don't have the money or interest to pay someone, or/and they don't have any friend that can do it well, and so, it has a clear and perfectly justifiable place. It's basically really just a synth, it's called Synthesizer V for a reason, it doesn't allow for that much tweaking because it's very complex, but you can always do a lot of interesting stuff after the fact
Wrong - I have hired vocalists and I love having the control I have in Synthesizer V without the tantrums or the ever ticking cost meter. If singers were easier to work with I would still use them.
I feel like the difference between synthV (as well as things like Spiderverse's AI tools) and most AI art is that, unlike the latter, all the data used for training was given by the source consensually. The problem isn't the concept of AI-generated stuff, it's that the data used to train AI is stolen, which is not the case for SynthV. Plus, since you need to purchase snyth V products, using SynthV directly supports the source vocalists financially. In addition, there is a lot of influence you can have on the vocals' results, meaning you have to actively tune the vocals to get your results. I feel SynthV is less like Stable Diffusion and more like Instrument and synth VSTs... but with vocals instead.
I think the fear that artists have is justified. But I also believe that artists are naturally creative and will find ways to use AI in creative ways that normal, mon creative people won't. And in the long-term it will actually lead to more interesting and creative ideas, because AI will be able to quickly handle certain tasks that would take a human hours or days to complete.
A friend told me that this video is the closest thing to a larger clickbait promotional video in the vsynth community, I agree on that, this thing should be closed
So much electrical, computer, and software engineering goes into AI, and that takes creativity as well. I’m a musician and an RF PCB design engineer (Think the circuit board in your cellphone), and a lot of human ingenuity and creativity went into the foundation of AI well beyond just ‘art’, a lot of schooling and humanity. AI will always have us in it. Humans created and trained it.
One non-philosophical issue with your argument for AI in case of this AI vocalist tool, is that its not the same as Image Generation AI. Here the singer has given consent to take a snapshot of her voice and was compensated for it. There is no ethical problem with this from data theft or intellectual theft point of view.
That's exactly it. Vocal synths are not generators, they are synths. Nobody is calling Noteperformer an "AI orchestra generator" or a kontakt piano library an "AI piano generator".
I don't see it as an issue even if it was trained on publically available resources. We steal musical ideas all the time and repurpose them. I see an AI abstracting training data as not much different.
@@ElianaDAngelo What AI does is not the same as a person taking inspiration: it's more like a person doing a decent photoshop job of a bunch of different images. Which is plagiarism, and protected by copyright law. Without direct use of the images, the artwork would not exist, so legally the artist has to give permission or be compensated. 'Inspiration' and 'using' are not the same noun, what AI art generators do is usage, not inspiration. This is why recent litigation has ruled that you can't use AI art commercially (so don't use it in any album covers). But you can sell songs with Synthesizer V, because they obtained legal permission from the vocalist. If someone creates a piece of technology that needs your work to function, then you deserve to be paid. Most people find it incredibly disturbing when people create AI clones of very personal aspects of themselves, like their likeness, art or voice. So it should be basic ethical common sense not to be a creepy, and ask first.
@@ElianaDAngelo There is a more nuanced ethics and legal problem with AI voice synthesis beyond just "stealing" for musical purposes and it's the fact that now people can make anyone say whatever they want
@@dzjin Luckily, with commercial vocal synths, voice providers are informed of this, and the implications that come with it, and given a chance to say no. With AI art in its current form, there have been cases where the AI makes nonconsensual pr0n or creates hateful content out of basically nowhere, and the artists who've had their images scraped to create that do NOT get that chance to say no. Consent is still the main thing that separates ethical uses of neural networks in a creative setting from unethical ones.
this AI is ok cause its only performing sing, but AI that can compose or write songs will kill creativity of humans and evantualy will kill our spirit . creativity was the only thing that makes us better then the machins , if this will end we will become comfrtormbly numb
I LOVE the stylistic choice of keeping breath sounds in the mix. It creates a very intimate connection to the listener, like the singer is only a few inches away. "This Kiss" by Carly Rae Jepsen is an example I often use to illustrate this effect.
Thank you Eliana! Another producer/musician here that really likes the new technologies! I do get tired of my own voice though, and so have been watching for the right AI vocals to add to the works. I have some good experience with Synth V and it looks like it's grown in good directions since I used it a few years back. Always liked that it's offline! Very much appreciated this video and to learn about the discussions apparently going on around AI music and art. Maybe human music/art creations still have the edge with an emotional depth, a baring of a soul and the satisfaction felt after the project. ? Myer Hollow
you can do it by hand it just takes a lot time and skill. I am not good vocaloid producer but I realized that human singers did not hold perfect pitch so I edited the pitch to smooth out transition between large jumps.
Tip for you. You do not have to break up the word feeling, draw the length that you want and when you type the word feeling, just add the + symbol at the end of the word. This goes for any word that is 2 syllables and more.
I used the Arturia V vocoder on a track and it worked really well. WIth the presets I had no control over the vocal that was sung, but I could add my own vocal as needed. I see Synthesizer V as a logical extension of the Vocder instrument. The fact that a musician like me that can't sing can type lyrics and have a vocalist sing my lyrics is a game changer. I can't see how me using this tool would put vocalists out of a job (as I never found a vocalist that would want to sing on my tracks). You need to be creative to use a tool like this too. I welcome these tools to help my song writing craft.
I checked out the vocaloid stuff, I like the robotic vocal type, hey, I'm a BASS player, and an eccentric..... Thank you for sharing your experience with us !!!
I got the Pro Studio with Solaria and Kevin, been fiddling with it for a few weeks, and it's truly deep, amazing, mind-blowing software. I'm not at all worried about AI ruining art (other arenas of existence are another story) for the simple reason that computational intelligence is not sentience, and artistic intention will always require a subject who intends, whatever medium or tool is used for the artistic expression. Nice overview.
the latter half of this video lacks a lot of nuance, and shows ignorance towards how vocal synthesis technology works. the main reason why so many people are opposed to AI art in its current state is because many of the publicly available generators like DALL-E have been trained without respect to copyright or artist approval. many AI generators accidentally end up replicating copyrighted content in their works, and there have been countless cases of an AI copying an existing piece of artwork so closely that regardless of anyone's philosophical standpoint on whether AI art is 'good' or 'bad', most would agree that it definitely crosses the line from 'inspiration' to plagiarism. all synthesizer V voicebanks are trained using data from vocalists who both agreed to participate and were compensated for their work, so that sets it apart from most current AI and text generators in a pretty significant way. the very questionable comparison between AI art and vocal synthesis aside, it seems disingenuous to promote this video as a discussion of whether or not AI art is ethical when you straight-up ignored one of the major talking points against it aside from calling concerns about theft 'laughable' (seemingly due to the fact that you don't see an issue with training on copyrighted content against the artist's wishes, based on your responses to other comments.) if someone took your music and trained an AI on it without your consent, and the AI produced something that's *technically* an original combination of sounds but is incredibly derivative of your work, even containing snippets of vocals and note progressions that can be traced back to specific songs of yours, wouldn't you be upset? would there really be zero issue if anyone on the internet could type your name into a program, click a few buttons, and generate a song that sounds exactly like your music, contains recognizable elements of your songs to the point where many would question if it's plagiarism, and then that random person could claim the song as their own creation and use it however they want (monetize it, enter/win music contests with it, sell it to a record label) would you really have zero issue with that? such a scenario may sound dramatic, but all that is already happening for visual artists. i’m not even anti-AI art as a concept; you’re right that there’s a lot of potential in the technology and definitely a use for it, but the way many current databases function make it more of a threat to artists than a helpful tool. it’s still a very new technology, but court cases are already shaping regarding the dubious legality of these training models.
@@tavellcoops Not exactly plagiarism but r/StableDiffusion had someone using SamDoesArt's name directly as a prompt, having an AI artwork in the style of him. It could've been fine at that point, but the redditor had the audacity to *sell* the model and art, saying that they don't need to ask Sam for permission. It was ugly all around. Sam, and his fans were upset, and r/StableDiffusion just made more AI artworks in the style of Sam.
@@tavellcoops currently the biggest issue is with users uploading other people's art into AI generators and claiming ownership over the slightly altered image, or typing the name of a popular artist into the generator and using it to produce something extremely similar to their work, often without their consent or against their wishes. sorry if this comment goes through multiple times, i tried to link to a few articles but youtube keeps taking down my reply :/ i wrote descriptions for each one so that you can search them up yourself if you wanna read, though. article 1 summary: an artist known as ato1004fd was drawing a character (raiden from genshin) on livestream, someone took a screenshot of the work in progress art, put it in an AI generator to 'finish it', then claimed it as their own work and posted it before the artist had a chance to finish their own piece. understandably, lots of people were mad (source: dotesports) article 2 summary: a general overview of the controversy that cites how erin hanson, an artist with a very distinct style of painting landscapes, was able to produce AI images that mimicked some of her own pieces with shocking accuracy. (source: CNN) article 3 summary: a guy entered a piece of AI-generated artwork into an art contest in his city and won a cash prize. this caused a ton of controversy, since he not only won an art contest with something that he didn't draw himself, but he also profited from it. (source: new york times) i've also seen cases of AI images closely resembling the existing works it was trained on even if the original art wasn't uploaded as a reference image, but it was a while ago on twitter and i can't find the link to it. the one i remember most closely was specifically an anime-styled image that was a recognizable copy of an artist's drawing on pixiv, but with different hair and clothes and stuff. the pose and some other elements of the image were the exact same, but there were too many differences for it to have been an altered version of the original photo. as for other examples of plagiarism, it's pretty common for AI art to contain mangled bits of artist signatures. artists sign their drawings for the same reason that every movie has credits at the end: so that the creators can receive recognition for their work and the audience knows who made what they're looking at. in reality the mangled signatures are just a side effect of the AI learning that artists send to sign their work, but the irony of AI creating frankensteined nonsense signatures in lieu of crediting the actual artists whose work was used kinda speaks for itself.
