DiffRhythm: Fast End-to-End Full-Length Song Generation with Latent Diffusion

"Electronic music aren't real songs there's no real instruments involved". Let's be a bit creative with these tools. Sure the pure output isn't always plesant or listenable but there's probably an interesting genre to carve out here

What does the ideal VST(s) look like for you? How would you like it to be broken down?

For example, I tend to think of "composition" and "synthesis" as two very different topics.

One VST could spit out chords or melodies (not a common VST) whereas another could render those sounds (very common VST)

I get it, but the anguish of people who were paid dramatically less and treated dramatically worse than software developers whose livelihoods are being deliberately harpooned by the software business is not "sour grapes." I'd expect the software culture to be tolerant of the upper class being being indifferent to that anguish, but I see people around here all but dancing on their graves with no real push back. I think y'all generally do a good job with this place but frankly, the utter lack of consideration for the people most affected while being quick to make sure they don't get too touchy about it says everything there is to know about SV culture: all the talk of ethics and fairness get thrown right out the window the second they start to conflict with the bottom line. Fortunately American culture on a whole seems to be following suit so at least it won't seem weird. I don't think I can even passively participate in this culture anymore. I bid you well.

And with more affordable and easier-to-learn tools, the creation of music will be similarly made much more accessible? DAWs and virtual instruments running on regular laptop was one step, generative AI models will be another?

Lots of common people did listen to Bach, because he wrote many works for church organ. Church attendance was almost universal, and even small churches had (small) pipe organs.

People will still enjoy making music. Musicians will make music quite regardless of whether anyone is listening or whether there’s recordings or AI available.

Totally with you. But it's the trend we get to re-balance in a good way:

> People that never considered the value of artistic process until it was the topic du jour unilaterally decided that it was inefficient, oppressive, complex, frivolous, and unfairly inaccessible to those that hadn't put any sustained effort into developing theirs.

This is eerily reminiscent of what's happening inside the USA government & administration today...

"these tools have democratized creativity.".

For sure! After all, what could be more democratic than a monthly subscription that could get snatched away at any moment - and clearly there's nothing more creative than pressing a button and waiting for 20 seconds!

I like the part where you confuse being sarcastic with being intelligent. A language model somewhere is taking notes.

> People that never considered the value of artistic process

One certainly learns of crazy things on HackerNews. Apparently people have never considered the value of artistic process, and not only that, but you also happen know that exactly.

> the topic du jour unilaterally decided

You're literally in this thread disagreeing.

> it was inefficient, oppressive, complex, frivolous, and unfairly inaccessible

Very interesting claims, too bad they were only stated in your imagination. That being said, your imagination I think is surprisingly close to my opinions! Let's discuss each point:

- it is very time-intensive to produce creative works of any kind, and indeed to perform any kind of mental work at all

- it does get pretty complex too, and because of this, some mental efforts are even shot down for being too frivolous (such as that bit of automation that is not worth making because it would never pay itself off)

- oppressive is a bit of an odd one, but if I think hard enough, I guess I can see how having to use the output of e.g. my work (software) can be oppressive

- same for unfairly inaccessible - lately there's been a trend where various services would only be available online, and the only contact you'd get is a self-service form or two. Maaaybe you'd get an AI chatbot to chat with. Certainly, to those with minimal to no tech literacy, this will be inaccessible and it will feel unfair.

> was merely the natural progression of artistic praxis

If only there was a way to disagree with this without being a dickhead!

> these tools have democratized creativity

How does one democratize an innate property of people? Surely you mean that they have democratized the production of creative works rather, and even of those only the less high-art ones, which I'm sure you never fail to point out when shown one?

> they're now broadly available to anyone willing to pay money for a subscription service that will obviously soon be a hell of a lot more expensive, or shell out a few thousands dollars for a top-tier video card that you almost certainly already have in your gaming rig, anyway.

