Using ChatGPT and other AI in The Music Business
AI in The Music Business
Using some form of A.I. in the music business is not new. Something as simple as changing the key and tempo in a session in Logic Pro X is using A.I. in its simplest form. But now we're heading toward something else. Not just A.I. music creation, but music marketing.
There have been creative A.I. for a while now. Rytr can help finish an article. Writesonic can help start new ideas. Heck, Caktus can write a whole essay for you. A.I.-generated images seem commonplace now. Sites like veed.io and invideo.io create videos FOR you. Tuneform and Headliner make visualizers, making everyone less reliant on video producers. What about making music? It’s coming for us too! Sites like soundraw.io can make A.I.-generated instrumentals and beats. OpenAI’s MuseNet can make full compositions automatically with midi files. Jarvis Lyrics can write full lyrics for songs. Uberduck can generate rappers' voices. Sites like Stemmer can mix the song, and there are a ton of online mastering options like BadLab and LANDR. Jukebox makes full damn songs; lyrics and instruments.
I’m no music critic or audiophile but full A.I.-generated songs sound as such…for now. There’s a real disconnect between the song and the listener, and I’m not sure how that gap is going to be filled yet. That being said, to be clear, A.I. can write the lyrics, sing the lyrics, play the instruments, mix the song, master the song, and create video content for the song.
So, how do we get out in front of all this A.I.? Use it of course!
You know that saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer? That’s what we’re going to do. Some of you may have heard of ChatGPT. It’s all the rage right now because it’s an AI assistant like the public has never seen. And it’s even created the company that created the foundation for many of the A.I. I mentioned earlier. This thing can give you diet advice, do research on ANY subject for you and write an article about it. It can write code for an app, and even write a blog post for you. But don’t use it for that because the same company that created ChatGPT works with companies like huggingface.co whose job it is to detect A.I. generated writing. Companies similar to huggingface do and will continue to work with search engines to filter A.I. generated content while penalizing those who use it for unintended purposes.
So how DO we use it? The same way big companies do! ChatGPT was created by a company named OpenAI. They’re the ones largely responsible for A.I. used in chatbots. Many companies use it for data research and marketing. That’s how we’re going to use it.
First, you’ll want to open a free account at https://chat.openai.com/ Just like you would open a google or social media account. Then you can ask it questions or give it commands as it pertains to your needs. In this case, I asked some music business-related questions.
What’s the best social media for music makers?
Create a social media marketing campaign for a hip-hop song?
When is the best time to post on Instagram?
How can I get a hip-hop song on a Spotify playlist?
How do I find Spotify playlist curators?
What is the best way to automate all social media posts?
You don’t have to ask it questions. You can give it commands.
I asked it to write a chord progression for a trap beat at 75 bpm, and it did just that.
I even asked it to write a video script for a 5-minute YouTube video about music marketing. It again, did what I asked without hesitation and spit out very usable information.
The cool thing is that it’ll remember what was said earlier in the conversation like a person would and now you can revert back to older conversations you’ve had with it.
I then asked it “What’s a good title for that video?” Again, it didn’t fail me.
This thing is still in “research mode.” It’s not even done.
You see where I’m going with this. You can use ChatGPT if you need music marketing advice from a professional. Just be careful with law-related tasks. But, the hard truth is that you’ll be missing that human connection. This is important because sometimes we need a human to correct us. So as of now it’s a great tool for advice or pointing us in the right direction, but it’s not the end all be all…YET!
Just a final, personal/professional thought…We need to be careful with this technology. Not just because of the countless jobs that’ll be lost, but because it can eventually create a loop of inception. I don’t think I’m using that right but, there’s a base of information that is the human experience with technology: blog posts, fact sites, articles, and search histories, that A.I. uses to give you information. Then you use A.I. to create and put out content. Then the A.I. uses that info you put out to create more information. Then that information is given to another human or AI who uses it to create another piece of content. And the loop continues. A.I. will just be feeding itself its own information. Which is sure to get distorted in some way, ending in data that are either not useful or watered-down.
So, I’m glad that companies are on top of filtering A.I.-generated content. I just hope they can keep up.