I was today at the NAMM show and was checking "Dreamtonics" Synthesizer V and AI vocal performers. The Spanish pop AI vocalist exhibited an extraordinary level of realism, delivering a remarkably musical performance. The producer is still required to input an authentic midi melody line, lyrics, and perform some tweaking, but the potential for outstanding vocal results is undeniable.
to anyone worried if this software will "replace" real singers - please dont. as a vocal synth (mostly vocaloid) fan for over 8 years, music made with any sort of vocal synthesis software (vocaloid, utau, synthv, cevio, etc) mostly stays within its own bubble and is considered its own "genre". the majority of people arent even aware software like this exists - and when they learn, they think its new and revolutionary when this style of singing synthesis has been around for almost 20 years now. if it ever becomes mainstream (like top 40), which it most likely wont, it will take a very very long time. yes, synthv is extremely realistic, but while the companies say some vocals are made for "professionals" or something like that, softwares like these in general are mostly end up being for a specific niche regardless of the companies' target. in my personal opinion, i feel like the reason for the development of ai vocal synths (synthv studio ai, cevio ai, vocaloid 6, etc) is not to completely replace human singers, but because the standard for "good tuning" (editing the vocal synth to sound a specific way) to most people in the fandom has become as human as possible. im honestly not a huge fan of this, and i could go on a whole rant about why realistic tuning isnt always good and that standard is actually harmful etc, but thats a different topic. tldr: most people will never care about any sort of vocal synth, so this software "replacing" human singers shouldnt be a concern. (sorry for the rant btw! vocal synths is my special interest and i love talking about these kinds of aspects of it)
I just think that people are concerned about the wrong stuff. A.I. should be a tool not a replacement. Even if certain options don't necessarily need a human but human is what art is for. So, human will always be involved. One day Ai will be able to cook food but who will eat the food? So, human will always be involved in creating food that the human likes and finds acceptable. In music the Ai isn't the replacement any more than a synthesizer replaced anybody in electronic music in the 80s. The AI is a tool, and the work and creativity still comes from the human. I have seen a lot of AI music and art that just isn't any good. What makes it good is when a human artist or musician is directing the AI as a tool.
I just got the product a few days ago and have been watching a few videos about it, which is probably how this video was recommended to my feed. Anyway, I have played music for about 25 years, and while I can play guitar somewhat decently, my vocal abilities have never been up to the level I would want them to be. I intend to use the software to help me see if the vocal melodies I hear in my head would work for a given song. I also plan to hire vocalists to actually help me record the songs once I feel I have a good melody to use as a base for them to work.
I can’t believe this is a year old already. I’ve been using Suno mainly for vocals and it was only after I paid for a subscription that I began discovering software like this that allows the user to program the midi notes for the vocals. I’m looking forward to the point when they’re basically completely merged into the best of both worlds. I agree with your take that you shared a t the end of this video. But I do have a few thoughts on this… The vocal tracks I’m using don’t sound like any specific “famous” singer. I’m using my own original music tracks and lyrics that are 100% written by me. I have to prompt the AI 50 times and rearrange multiple versions to get a version that not only is really good but also true to my original vision for the song. I wouldn’t let it completely re-write my song and call it good, just like I wouldn’t let a real vocalist do such a thing. Also, just like a real vocalist, it isn’t going to perform everything perfectly the way I wrote it. It’s going to make suggestions for things that could be improved and I have the choice to use it or not. But it won’t get its feelings hurt when I delete a bad idea or scoff at me when I ask for 50 more versions. It doesn’t have feelings and doesn’t get tired. So, logically, the end result is more of a product of my creativity and persistence than a session with a real vocalist might be. With a real vocalist I could get a small handful of versions or takes and have to settle with one and might never be truly satisfied with it. But with Suno, one in 50 is likely to absolutely nail it better than any singer ever could. I can’t help but rant about this stuff but my point is that it’s my music, my lyrics, my relentless searching for the perfect version of a vocal track that ends up being a great song. It’s MY song. It’s not stolen because you will never hear this music anywhere else. Whether I choose to release the music with the AI vocals or re-record it with a real vocalist is an artistic choice, not an ethical one. I hope and predict that in the very near future I’ll be able to consistently create vocals that are indistinguishable from a real singer and I will release it without hesitation. Because it’s exciting new technology, no different from 15 years ago when I discovered midi and EZ Drummer and programming my own drum samples and keyboards and orchestral arrangements.
We've been able to do this with every other instrument for years - The only 'problem' is if/when people pretend its not a synth... I think as long as we are honest about it being a synth and not a real vocalist, i see no issues... Just be honest :)
This would be great for a songwriter who is not a singer and doesn't have access to a demo singer to make a demo recording. In Japan they have Vocaloid "artists" paired with holograms doing concerts... I wouldn't believe it if there weren't videos of it on youtube.....
The holograms is the exact same vocal synth technology! But it's not AI-based. (except for CeVIO, they're a Japanese AI vocal synthesizer.) People use them bc they don't have access to a demo singer and recording. The holograms and usually a mascot tied to a voicebank. Some SynthV voices, mostly under Dreamtonics, don't have designs.
No matter what virtual technology, AI, CGI, writing a hit song will all ways be a matter of talent. Ask yourself: If you know that a hit song would have been made entirely by a computer without any human interaction, would you still appreciate it? If you watch a movie that is completely CGI generated with mindblowing effects , but without a strong story, would you still like it?
Good video explaining what you can do with vocal synths and show that the quality of vocal synthesis is improving all the time. The video was well put together - your demonstration of the various features and capabilities of the synthesizer was very clear as there’s a lot to learn - a great tool for trying out an original song if your not great at singing or recording audio and great for making a demo to show off your song to a singer.
Here's an interesting take...AI and technology have revolutionized music production, making it easier for novice producers to create beats using samples, loops, melody generators, and instant instrumental makers. However, this has resulted in a decrease in opportunities for traditional musicians like keyboard players, drummers, and wind instrument players. It's ironic that Drake, who benefits from sampling and copying himself, complains about his voice being cloned or sampled, considering that the samples used in music are the unique "voice" of the creator. While AI has impacted certain musicians, it has not yet replaced lead vocalists on live stages. Finally some vocalists and rappers now understand how it feels to be replaced by technology after years of honing their craft.
I think this is a great tool to launch ideas from. Hired talent will be able to interpret the ideas created and expound upon them. The end result will be amazing. We have been doing this for centuries. Rather than a human leveraging influence from another human, this tool may offer some influence that would never before be realized. Keeping things in perspective is key. The human expression will be fine as we explore these new horizons in creativity.
Hi Eliana, I agree with you, I don't think that AI for Music will ever replace an actual real Male or Female vocalist. The first thought of many that come to mind is how do you go see the band perform live, with what a front person lip-syncing??? I think not. I think AI can be a Great Tool, but that's just what it is, a Tool... Unfortunately, there may be some situations where AI may get misused. In comparison, I have seen several bands playing out using backing tracks, and as I took a small survey of about 20 people in several different venues the consensus of approx. 100 people total was: 1. They had no idea backing tracks were being used. Although hearing a bunch of Syth parts and having no Keyboard player, sort of eludes me. 2. When asked they did not care and just wanted to have fun dancing. So I wonder what similar direction this AI may run. In regards to your thoughts about Art: You look at Art and you either like it or you don't.... If the attitude holds true from my polling about the knowledge backing tracks being used. Then I don't think the average person will care at all......Seems like the only people who really seem to care, are the Artists out there, from the Fear of the Unknown... They're afraid while imagining different scenarios in their mind, mostly with not good outcomes and it scares them. Think about it, if the outcome they imagine was Good, then it wouldn't scare them and they would embrace it and not say anything, especially if it put money in their pocket. As a Musician & Songwriter who can write good music, but can't sing, it's a Milestone for me. Creating a Melody, adding words, and uploading both to the AI creating a Vocal part, has just opened a new door.... Keep up the Great work... ElectricEddie😎
As a producer and musician I've been waiting for this moment but it happened even faster than I expected. Certainly makes me feel a bit like the cashier getting replaced by the self check out, but that's just my hang up haha. I think for professionals in the industry the most concerning thing is that we can clearly see how AI can now fully create music WITH VOCALS. This of course means that streaming companies, labels, syndicated radio and tech savvy capitalists will be heavily enticed to create AI generated music that costs virtually nothing and more importantly requires no payout of royalties on the master or songwriting side. The industry is run by all sorts of non-artists and if they can dramatically maximize profits by side stepping artists it is absolutely inevitable that they will. Hopefully this means that the lashback culturally will be an appetite for music so original that it couldn't be conceived of by an AI or non-artist.
AI is not at the point where it could design a good sounding song on its own, and it probably never will hit that point because computer intelligence lacks the human creative spark. It will still need someone who has a background in music theory to understand *why* a particular note sounds good in a progression, and how and where to apply it, and AI is incapable of generating meaningful lyrics that speak to humans, due to the aforementioned lack of the creative spark. You can sit infinite monkeys at typewriters to get the complete works of William Shakespeare, but it would take so many monkeys as to be unprofitable, when they could just do it with real people and save money, honestly. A good use for this as a producer would be prototyping lyrics in a song you are writing, before working with a vocalist to lay down finalized vocals. It can simplify that prototyping part of a song before you get your vocalist into the studio to do takes.