And what happens after that? Artists will be like "oh gee, well I'm not doing this again!"?

> This is silicon valley progress

And also Hangzhou and Shenzen, China.

> and if you don't like it, you're a communist

Are you? You seem to be more of a raging idiot than anything to me at least.

> If you don't enjoy composing music, just don't do it

This supposes that the music is the end goal, and the very point of my comment is that it doesn't always have to be, and in those cases "just don't do it" also means not doing whatever comes after.

Just as you state below, this doesn't replace creating music for the creation's sake. I don't believe it will, or should. It merely replaces having nothing at all, or having the 100,000th video with the same upbeat stock sound.

What an incredibly elitist, smug attitude. You're basically saying people only have the right to hear the music that professionals think they should hear.

Do you not see how your argument could be applied to steam engines putting human laborers out of work? Or computers putting (human) calculators out of work? Do you think inventing the steam machine or computers was a mistake too?

If you're trying to maximize employment, composers aren't the first, second, or tenth place to go looking. If you're trying to say artists will bleed income, they already have for decades, and will continue to. The ones that make a living out of it mostly get their income from live performances and merch, and maybe adtech on social media platforms.

By the same logic synthesizers shouldn't have been invented that allowed people to make advanced sounds without tediously learning an instrument first, consumers should remain priced out of microphones and editing software, etc.

Like I said, I am not trying to feign ignorance on the drawbacks of the tech which is very real and far from negligible. I am not a tech bro AI maximalist. I just do believe that hyperbole will not put the djinn back into the bottle, and pretending like there isn't a real market between nothing and paying or being a composer isn't adding anything to the conversation.

The difference between today and the hypothetical case of not one artist making ends meet from their music is what, 0.1%? 0.01%?

We would be better off if the other 99.9% didn't have worry about making ends meet, than if we do whatever it takes to keep the status quo of the 0.1% intact. That does not only go for artists.

The stage has been set with the mass proliferation "lofi" and "chill" music that has been all but AI automated.

Whats the end game here?

Let’s follow the AI and automation craze to its eventual conclusion - automations everywhere, humans are either employed in automation industry, or are unemployed at a massive scale.

Stable jobs are replaced by ever-optimized gig economy for some, and chronic poverty for others. For there to even be economy - the massive underemployed population subsists on government welfare.

Cynic in me thinks that all of the wealth generated by enormous productivity gains resulting from automation will not find its way towards population displaced by it. Those cashiers, toll booth, and warehouse workers did not find themselves in much more lucrative careers - I don’t see why it will be any different for truck and cab drivers who will be joining them in the near future.

If you see a future where these people who suddenly found all this extra leisure time o. Their hands and no income - are somehow blossoming in creative directions and realizing their own potential - I’d like to have it painted for me, as it all looks pretty bleak to me. Just not quiet sure of the timeline.

Best I can come up with is an emergence of some kind of counter-cultural protest market where people buy and sell “made by humans” products, and are continuously attacked by various regulations originating from mega corporations who captured the government.

I don't think its at all extremist to look at that picture, realize it won't really have made any sense for the majority of the people on the planet well before it gets to that point, and that consequently some type of major global revolution will prevent that from happening.

> One giant company that covers everything with one man sitting at a dashboard, tweaking parameters? Is that one man even necessary?

Old joke about airplane automation:

In the future there will be just one pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

There’s only one way to win in a game theory world and that’s to be on top at the end.

So where is it going? Why: the end.

But this is also where Gandolf says, “end?”

Yes, this has always been the case. This is why capital holders are actively hostile to labor organizing and tend to back fascism when liberalism falls into crisis.

They don't hate at all. They are just maximising profit (which they have an obligation to do). If they didn't replace you with more efficient things, they would be outcompeted and die.

So, feel free to criticise capitalism and how inhumane it is, but don't anthropomorphise it by ascribing human emotions to the system.

?? How do you think what you say follows from what I said?