Deep Composer -- From Amazon AWS (Generative Music System)

This is an inexpensive physical keyboard that does generative music using artificial intelligence. You give it a melody and using software in the cloud, the music gets completed. There are generative models for pop, rock, jazz, classical, or you can build your own by training the system.

Amazon AWS Deep Composer website


Launch Video for Deep Composer (minus the first five minutes of BS)

The keyboard will cost $99. This will include a 3-month free trial of AWS DeepComposer. There will be a hourly usage fee thereafter.

This is a first product from Amazon AWS Deep Learning systems, which will expand into many other areas.

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Whoa. Interesting for them to dive into this market, and in such a way. Amazon has huge infrastructure for deep learning, Iā€™m just surprised that this is one of the first entry points that they chose. They launched a self-driving RC car this year, which seems more in line with the types of products Iā€™d expect. Of course, thatā€™s a whole other sub-culture with a big following. Music-making just seems like a fringe-ey, frivolous subject for them. Then again, Amazon is so big, and has so many resources, they can kinda produce whatever they want.

Edit to add: Donā€™t get me wrong - Iā€™m hugely interested in machine learning and its various sub-genres. After skimming the website and reviewing the pricing structure, Iā€™m confused about the end goal. Perhaps I should watch the launch video. Itā€™s almost like theyā€™re trying to make it possible for everyone to be a musician (quality notwithstanding). In a way, it points to one possible Utopian vision of the future. One where working for a living is obsolete, and we can all be free to make music. I digress though.

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reminds me of those old casio arranger keyboards wich automatically follow you with cheesy bass and drums

on another note:

wow

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A generative musician ā€“ which i see as different from a ā€œmusicianā€ meaning traditional musician. But the levels for generative musicians will also be expanding too, so someone with experience and learning will be able to do things the beginning generative musician doesnā€™t. These ideas are on topic, but headed toward a peripheral topic, that perhaps will have itā€™s own thread soonā€¦

$1.26 / hour when training.

$2.14 / hour when using to generate music.

This is after the first three months that is without an hourly fee, that costs $99 including the keyboard.

I assume you can use your own keyboard instead, itā€™s a midi keyboard, iā€™m pretty sure.

ah thanks for the info
curious to hear what people will come up with custom training

cold_fashioned ā€“ if i recall correctly you have experience with deep learning and artificial intelligence related topics or at least some knowledge.

Do you know about: GAN architecture with Amazon SageMaker? This is what you use to train the system.

I have done some self-guided learning at home in these fields, though Iā€™ve stalled on that for the past year and a half. Iā€™m planning on picking it back up for a specific project in 2020, but Iā€™m still only slightly above neophyte level. At any rate, after watching the intro video, it definitely sounded like he was describing a GAN. Those types of models work well for ā€œartisticā€ applications. Basically, you train two models. One (the generator) creates a bunch of images/music files/etc. to send to the other model (the descriminator). The descriminator then compares the generated file to what it ā€œknowsā€ based on training files. The descriminator then makes a decision as to whether the generated file is close enough to what itā€™s been trained on. GANā€™s have made huge strides in the past couple years. I think the ā€œDeep Fakeā€ phenomenon are a product of GANā€™s.

Iā€™m not familiar with Sagemaker, but I think itā€™s a cloud platform for deep learning. Itā€™s probably the underlying platform for the DeepComposer application.

Anyway, I hope that wasnā€™t too much info (or not enough). Itā€™s fascinating to me.

Edit: I forgot to add - hereā€™s an example of generated music, a Recursive Neural Network (RNN) in this case, with a GAN used for the imagery. The genre may not be appealing to most ā€“ hell, it could be downright offensive to some, considering the imagery. However, knowing a little about the behind-the-scenes of how this was created, itā€™s still impressive.

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That was very helpful and well stated cold-fashioned. I looked up what G.A.N. stands for: Generative Adversarial Network ā€“ and it works exactly like you describe it.

This is what someone using this product would actually have to interface with so thatā€™'s totally on topic. Quality of this product, how youā€™d use it, personal experience with, how it relates to other similar products, improvements youā€™d like to see etc, all are on-topic.

I am anticipating discussion here heading into a AI music is good/bad type discussion (related in type to the frequent Behringer is good/bad discussion) ā€“ which is what i hope to divert off to a new thread. Itā€™s valid as a topic, just peripheral to the Deep Composer in specific.
(Perhaps iā€™m incorrect to anticipate this. And perhaps there will be no discussion at all in this thread.)

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Yeah i m wondering the same. Who will pay for it? Sounds like professional market, but the quality of what they demo d is really mediocre. Perhaps good enough for B rate radio commercial jingles. Which could be the target market though. Weird product.

I look forward to the Beatport generic house/techno version.

As someone that works in AI startup I find the topic extremely interesting and and the same time the provided example extremely underwhelming on a ā€œorgans have more exciting accompany features than thisā€ level.

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Saw an advert for a free AI plugin for Ableton on reddit last night. tried to give it a go out of curiosity but it didnā€™t work for me. Seems to for other people though. Most the fun in making music for me is well, making the music. Couldnā€™t hurt to give it a go though. Link if anyone was curious

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Peter Kirn @peterkirn (?) over on the CDM blog really roasts this product reveal ā€“ and heā€™s right on all points. This might be why weā€™re all so confused about this product release.

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Looks like we should just close this thread and open a different one on using Magenta from Google.

(Good link cold_fashioned!)

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Looks like Hookpad (which can be fun) with an even worse subscription model.

I liked the service, but not what they were charging with what I got.

Edit: Hrmmm, they have offline and can be one-time purchased now, thatā€™s better than what was at least.

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+1 for this type of generative composition being bad. Just saying.

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How did they manage to make it sound so terrible, when people have been making much better generative music for decades?

As @bitroast said when I showed this to him: ā€œimagine spending time and money on AI Music and not using it to do IDMā€

Speaking of IDM, Jamie Lidell mentioned this on Sonic Talk and reminded me that Iā€™d not yet checked it out since Richard Devine brought it up on Lidellā€™s podcast:

No idea how it was made, but it sounds great. Very Autechre-y, but itā€™s a surprisingly interesting listen, considering each track is an hour long.

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I think Nick Cave recently summed up the idea of an AI songwriter pretty well. Seems like a pretty dumb idea to me.

Edit: I suppose that isnā€™t to say an AI-created track canā€™t be interesting though. As long as youā€™re willing to sacrifice subjectivity as a value.

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Or imagine what Iannis Xenakis would have done with this computing power at handā€¦

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William Fields is interviewed in episode 304 of Darwin Grosseā€™s podcast ā€œArt + Music + Technologyā€.

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