Awesome video. I love AI and I see it already influencing my workflow and my creativity, in a positive way. I get why people are 'afraid' of AI or just don't like it or say there's no soul. But those are the same people who hear a difference between CDs and mp3s, or say that DJs don't have to be talented...
@@ElianaDAngelo doesn't detract from my point. ai will be used to take jobs away from musicians wherever possible, just as it's begun to take jobs away from visual artists. if you actually care for artists making a living for themselves, especially with how shit conditions are now, have some solidarity
@@ElianaDAngelo ai is being used to take jobs from everyone, not just creatives. walk into your local grocery store and look at the cleaning robot they have in place of a janitor. see the self checkouts. look at the attempts to perfect self-driving vehicles. soon, your employer won't need you.
its not about fear or missunderstanding Towards ai, at least in visual art... Visual artists are upset with ai because it uses a data base with art that no one gave permision to use, simple as that .they didnt have the rights to use anothers person art without asking them, i think its fair to be upset.
voice synths are not the same as ai art. one is bad and built upon the work of creators that were asked no consent to feed into the algorithm for their work and used to sell nfts or other bullshit. the other is singing robots
One comment: as a visual artist, I can tell you that I do not *want* to spend more time on the marketing or advertising of my work. I *enjoy* the detailed creative process, that's what I'm here for. It's not something I need to be liberated from by AI. Otherwise, I good demonstration of what SynthV can do.
Wow! What an eye-opener! This is actually the next step in vocal synthesis I was looking forward to and it sounds better at this stage than I imagined. This can be a great tool for me as a songwriter who can't sing to write demo's and even finished projects! I love your vision on AI and I agree. And I think it won't really make to much of a difference anyway. We've all had our templates/presets or other help tools, non-ai based, and nobody complained. Well maybe a couple. At least with AI you get a little more diversity.
Hi, I just saw this review of this AI tool. I am also a songwriter who prefers to use other vocalists. Do you know if this SW can take an XML MIDI file of a melody line with lyrics and output a voice audio file?
@@claymanproductions3324 It should be able to take a melody line and lyrics and sing along with your song. I believe there's a demo version of the software if you want to test it.
Thank you for your overview of dreamtonics vocal synthesis, plug-in. I dismiss any of the arguments against AI based art. I am an old thing so I started in the music business when it still was a business during the late 70s. I would love to have had this back in the day. The good old days aren’t always so good. Anyway, I would get the same critics when I first started using sampled percussion live during the 80s and 90s. Later people really didn’t care as long as someone was playing the drums. Now bands play live with backing tracks and it’s just accepted as a tool and representing their art. The emergence of AI has been expected, and it will do nothing except increase, especially once quantum computing technology becomes practical New things, just frighten people. On the subject of this vocal synthesis plug-in. I have tried using Vocaloid, which I believe is owned by Yamaha in the past, but it was much too clumsy to be productive, except for some FX and background vocals for what I do. I know the K and J-pop scene use vocal synthesis with success. I have a certain workflow and it’s no longer enjoyable if it takes me longer to program an edit a synthetic AI plug-in, compared to just hiring a pro and getting it knocked out in less than a week. Hopefully this product will keep improving for use in production, especially with the reimbursement costs for the music arts being so dismal now compared to when I started. Thank you again for the video and the overview. This product definitely shows promise.
To think how much more sophisticated this will get in time. It nearly fools me in the mix of a song without any finetuning applied. It's nice to have this around where a lot of us who can't sing, are locked out from the demand for vocal centric music. I know people are kinda tired of paying out to divas to collab where both parties are nowhere and getting a half baked effort in return lol. AI is a great response to that.
I guess someone who doesn't understand how the not-really Artificial Intelligence creates these AI-pictures shouldn't tell others how to feel about it...? After all, it's relevant to understand the difference between a database and a person.
i like your take on ai and i agree with you. i don't like the sound of ai vocal synths, there are online tools that can generate vocals that actually sound really cool but overall i think you're right.
AI is a great tool but you got the roles reversed. We should entirely be dedicated to the arts of music, painting and writing, as well as researching and internalizing all forms of culture because doing such things is hugely rewarding to the human spirit. What should AI do then? Well, all the boring dehumanizing bullshit like marketing, monetizing, reports, accountability and taxes.
This stuff is really cool as someone who has not been fortunate enough to make music my career, and thus my voice continually degrades over time due to the nature of my actual work. It's been making me so self conscious lately, but it's cool to imagine maybe one day I can use my old vocals as training data to print over a take with my lower/drier vocals and make some kind of concession. Not so much this, but with stuff like Holly+ type voice replacement, but I assume they will exist alongside each other in a future DAW.
I'm pretty sure many will shudder at the thought that a voice is AI... but, for creative writers, this will be their opportunity make a song that's entirely theirs without being able to sing. I'm looking forward to use it myself. Even just to bake snippets or even backing vocals, it could be useful if you actually sing yourself.
Without being able to sing on proper level myself, I just want to remind you, that Vocaloid and UTAU already existed for a looong time. Synthesizer V (both Standard- and AI-Voicebanks) is simply the next step.
3:15 not really an accurate claim. This kind of software has been around for two decades, and people have been 'tuning' it since before AI made it easy (Synth V AI with automatic tuning being maybe 3 years old). That said, the vocal fluctuations are very subtle and it really helps to have something that can plot fundamental pitch (like melodyne or various DAW plugins) to see what is happening in better detail.
Sounds artificial to me straight off the bat. Just trying the current free version - not sure how to actually get some audible changes with vibrato etc...
AI is not stealing from artists; it's just speeding up our process of influence! ! Every artist has been influenced by other artists since the beginning of art. Now we're just being influenced by artificial intelligence finding those artists and helping us influence other artists.
I want an AI voice because I lost the ability to sing a few years back. I still write songs and this tool will help me show others what I want, with the tiniest nuance. Thanks for your demo and discussion.
Can't wait for this to be just as expensive if not more expensive than Vocaloid. 😬 EDIT: Nevermind! Oh my goodness, its even got a free version. I love this!!!
@@ElianaDAngelo After trying out their demo, I am extremely keen on picking this up as soon as I can afford it! I had wanted to do an alter ego to my own music, where animated characters can take the mainstage instead of myself. Serving as a tool for expression combining my animation with my music! Very excited a tool like this exists.
Seriously contemplating buying this, Been looking at it for a while now and I think this video may have had the information I needed to make my mind up. Great content btw, keep up the good work ✌😁
@grimshal No. Promoting AI Art is stealing, she failed to clarify she was sponsored in the video, and she equated SynthV AI with AI art. These are more mistakes than cis mens unwanted babies.
@@cleverhardy5230 i get that, but its not a good look to be so harsh, besides some ppl just dont know yet, and its more on dream for not explaining to her in full b4 sponsoring her.
@@cleverhardy5230 ai art is still a bit of grey area cause what is the diffrence between a person or an ai learning from studying an existing art piece. and what is the line from studying to copying. i think this is a bit to nuanced to say for sure just yet, especially so harshly
Most of the demos are in genres that use intentionally-generic, aggressively processed vocals to begin with--in other words right up Dreamtronic's alley. But since, at least initially, this tech will be used primarily by songwriters for demos and commercials, someone is going to have to ramp up the stylistic "range" of singers. SOS magazine tried to do alt-pop, blues rock, and country demos but are miles from being usable in any context. The tech will get there, but I doubt Dreamtronics is going to be the product that gets it done.
@eliana Thank you for the demo. I am computer nerd who is learning to use this app. I am really in to country, dont judge me... What voices would you recommend for that.
For starters, can we stop calling everything "AI" and "Artificial Intelligence"? The vast majority of all this tech is machine learning, which is ANI, not AGI.
Oh boy!! Now that AI can do all the mundane tasks in my artwork, I can focus on marketing and advertising!!!! Oh... wait a minute... I thought marketing and advertising **WAS** the mundane part of my creative career...
Impressive! I will experiment with the Solaria voice which also is pretty good. I believe it will difficult for AI to simulate the human singers full emotional vibes but most likely soon the AI will become fairly good at that too. It's similar to AI picture art, which will likely become really impressive but I doubt that it will reach human masterpiece level of say Claude Monet.
I’m Switzerland on the ethical stance. I create music for ME, as a therapy or outlet to express my voice. After brain surgery I’m horrible about expressing feelings, so this my voice. Legit question; at what point does is no longer get classified as “Art?” If you use AI as if you had a partner to bounce your original ideas off, then IMO it’s still art as we know it. Same thing as sequencers take notes to create patterns without the users input. Most people can’t play the piano to make those beats and melody on their own. However, I believe society is lazy and will just opt to have it do all of the work for them. A rock is a rock, but in the wrong hands it can become a weapon. Eye of the beholder as they say, but everything comes down to a definition. Does the definition of “art” need to be redefined? Have epilepsy from brain surgery, and they keep reclassifying the different symptoms. Maybe as a community it just needs to be embraced as an alternative form of “expression,” and new definitions created to draw the line between the 2 forms.
www.patreon.com/ElianaDangelo
dreamtonics.com/en/synthesizerv/
Vocalist: Natalie
Thanks for making this video!
@Bee Sixteen The accent is sexy, I mix some French in my English. And some French in my Japanese...
Vice versa.
I think people often compare AI vocalists with AI generated art because they both have 'AI' in the name, but in reality they're completely different. Synthesizer V is no different from a MIDI piano: the producer inputs lyrics, melody, and note lenght; then the VST delivers a sample. All AI does is make the sample better, it doesn't create art any more than a computer creates electronic music. The hand of the artist is still completely present. We're having the 70 year old arguement of 'is it still music if a real person isn't playing an instrument?'.
The second most important point is that Dreamtonics has the basic sense of morality to pay the vocalists they hire to create their software, whereas those who create AI generated art don't even have the basic respect for artists to ask their permission.
That's what I tought. I'm also thinking about this scenario: now we can train AI to emulate anybody's voice in less than an hour. Somebody will eventually create software like Dreamtronic's, make it open sourced, and we can put this emulated voices to it, and boom! We will be able to create music with great late singers like Freddie Mercury, George Michael, etc. Amazingly great and scary and confusing at the same time.
@@TwoThreeFour YEP. And at first they won't sound real, and people will turn up their noses at it... and then it will get better and better and better, and one day it'll fool people. We're already there with everything else - my non-music friends can't tell a real drummer from programmed drums, a real orchestra from a sampled version. OK, I probably can't either, if they're done really well. But when it's Frank Sinatra singing a duet with Jimi Hendrix, it'll be interesting to see how it goes down...
And we already can. DiffSinger let's you dump any voice into it and learn to sing. And it's already better then the early versions of SynthV. This is scary and also very intriguing. Just think of what we can create.
@@clehaxze Every time technology gives more music-making power to the people, some will feel threatened. They felt that way about early recording technology. Tech is always going to advance - we can embrace it, or bury our heads in the sand. But it can really suck for people who spent years learning to do something, only to have a machine replace them. I think it's more important than ever to be a lifelong learner.
This. You're literally using a keyboard to play a voice that was gifted to you.
When oyamano was making the new teto voice bank she said she wants to "gift" the world her voice to allow anyone to sing. This is not stealing other people's work and rearranging it with an algorithm.
you don't understand the difference between ai used in synthv and ai used to generate images.
as previously said by many other users, ai is used in synthv in order to make the audio sample sound better. the vocals itself aren't ai generated- dreamtonics hires and pays a vocalist to record samples. there is CONSENT for usage here.
meanwhile, image databases like stable diffusion simply ripped images off the internet, shoved them into their database, and began copy-pasting without any form of permission or consent. this is THEFT. this is why people are anti ai. if this was a closed system where artists had to give explicit permission to use their work in extange for monetary payout, it would be much more tolerated.
take a minute and listen to the other comments. other people in the vocal synth fandom have already reiterated this multiple times, but you refuse to understand. ai vocal synthesis, as used in synthv, will never be part of your art stealing theft ring.
Synthesizer V is a godsend for me because for decades I've been able to write music and lyrics, but only the past year have been able to actually implement them together because I don't have the voice for singing and have always had health issues where I would never be able to do it well anyway. I had actually given up writing lyrics for years because it just pissed off and frustrated me to no end that I thought I'd never be able to actually use it.
One of the few pieces of software that are actually inspiring to use. Feng Yi is my favorite vb at the moment, she's able to move me to tears at times.
I’m sorry but I heavily disagree with this entire take, because for one, vocal synths such as synthV, VOCALOID or UTAU aren’t made to trick anyone, and it is in no way unethical like AI Art is. Unlike with AI art, the voice providers are paid for vocal recordings and it’s meant to be for people who can’t sing themselves, but it still requires a user to actively do the vocal edits/tuning in the process
Maybe next time you should check your research notes
Wait until the tech gets really good to the point all of that tweaking won't be needed as much. 😎
@@ElianaDAngelo well, the tweaking is where the fun part is for a lot of people in the vocal synth scene, including me as well. Just like how humans can each have a unique singing style, vocal synths can be edited/tuned in many styles, whether it be on the realistic side (some vocal synth producers who have this kind of style are KIRA, Giga-P and Cillia), or in the more stylized/inhuman/unrealistic margin, much like how most mainstream vocal synth producers in Japan do it (examples include Hiiragi Kirai’s rough and gargly/growl-ish style using the vocaloid flower, or hachiouji-P’s robotic, pitch snappy style).
So to have the AI advance so much to the point where you barely have any control over the tuning process yourself would kind of ruin the charm, don’t you think?
@@ElianaDAngelo There've been synths that want to try that. Like Emvoice. Which has been a complete failure and is the laughing stock of the vsynth industry.
@@GeneralNuisance00 EXACTLY THAT
Plus, like one commentator mentioned, i feel like one aspect you left out was the growing culture in said vocaloid/vocal synth scene, with not just music involved, but also music videos, choreographies, covers (both vocal synth and human vocal covers), even entire events and concerts. It is still more of a niche genre, but it inspired many to start with music thanks to this culture
and i apologize if i was a bit harsh with my wording in my earlier comments
Nice video, interesting perspective on ai art. I don't necessarily agree, but I'm not passionate enough about it to spend energy writing a youtube comment about it lol.
One thing you left out which I think is an incredibly important part of vocal synthesis (at least right at this moment) is the community/culture that surrounds it. There's a history you can look to from the release of the vocaloids kaito and meiko, to the voicebanks of natalie and eleanor forte. A lot of the people that you will see using synth v are also involved in this community, and if you ever end up releasing a song with a feature from natalie, you're going to come across it yourself at some point. Hell, the reason I'm here in the first place is because someone shared this video in a vocaloid server I'm in. This pseudo-idol culture might be offputting at first, but theres a lot of talented & passionate people involved, making not only music but also music videos, original art, choreographies, 3d models, et cetera. In my mind, vocal synthesis is a multi-media affair. I don't really blame you or anyone else for missing this point cuz this video is a tech showcase, and also dreamtonics has made an active effort to distance itself from this idol-lite culture. However, 3rd party companies like Eclipsed Sounds are more involved with the community, have 2 extremely fucking good voicebanks to boot (seriously, check out Asterian. He's an oktavist voicebank).
With all that said though, it's just software, even hatsune miku was made with the intention of being a silly little program to make your own vocals with. I just find the organic nature of the community building around vocal synthesis very inspiring, and definitely worth a mention, especially if you're looking for people that are WAY too good at using these programs. There's a metal song that uses kevin to do full on screamo vocals which is just insane to me.
Anyways, if you end up reading this, I hope you have a nice day :D
I was going to mention vocaloid but opted not to because I noticed their visual marketing is shifting away from that at Dreamtronics and also the topic would lose some focus. Should just be a video on its own.
@@ElianaDAngelo very true, anyways thanks for the video !
The community is the worst thing about this program. Most audio artists, and solo artists that would be the prime market for this, do not care about the anime culture that they seem to push along with the software. I for one have never cared at all about the characters and do not want my music associated with the characters, it is a great audio tool with very poor marketing.
@@prophetofthesingularity my guy, that aspect of the community is the reason you even know about it, it is not poor marketing, theyre just putting their product out there for people to do whatever they want, if you only want to use it as a music making tool then do so and dont bitch about the anime fans making awesome covers and fanart of the vocal synths
@@prophetofthesingularity the marketing is the characters. maybe it is too old-fashioned at this point, but the reason vocal synths blew up was because you could assign personalities and design looks for the characters, who function like mascots. not to say that the vocals can't speak for themselves, but it is easy to have an accompanying visual to associate the music with especially in visual form. not everyone has to conform to this, but i'd rather the anime art attract those who are interested in vocal synths as an instrument instead of tech bros who think that ai is the replacement for human artists, when vocal synths fall flat without human influence (whether that be manual tuning or sampling from human vocals).
I really disagree with this take. Lemme come at this from the perspective of someone in tech, who works with vocal synths in my free time, of the AI and non-AI variety. The difference between AI vocal synths and AI art generators is the issue of consent and compensation. Given how AI works, the AI isn't able to create anything, not really. It basically makes collages made up of the training data. It can't make creative decisions.
In commercial AI vocal synths, given that voice providers must consent to have their voice used, are paid for their time, and paid royalties on each sale of the database based on them, those ethical qualms we see with AI art are minimal due to the presence of consent. With AI art, we have thousands of artists having their works scraped and profited off of without their consent or knowledge, and no compensation is offered. The AI can't "take inspiration" from art, it just mashes things together, and has resulted in a LOT of stolen artwork. It's even resulted in situations where people have had the AI just make nonconsensual pr0n of them or another person out of NOWHERE, which is kinda disturbing when you think about it for more than six seconds when combined with the lack of consent or compensation. Voice providers for AI vocal synths are made VERY aware of the fact that people can make all sorts of content, including sexually explicit content, with their voice if the database goes up for sale. People who have their work scraped don't get that chance to say no.
You also have to take into account that AI art is not protected by copyright and cannot be used commercially under US law, as there's little to no human intervention in the process of making the output. Meanwhile, SynthV still requires a person know the fundamentals of music, and requires a LOT of human intervention, since it's basically just like Vocaloid with clearer output and a user interface that doesn't make me want to slam my head into a wall. SynthV still requires a user to have skills. AI art requires nothing but spamming random words and sitting there for 3 hours for the algorithm to give you something with the right number of fingers and teeth.
I was looking for a comment like this. Thank you for saying this!
THIS
When one artist takes inspiration or directly copies an idea (like a melody/chord progression/percussion) technically the original artist isn't consenting to that, yet transcription in music (and visual art) is essential to building a vocabulary and foundation as an artist. All of us create ideas based off of what has come before us. If I use an Autumn leaves progression, should I compensate someone for that? I would say no. when someone puts work into the public domain it is subject to people adopting ideas from the source material. This is why there exists certain musical conventions in certain cultures based on the re-contextualizing of ideas. In a similar way, a diffusion model, for example is abstracting its training data into 'noise' that can then be gradually pulled from over many iterations from a model to get back an approximation.
And the word 'create' is doing a lot of heavy lifting on your end. When a human makes a 'creative' decision they don't sit there and go "I'm going to make a creative decision today" it is something that just sort of happens from a mixture of life experience and some combining of disparate information in the brain. Some set of circumstances based on Bayesian principals allows this to happen. We as humans receive thoughts that come from our 'unconscious' mind and then later rationalize them.
If we are talking about a diffusion type of model we can roughly equate this to the way noise is used to generate an image based on training data and various ways they might abstract that data. A structure emerges over iterations of the idea. This isn't some thing where its taking a tree from one painting and pasting it with a bench from another. In the case of visual art, it's creating abstractions of the input data into a final output through an iterative process. It is not a 1:1 reconstruction in the same way we can't do an exact copy.
In regards to adult content, be it AI or drawn/3d modeled by humans people are going to make fan art of real people. AI can get more authentic for sure but there is nothing really that can be done. Plus, any resources related to that I would rather be spent preventing distribution of content of people under the age of consent for obvious reasons.
I think it is great that Dreamtonics is paying artists to train on their voices. I think it is something they should continue to do. That being said, more open AI standards are not going to do that and it is just a fact of life. It would be up to the courts and lawyers to decide on if it is okay to use a singers voice in payed software that is meant to imitate their likeness.
Synth V does require quite a bit of input to get more nuanced performances for sure, but I think in the next coming years the training will be so good that we will be able to use text to dictate what way certain passages are sang ("Soft in the style of X singer") and the software within that define space of time that the text modifier is there will generate new takes. Or even suggesting melodic ideas based on what it hears harmonically.
I feel the team at Dreamtonics is very forward thinking and I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like this has been discussed.
As for the comments on hands in AI art, hands are really tough for humans to understand too. They are very complicated. Any time I've had to polymodel them in 3d art they always give me some trouble. It will just take more time for AI to really 'understand' how hands work.
@@ElianaDAngelo The difference between human copying and AI use of data is that oftentimes, humans will make their own transformations and mistakes or add their own little nuances to the mix - none of this happens with AI. AI will copy and paste, it's all that it really can do. If AI was truly transformative, or if its data was harvested ethically by consenting artists, no one here would have a problem with it, but that is not the case, and it's why the VAST majority of users of Synthesizer V are vehemently anti-AI art. Not to mention that a good chunk of vsynth producers are multi-talented and are also artists, and thus have greater insight into the nuances than "well humans copy too" which isn't the checkmate you think it is.
You fail to understand that the issue is less so that a computer did it, and entirely that an entity, computer or humah, did it WITHOUT CONSENT. Nobody here cares that Stable Diffusion is an AI. Everyone here that is anti-AI art cares that Stable Diffusion did not get consent from artists to be included in their dataset, and that their work can now be used in material they object to, such as hateful content, NSFW content, or in very extreme cases where something has gone VERY wrong, NSFW content made without the consent of all parties involved or CSEM, and no real way to rectify it or opt out before it happens. When it comes to vsynths, voice providers have the possibilities laid out to them very clearly, and they have that option to nope out. That's the difference.
Please note that I am saying all of this as someone who IS in the process of voicing an AI voice library for an open-source vocal synth, and as a digital artist, albeit a digital artist in the beginning of her journey, and as someone who is fairly familiar with how ML works on a fundamental level.
Okay, so you aren't going to qualify any of your moral positions, address any of my points, and just repeat the same talking points everyone else is on Twitter in the same manner with no nuance. Just going through an NPC dialogue tree. I think that's great you are doing that project and wish you the best. But if you are just at the beginning of your journey, there is a lot of learning and nuance in art that I hope you come to understand.
Philosophical "what is art" argument aside, two very big things to remember with stuff like SynthV. #1: AI powered, or not, at the end of the days it's still a synth. it's not an AI song generator. you still need to know music to do something with it just like any kontakt library or VSTi, and #2: Unlike the vast majority of publicly available "AI art generators" this program is made with the express consent of the voice provider, who are well paid for the use of their data. This isn't scraping the internet for 10s of thousands of hours of vocal data. this isn't gonna "destroy the music industry" cause at the end of the day, as awful as it is, it's still less effort to underpay a session singer or lock an upstart in a predatory contract
Yes for sure. I still had to use my experience and skill to make it sound good. However with the scraping internet for data, this a complex subject for sure. But I generally don't see it as theft personally
Oi, 'thanks' for auto-deleting my SynthV-information-text I wrote for a person in the comments!
Pretty weird of you to disregard all of those who give actual reasons and info about why your reasoning isnt exactly right but dont care because goo goo ga ga anime icon. Guess what, lots of synthesizer V voicebanks look like anime girls and anime boys. A great part of synthesizer V users are made up of vocaloid fans and anime icons, and if you bother to at least search it up, you can see how many vocaloids and various popular singing synthesizers are anime styled. Maybe you wouldn't have gotten backlash if you bothered to research what you're reviewing, you would've been psychologically prepared for all these stupid anime icons that dare to comment.
I was around for Vocaloid when it came out and used some of the early versions. I remember the Miku craze very well.
Great demonstration video! I think the main reason people would be upset about the progress of AI artwork/music production is the method of gathering datasets. the stable diffusion model's data was gathered without the consent of the artists who it stole from, and that's mainly where people's issue with it came from. There's a lot of fearmongering going on in terms of "will AI art replace the need for artists??" and I agree with you on the front that it almost definitely won't, but I maybe think this was the wrong video to talk about that in, since Synthesizer V AI collects data from paid and consenting vocalists. Stable diffusion is a great tool and a fantastic idea bogged down by the fact that it had to steal art from several thousand unknowing artists to build it's model, so I wouldn't really consider it relevant or wise to discuss the positives of it in a video about SynthV AI.
slay
Spot on
Oyamano mayo when making the teto voice bank said she wants to "gift" her voice to the world for anyone to make music with. This is an extension of a keyboard synthesizer with modern sound processing algorithms. This has no relation to ai artwork that's stealing original content.
If AI developers commissioned artists for the work they're training their models on the same way VSynth companies pay vocalists for their audio samples this would be a nonissue.
It's not at all like a human being taking inspiration from the works of another human being, you've let the name fool you into thinking the machine is actually thinking; an AI trained exclusively on, say, photorealism, will never be able to produce anything but photorealism, because it's only able to synthesize new combinations of the information it already explicitly has laid out in front of it.
If I put colored pencils and paper in front of a human artist who has never in their life heard of anime and then describe to them the concept of an art style largely characterized by visible linework, highly saturated colors, simple block shading, exaggerated body/face proportions, etc, etc, that person would be able to eventually give me something that looks like what you and I would consider anime in a way AI cannot achieve because it's not making anything new or thinking and likely won't be able to for decades. They're prompt-based photobash generators, nothing more.
It's basically hiring a vocalist, except that a normal person can afford it and use it forever... BUT, I doubt anyone using Synthesizer V would ever pay a singer, most people using it just don't have the money or interest to pay someone, or/and they don't have any friend that can do it well, and so, it has a clear and perfectly justifiable place. It's basically really just a synth, it's called Synthesizer V for a reason, it doesn't allow for that much tweaking because it's very complex, but you can always do a lot of interesting stuff after the fact
Wrong - I have hired vocalists and I love having the control I have in Synthesizer V without the tantrums or the ever ticking cost meter. If singers were easier to work with I would still use them.
I feel like the difference between synthV (as well as things like Spiderverse's AI tools) and most AI art is that, unlike the latter, all the data used for training was given by the source consensually. The problem isn't the concept of AI-generated stuff, it's that the data used to train AI is stolen, which is not the case for SynthV. Plus, since you need to purchase snyth V products, using SynthV directly supports the source vocalists financially. In addition, there is a lot of influence you can have on the vocals' results, meaning you have to actively tune the vocals to get your results. I feel SynthV is less like Stable Diffusion and more like Instrument and synth VSTs... but with vocals instead.
I think the fear that artists have is justified. But I also believe that artists are naturally creative and will find ways to use AI in creative ways that normal, mon creative people won't. And in the long-term it will actually lead to more interesting and creative ideas, because AI will be able to quickly handle certain tasks that would take a human hours or days to complete.
A friend told me that this video is the closest thing to a larger clickbait promotional video in the vsynth community, I agree on that, this thing should be closed
google how do you dislike a video a million times on youtube
So much electrical, computer, and software engineering goes into AI, and that takes creativity as well. I’m a musician and an RF PCB design engineer (Think the circuit board in your cellphone), and a lot of human ingenuity and creativity went into the foundation of AI well beyond just ‘art’, a lot of schooling and humanity. AI will always have us in it. Humans created and trained it.
One non-philosophical issue with your argument for AI in case of this AI vocalist tool, is that its not the same as Image Generation AI. Here the singer has given consent to take a snapshot of her voice and was compensated for it. There is no ethical problem with this from data theft or intellectual theft point of view.
That's exactly it. Vocal synths are not generators, they are synths. Nobody is calling Noteperformer an "AI orchestra generator" or a kontakt piano library an "AI piano generator".
I don't see it as an issue even if it was trained on publically available resources. We steal musical ideas all the time and repurpose them. I see an AI abstracting training data as not much different.
@@ElianaDAngelo What AI does is not the same as a person taking inspiration: it's more like a person doing a decent photoshop job of a bunch of different images. Which is plagiarism, and protected by copyright law. Without direct use of the images, the artwork would not exist, so legally the artist has to give permission or be compensated. 'Inspiration' and 'using' are not the same noun, what AI art generators do is usage, not inspiration.
This is why recent litigation has ruled that you can't use AI art commercially (so don't use it in any album covers). But you can sell songs with Synthesizer V, because they obtained legal permission from the vocalist. If someone creates a piece of technology that needs your work to function, then you deserve to be paid. Most people find it incredibly disturbing when people create AI clones of very personal aspects of themselves, like their likeness, art or voice. So it should be basic ethical common sense not to be a creepy, and ask first.
@@ElianaDAngelo There is a more nuanced ethics and legal problem with AI voice synthesis beyond just "stealing" for musical purposes and it's the fact that now people can make anyone say whatever they want
@@dzjin Luckily, with commercial vocal synths, voice providers are informed of this, and the implications that come with it, and given a chance to say no. With AI art in its current form, there have been cases where the AI makes nonconsensual pr0n or creates hateful content out of basically nowhere, and the artists who've had their images scraped to create that do NOT get that chance to say no. Consent is still the main thing that separates ethical uses of neural networks in a creative setting from unethical ones.
As a vocalist,I think is really incredible. It can help me come up with ideas quickly that I can do my own thing to afterwards. bad ass.
Yeah great sketch tool. I was gonna mention the idea of being able to prototype vocals as a producer and send them to a vocalist.
@@ElianaDAngelo oh yeah, that's a great use too!
this AI is ok cause its only performing sing, but AI that can compose or write songs will kill creativity of humans and evantualy will kill our spirit . creativity was the only thing that makes us better then the machins , if this will end we will become comfrtormbly numb
I LOVE the stylistic choice of keeping breath sounds in the mix. It creates a very intimate connection to the listener, like the singer is only a few inches away. "This Kiss" by Carly Rae Jepsen is an example I often use to illustrate this effect.
Thank you Eliana!
Another producer/musician here that really likes the new technologies!
I do get tired of my own voice though, and so have been watching for the right AI vocals to add to the works. I have some good experience with Synth V and it looks like it's grown in good directions since I used it a few years back. Always liked that it's offline!
Very much appreciated this video and to learn about the discussions apparently going on around AI music and art. Maybe human music/art creations still have the edge with an emotional depth, a baring of a soul and the satisfaction felt after the project. ?
Myer Hollow
you can do it by hand it just takes a lot time and skill. I am not good vocaloid producer but I realized that human singers did not hold perfect pitch so I edited the pitch to smooth out transition between large jumps.
if u use a + after a word with multiple syllables it will spread them thru the notes
Tip for you. You do not have to break up the word feeling, draw the length that you want and when you type the word feeling, just add the + symbol at the end of the word. This goes for any word that is 2 syllables and more.
I used the Arturia V vocoder on a track and it worked really well. WIth the presets I had no control over the vocal that was sung, but I could add my own vocal as needed. I see Synthesizer V as a logical extension of the Vocder instrument. The fact that a musician like me that can't sing can type lyrics and have a vocalist sing my lyrics is a game changer. I can't see how me using this tool would put vocalists out of a job (as I never found a vocalist that would want to sing on my tracks). You need to be creative to use a tool like this too. I welcome these tools to help my song writing craft.
I checked out the vocaloid stuff, I like the robotic vocal type, hey, I'm a BASS player, and an eccentric.....
Thank you for sharing your experience with us !!!
I got the Pro Studio with Solaria and Kevin, been fiddling with it for a few weeks, and it's truly deep, amazing, mind-blowing software. I'm not at all worried about AI ruining art (other arenas of existence are another story) for the simple reason that computational intelligence is not sentience, and artistic intention will always require a subject who intends, whatever medium or tool is used for the artistic expression. Nice overview.
the latter half of this video lacks a lot of nuance, and shows ignorance towards how vocal synthesis technology works. the main reason why so many people are opposed to AI art in its current state is because many of the publicly available generators like DALL-E have been trained without respect to copyright or artist approval. many AI generators accidentally end up replicating copyrighted content in their works, and there have been countless cases of an AI copying an existing piece of artwork so closely that regardless of anyone's philosophical standpoint on whether AI art is 'good' or 'bad', most would agree that it definitely crosses the line from 'inspiration' to plagiarism. all synthesizer V voicebanks are trained using data from vocalists who both agreed to participate and were compensated for their work, so that sets it apart from most current AI and text generators in a pretty significant way.
the very questionable comparison between AI art and vocal synthesis aside, it seems disingenuous to promote this video as a discussion of whether or not AI art is ethical when you straight-up ignored one of the major talking points against it aside from calling concerns about theft 'laughable' (seemingly due to the fact that you don't see an issue with training on copyrighted content against the artist's wishes, based on your responses to other comments.)
if someone took your music and trained an AI on it without your consent, and the AI produced something that's *technically* an original combination of sounds but is incredibly derivative of your work, even containing snippets of vocals and note progressions that can be traced back to specific songs of yours, wouldn't you be upset? would there really be zero issue if anyone on the internet could type your name into a program, click a few buttons, and generate a song that sounds exactly like your music, contains recognizable elements of your songs to the point where many would question if it's plagiarism, and then that random person could claim the song as their own creation and use it however they want (monetize it, enter/win music contests with it, sell it to a record label) would you really have zero issue with that? such a scenario may sound dramatic, but all that is already happening for visual artists.
i’m not even anti-AI art as a concept; you’re right that there’s a lot of potential in the technology and definitely a use for it, but the way many current databases function make it more of a threat to artists than a helpful tool. it’s still a very new technology, but court cases are already shaping regarding the dubious legality of these training models.
im new to the debate on ai art, what are some of the cases of plagirism happening
@@tavellcoops
Not exactly plagiarism but
r/StableDiffusion had someone using SamDoesArt's name directly as a prompt, having an AI artwork in the style of him.
It could've been fine at that point, but the redditor had the audacity to *sell* the model and art, saying that they don't need to ask Sam for permission.
It was ugly all around. Sam, and his fans were upset, and r/StableDiffusion just made more AI artworks in the style of Sam.
@@cybergalacticnova ohh ok i can see where thats a problem
@@tavellcoops currently the biggest issue is with users uploading other people's art into AI generators and claiming ownership over the slightly altered image, or typing the name of a popular artist into the generator and using it to produce something extremely similar to their work, often without their consent or against their wishes. sorry if this comment goes through multiple times, i tried to link to a few articles but youtube keeps taking down my reply :/ i wrote descriptions for each one so that you can search them up yourself if you wanna read, though.
article 1 summary: an artist known as ato1004fd was drawing a character (raiden from genshin) on livestream, someone took a screenshot of the work in progress art, put it in an AI generator to 'finish it', then claimed it as their own work and posted it before the artist had a chance to finish their own piece. understandably, lots of people were mad (source: dotesports)
article 2 summary: a general overview of the controversy that cites how erin hanson, an artist with a very distinct style of painting landscapes, was able to produce AI images that mimicked some of her own pieces with shocking accuracy. (source: CNN)
article 3 summary: a guy entered a piece of AI-generated artwork into an art contest in his city and won a cash prize. this caused a ton of controversy, since he not only won an art contest with something that he didn't draw himself, but he also profited from it. (source: new york times)
i've also seen cases of AI images closely resembling the existing works it was trained on even if the original art wasn't uploaded as a reference image, but it was a while ago on twitter and i can't find the link to it. the one i remember most closely was specifically an anime-styled image that was a recognizable copy of an artist's drawing on pixiv, but with different hair and clothes and stuff. the pose and some other elements of the image were the exact same, but there were too many differences for it to have been an altered version of the original photo. as for other examples of plagiarism, it's pretty common for AI art to contain mangled bits of artist signatures. artists sign their drawings for the same reason that every movie has credits at the end: so that the creators can receive recognition for their work and the audience knows who made what they're looking at. in reality the mangled signatures are just a side effect of the AI learning that artists send to sign their work, but the irony of AI creating frankensteined nonsense signatures in lieu of crediting the actual artists whose work was used kinda speaks for itself.
I was today at the NAMM show and was checking "Dreamtonics" Synthesizer V and AI vocal performers. The Spanish pop AI vocalist exhibited an extraordinary level of realism, delivering a remarkably musical performance. The producer is still required to input an authentic midi melody line, lyrics, and perform some tweaking, but the potential for outstanding vocal results is undeniable.
to anyone worried if this software will "replace" real singers - please dont. as a vocal synth (mostly vocaloid) fan for over 8 years, music made with any sort of vocal synthesis software (vocaloid, utau, synthv, cevio, etc) mostly stays within its own bubble and is considered its own "genre". the majority of people arent even aware software like this exists - and when they learn, they think its new and revolutionary when this style of singing synthesis has been around for almost 20 years now. if it ever becomes mainstream (like top 40), which it most likely wont, it will take a very very long time. yes, synthv is extremely realistic, but while the companies say some vocals are made for "professionals" or something like that, softwares like these in general are mostly end up being for a specific niche regardless of the companies' target.
in my personal opinion, i feel like the reason for the development of ai vocal synths (synthv studio ai, cevio ai, vocaloid 6, etc) is not to completely replace human singers, but because the standard for "good tuning" (editing the vocal synth to sound a specific way) to most people in the fandom has become as human as possible. im honestly not a huge fan of this, and i could go on a whole rant about why realistic tuning isnt always good and that standard is actually harmful etc, but thats a different topic.
tldr: most people will never care about any sort of vocal synth, so this software "replacing" human singers shouldnt be a concern. (sorry for the rant btw! vocal synths is my special interest and i love talking about these kinds of aspects of it)
I just think that people are concerned about the wrong stuff. A.I. should be a tool not a replacement. Even if certain options don't necessarily need a human but human is what art is for. So, human will always be involved. One day Ai will be able to cook food but who will eat the food? So, human will always be involved in creating food that the human likes and finds acceptable. In music the Ai isn't the replacement any more than a synthesizer replaced anybody in electronic music in the 80s. The AI is a tool, and the work and creativity still comes from the human. I have seen a lot of AI music and art that just isn't any good. What makes it good is when a human artist or musician is directing the AI as a tool.
I just got the product a few days ago and have been watching a few videos about it, which is probably how this video was recommended to my feed. Anyway, I have played music for about 25 years, and while I can play guitar somewhat decently, my vocal abilities have never been up to the level I would want them to be. I intend to use the software to help me see if the vocal melodies I hear in my head would work for a given song. I also plan to hire vocalists to actually help me record the songs once I feel I have a good melody to use as a base for them to work.
I can’t believe this is a year old already. I’ve been using Suno mainly for vocals and it was only after I paid for a subscription that I began discovering software like this that allows the user to program the midi notes for the vocals. I’m looking forward to the point when they’re basically completely merged into the best of both worlds. I agree with your take that you shared a t the end of this video. But I do have a few thoughts on this…
The vocal tracks I’m using don’t sound like any specific “famous” singer. I’m using my own original music tracks and lyrics that are 100% written by me. I have to prompt the AI 50 times and rearrange multiple versions to get a version that not only is really good but also true to my original vision for the song. I wouldn’t let it completely re-write my song and call it good, just like I wouldn’t let a real vocalist do such a thing. Also, just like a real vocalist, it isn’t going to perform everything perfectly the way I wrote it. It’s going to make suggestions for things that could be improved and I have the choice to use it or not. But it won’t get its feelings hurt when I delete a bad idea or scoff at me when I ask for 50 more versions. It doesn’t have feelings and doesn’t get tired. So, logically, the end result is more of a product of my creativity and persistence than a session with a real vocalist might be. With a real vocalist I could get a small handful of versions or takes and have to settle with one and might never be truly satisfied with it. But with Suno, one in 50 is likely to absolutely nail it better than any singer ever could.
I can’t help but rant about this stuff but my point is that it’s my music, my lyrics, my relentless searching for the perfect version of a vocal track that ends up being a great song. It’s MY song. It’s not stolen because you will never hear this music anywhere else. Whether I choose to release the music with the AI vocals or re-record it with a real vocalist is an artistic choice, not an ethical one. I hope and predict that in the very near future I’ll be able to consistently create vocals that are indistinguishable from a real singer and I will release it without hesitation. Because it’s exciting new technology, no different from 15 years ago when I discovered midi and EZ Drummer and programming my own drum samples and keyboards and orchestral arrangements.
We've been able to do this with every other instrument for years - The only 'problem' is if/when people pretend its not a synth... I think as long as we are honest about it being a synth and not a real vocalist, i see no issues... Just be honest :)
This would be great for a songwriter who is not a singer and doesn't have access to a demo singer to make a demo recording. In Japan they have Vocaloid "artists" paired with holograms doing concerts... I wouldn't believe it if there weren't videos of it on youtube.....
The holograms is the exact same vocal synth technology! But it's not AI-based. (except for CeVIO, they're a Japanese AI vocal synthesizer.) People use them bc they don't have access to a demo singer and recording.
The holograms and usually a mascot tied to a voicebank. Some SynthV voices, mostly under Dreamtonics, don't have designs.
No matter what virtual technology, AI, CGI, writing a hit song will all ways be a matter of talent. Ask yourself: If you know that a hit song would have been made entirely by a computer without any human interaction, would you still appreciate it? If you watch a movie that is completely CGI generated with mindblowing effects , but without a strong story, would you still like it?
Good video explaining what you can do with vocal synths and show that the quality of vocal synthesis is improving all the time. The video was well put together - your demonstration of the various features and capabilities of the synthesizer was very clear as there’s a lot to learn - a great tool for trying out an original song if your not great at singing or recording audio and great for making a demo to show off your song to a singer.
Here's an interesting take...AI and technology have revolutionized music production, making it easier for novice producers to create beats using samples, loops, melody generators, and instant instrumental makers. However, this has resulted in a decrease in opportunities for traditional musicians like keyboard players, drummers, and wind instrument players. It's ironic that Drake, who benefits from sampling and copying himself, complains about his voice being cloned or sampled, considering that the samples used in music are the unique "voice" of the creator. While AI has impacted certain musicians, it has not yet replaced lead vocalists on live stages. Finally some vocalists and rappers now understand how it feels to be replaced by technology after years of honing their craft.
I think this is a great tool to launch ideas from. Hired talent will be able to interpret the ideas created and expound upon them. The end result will be amazing. We have been doing this for centuries. Rather than a human leveraging influence from another human, this tool may offer some influence that would never before be realized. Keeping things in perspective is key. The human expression will be fine as we explore these new horizons in creativity.
Hi Eliana,
I agree with you, I don't think that AI for Music will ever replace an actual real Male or Female vocalist. The first thought of many that come to mind is how do you go see the band perform live, with what a front person lip-syncing??? I think not. I think AI can be a Great Tool, but that's just what it is, a Tool... Unfortunately, there may be some situations where AI may get misused.
In comparison, I have seen several bands playing out using backing tracks, and as I took a small survey of about 20 people in several different venues the consensus of approx. 100 people total was:
1. They had no idea backing tracks were being used. Although hearing a bunch of Syth parts and having no Keyboard player, sort of eludes me.
2. When asked they did not care and just wanted to have fun dancing. So I wonder what similar direction this AI may run.
In regards to your thoughts about Art:
You look at Art and you either like it or you don't.... If the attitude holds true from my polling about the knowledge backing tracks being used. Then I don't think the average person will care at all......Seems like the only people who really seem to care, are the Artists out there, from the Fear of the Unknown... They're afraid while imagining different scenarios in their mind, mostly with not good outcomes and it scares them. Think about it, if the outcome they imagine was Good, then it wouldn't scare them and they would embrace it and not say anything, especially if it put money in their pocket.
As a Musician & Songwriter who can write good music, but can't sing, it's a Milestone for me. Creating a Melody, adding words, and uploading both to the AI creating a Vocal part, has just opened a new door.... Keep up the Great work... ElectricEddie😎
As a producer and musician I've been waiting for this moment but it happened even faster than I expected. Certainly makes me feel a bit like the cashier getting replaced by the self check out, but that's just my hang up haha. I think for professionals in the industry the most concerning thing is that we can clearly see how AI can now fully create music WITH VOCALS. This of course means that streaming companies, labels, syndicated radio and tech savvy capitalists will be heavily enticed to create AI generated music that costs virtually nothing and more importantly requires no payout of royalties on the master or songwriting side. The industry is run by all sorts of non-artists and if they can dramatically maximize profits by side stepping artists it is absolutely inevitable that they will. Hopefully this means that the lashback culturally will be an appetite for music so original that it couldn't be conceived of by an AI or non-artist.
AI is not at the point where it could design a good sounding song on its own, and it probably never will hit that point because computer intelligence lacks the human creative spark. It will still need someone who has a background in music theory to understand *why* a particular note sounds good in a progression, and how and where to apply it, and AI is incapable of generating meaningful lyrics that speak to humans, due to the aforementioned lack of the creative spark. You can sit infinite monkeys at typewriters to get the complete works of William Shakespeare, but it would take so many monkeys as to be unprofitable, when they could just do it with real people and save money, honestly.
A good use for this as a producer would be prototyping lyrics in a song you are writing, before working with a vocalist to lay down finalized vocals. It can simplify that prototyping part of a song before you get your vocalist into the studio to do takes.
Awesome video. I love AI and I see it already influencing my workflow and my creativity, in a positive way. I get why people are 'afraid' of AI or just don't like it or say there's no soul. But those are the same people who hear a difference between CDs and mp3s, or say that DJs don't have to be talented...
YOU SPELL IT WRONG! It's DreamTONICS, not Dreamtronics
have fun with your "free market perspective," but don't be surprised when the free market decides that your job can be undercut
Pretending that my day job isn't entry level retail lmao. Regulated mostly free market is based
@@ElianaDAngelo doesn't detract from my point. ai will be used to take jobs away from musicians wherever possible, just as it's begun to take jobs away from visual artists. if you actually care for artists making a living for themselves, especially with how shit conditions are now, have some solidarity
@@ElianaDAngelo ai is being used to take jobs from everyone, not just creatives. walk into your local grocery store and look at the cleaning robot they have in place of a janitor. see the self checkouts. look at the attempts to perfect self-driving vehicles. soon, your employer won't need you.
its not about fear or missunderstanding Towards ai, at least in visual art... Visual artists are upset with ai because it uses a data base with art that no one gave permision to use, simple as that .they didnt have the rights to use anothers person art without asking them, i think its fair to be upset.
Following you channel and music. Fabulous video thanks for sharing!
voice synths are not the same as ai art. one is bad and built upon the work of creators that were asked no consent to feed into the algorithm for their work and used to sell nfts or other bullshit. the other is singing robots
One comment: as a visual artist, I can tell you that I do not *want* to spend more time on the marketing or advertising of my work. I *enjoy* the detailed creative process, that's what I'm here for. It's not something I need to be liberated from by AI. Otherwise, I good demonstration of what SynthV can do.
Can't wait to attempt an live concert to see and hear that AI artists 😀
Wow! What an eye-opener! This is actually the next step in vocal synthesis I was looking forward to and it sounds better at this stage than I imagined. This can be a great tool for me as a songwriter who can't sing to write demo's and even finished projects!
I love your vision on AI and I agree. And I think it won't really make to much of a difference anyway. We've all had our templates/presets or other help tools, non-ai based, and nobody complained. Well maybe a couple. At least with AI you get a little more diversity.
Hi,
I just saw this review of this AI tool. I am also a songwriter who prefers to use other vocalists. Do you know if this SW can take an XML MIDI file of a melody line with lyrics and output a voice audio file?
@@claymanproductions3324 It should be able to take a melody line and lyrics and sing along with your song. I believe there's a demo version of the software if you want to test it.
Thank you for your overview of dreamtonics vocal synthesis, plug-in. I dismiss any of the arguments against AI based art. I am an old thing so I started in the music business when it still was a business during the late 70s. I would love to have had this back in the day. The good old days aren’t always so good. Anyway, I would get the same critics when I first started using sampled percussion live during the 80s and 90s. Later people really didn’t care as long as someone was playing the drums. Now bands play live with backing tracks and it’s just accepted as a tool and representing their art. The emergence of AI has been expected, and it will do nothing except increase, especially once quantum computing technology becomes practical New things, just frighten people. On the subject of this vocal synthesis plug-in. I have tried using Vocaloid, which I believe is owned by Yamaha in the past, but it was much too clumsy to be productive, except for some FX and background vocals for what I do. I know the K and J-pop scene use vocal synthesis with success. I have a certain workflow and it’s no longer enjoyable if it takes me longer to program an edit a synthetic AI plug-in, compared to just hiring a pro and getting it knocked out in less than a week. Hopefully this product will keep improving for use in production, especially with the reimbursement costs for the music arts being so dismal now compared to when I started. Thank you again for the video and the overview. This product definitely shows promise.
Delulu
To think how much more sophisticated this will get in time. It nearly fools me in the mix of a song without any finetuning applied. It's nice to have this around where a lot of us who can't sing, are locked out from the demand for vocal centric music. I know people are kinda tired of paying out to divas to collab where both parties are nowhere and getting a half baked effort in return lol. AI is a great response to that.
I guess someone who doesn't understand how the not-really Artificial Intelligence creates these AI-pictures shouldn't tell others how to feel about it...? After all, it's relevant to understand the difference between a database and a person.
i cant wait for them to figure out how to get rid of the weird resonances that these synth vocals have
i like your take on ai and i agree with you. i don't like the sound of ai vocal synths, there are online tools that can generate vocals that actually sound really cool but overall i think you're right.
AI is a great tool but you got the roles reversed. We should entirely be dedicated to the arts of music, painting and writing, as well as researching and internalizing all forms of culture because doing such things is hugely rewarding to the human spirit. What should AI do then? Well, all the boring dehumanizing bullshit like marketing, monetizing, reports, accountability and taxes.
ahhh she said dreamtronics ahhhh ahhh hahahahaha ahhh 😂😂
tbh i had to check if i was saying wrong the whole time
This stuff is really cool as someone who has not been fortunate enough to make music my career, and thus my voice continually degrades over time due to the nature of my actual work. It's been making me so self conscious lately, but it's cool to imagine maybe one day I can use my old vocals as training data to print over a take with my lower/drier vocals and make some kind of concession. Not so much this, but with stuff like Holly+ type voice replacement, but I assume they will exist alongside each other in a future DAW.
AI "artwork" and SynthV are literally not comparable and to do so is misleading and the huge example of rage baiting and preying on peoples ignorance.
I bought it too. It is fantastic.
You are simply amazing beautiful young lady. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are so informative ❤❤
I'm pretty sure many will shudder at the thought that a voice is AI... but, for creative writers, this will be their opportunity make a song that's entirely theirs without being able to sing.
I'm looking forward to use it myself.
Even just to bake snippets or even backing vocals, it could be useful if you actually sing yourself.
Without being able to sing on proper level myself, I just want to remind you, that Vocaloid and UTAU already existed for a looong time. Synthesizer V (both Standard- and AI-Voicebanks) is simply the next step.
3:15 not really an accurate claim. This kind of software has been around for two decades, and people have been 'tuning' it since before AI made it easy (Synth V AI with automatic tuning being maybe 3 years old). That said, the vocal fluctuations are very subtle and it really helps to have something that can plot fundamental pitch (like melodyne or various DAW plugins) to see what is happening in better detail.
SynthV is an instrument, Vocaloid is art
Sounds artificial to me straight off the bat. Just trying the current free version - not sure how to actually get some audible changes with vibrato etc...
AI is not stealing from artists; it's just speeding up our process of influence! ! Every artist has been influenced by other artists since the beginning of art. Now we're just being influenced by artificial intelligence finding those artists and helping us influence other artists.
I want an AI voice because I lost the ability to sing a few years back. I still write songs and this tool will help me show others what I want, with the tiniest nuance. Thanks for your demo and discussion.
can i find the full versions of the example songs anywhere please? they sound soo good
3:16 "and this is something you would not be able to do by hand"
vocaloid and utau users before AI voicebanks: wELL EXCUSE ME-
Can't wait for this to be just as expensive if not more expensive than Vocaloid. 😬
EDIT: Nevermind! Oh my goodness, its even got a free version. I love this!!!
Its actually really cheap. Was surprised at the pricing
@@ElianaDAngelo After trying out their demo, I am extremely keen on picking this up as soon as I can afford it!
I had wanted to do an alter ego to my own music, where animated characters can take the mainstage instead of myself. Serving as a tool for expression combining my animation with my music! Very excited a tool like this exists.
@@Rollthered Synthesizer V Studio Basic supports paid Voicebanks too, you know? Pro just offers some extras.
Hmm.. this is miles ahead compared to some other plugins like Emvoice! Amazing. Btw. the Natalie voice pack is very nice
Actually just purchased the studio with Natalie. Seldom purchase anything on "impulse" but this was a must😉
You really couldn't take a honest take of ART AIs not even vocal AIs, my comments get deleted.
This thing is pretty damn incredible. Thanks for the detailed run-down Eliana!
nice to see someone optimistic about ai and music for once :) looks very interesting
Seriously contemplating buying this, Been looking at it for a while now and I think this video may have had the information I needed to make my mind up.
Great content btw, keep up the good work ✌😁
Can you please make a video on how to produce 80s lead vocals, maybe recording process and processing chains
Wow, Dreamtonics making the worst marketing choices they could ever do!
mmm...i think its best if we keep some takes to ourselves, maybe try and look at her side of it too b4 casting stones
@grimshal No. Promoting AI Art is stealing, she failed to clarify she was sponsored in the video, and she equated SynthV AI with AI art.
These are more mistakes than cis mens unwanted babies.
@@cleverhardy5230 i get that, but its not a good look to be so harsh, besides some ppl just dont know yet, and its more on dream for not explaining to her in full b4 sponsoring her.
@grimshal It's on the both of them! Dreamtronics never explained, D'Angelo refused to listen to others on AI art. My conscience is clear.
@@cleverhardy5230 ai art is still a bit of grey area cause what is the diffrence between a person or an ai learning from studying an existing art piece. and what is the line from studying to copying. i think this is a bit to nuanced to say for sure just yet, especially so harshly
Most of the demos are in genres that use intentionally-generic, aggressively processed vocals to begin with--in other words right up Dreamtronic's alley. But since, at least initially, this tech will be used primarily by songwriters for demos and commercials, someone is going to have to ramp up the stylistic "range" of singers. SOS magazine tried to do alt-pop, blues rock, and country demos but are miles from being usable in any context. The tech will get there, but I doubt Dreamtronics is going to be the product that gets it done.
thanks for sharing your thoughts and the tutorial. Good job
Excellent Tutorial @Eliana.. thanks indeed. by the way, can you please tell me which track was playing in the Video background from 1.07 ??
@eliana Thank you for the demo. I am computer nerd who is learning to use this app. I am really in to country, dont judge me... What voices would you recommend for that.
For starters, can we stop calling everything "AI" and "Artificial Intelligence"? The vast majority of all this tech is machine learning, which is ANI, not AGI.
This is unbelievable. It made me think of 1989 and the first Emax samplers, how surreal it sounded and how amazed we were by them.
Oh boy!! Now that AI can do all the mundane tasks in my artwork, I can focus on marketing and advertising!!!!
Oh... wait a minute... I thought marketing and advertising **WAS** the mundane part of my creative career...
is this song available somewhere?
that progressed quickly :-0 very interesting
Thank you for making this video - very informative, and I agree with your sentiment on AI here.
wow...and your production is as superb as ever on this ....that also really helped
Impressive! I will experiment with the Solaria voice which also is pretty good. I believe it will difficult for AI to simulate the human singers full emotional vibes but most likely soon the AI will become fairly good at that too. It's similar to AI picture art, which will likely become really impressive but I doubt that it will reach human masterpiece level of say Claude Monet.
Thank you, I'll have to try it :)
This is very useful if for nothing else, background vocals.
I’m Switzerland on the ethical stance. I create music for ME, as a therapy or outlet to express my voice. After brain surgery I’m horrible about expressing feelings, so this my voice.
Legit question; at what point does is no longer get classified as “Art?” If you use AI as if you had a partner to bounce your original ideas off, then IMO it’s still art as we know it. Same thing as sequencers take notes to create patterns without the users input. Most people can’t play the piano to make those beats and melody on their own.
However, I believe society is lazy and will just opt to have it do all of the work for them. A rock is a rock, but in the wrong hands it can become a weapon. Eye of the beholder as they say, but everything comes down to a definition. Does the definition of “art” need to be redefined?
Have epilepsy from brain surgery, and they keep reclassifying the different symptoms. Maybe as a community it just needs to be embraced as an alternative form of “expression,” and new definitions created to draw the line between the 2 forms.
Did you finish the songs? I think they are wicked, and would love a link if they are available?
Thank you for the video.