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Well yeah, @NeuM - I don't rail against AI because it's happening. Period. I don't waste my emotional energy on things I can't change.
Thankfully I don't need to compete against AI. If I did have to then I'd be stupid to try to stop it by complaining about it. The only way to compete would be to learn about it and fight back by reaching further into my own human creativity. Because that's all we have that AI will not have (but will be able to mimic convincingly, I'm sure).
I'm blessed to just be able to enjoy the human creative process and leave using AI to those that get a kick from it for reasons I don't understand and don't need to.
Printing presses, photography, and synths didn’t take other people’s work wholesale to build themselves, they were tools, not parasitic systems. AI is built on the uncompensated labor of artists, so it’s a fundamentally different ethical situation. And this is just one of the many reasons why it doesn't really make sense to compare AI with technologies of the past.
+1 @MadeofWax 👍
Art is not a medium, it is not paint, an instrument, or a machine. Art is not a printing press or a photo camera. The anatomy of the human body is not art, and knowing perspective or the rules of composition is also not art. A computer with its algorithms is merely an advanced tool in the digital domain, not art.
Art will never die, video never kills the radio stars, they just switched to streaming. 😅 Digital slop will never replace a well-conducted orchestra in a real concert hall, with every artist playing a genuine instrument. There is no substitute for the passionate musician singing his dramatic life story while performing on his trusty instrument. This is not a joke spewed out from some shady, convoluted matrices. This is a real human being sending a message with which we can resonate.
Thank you! 🤗 But this sounds more like a threat. 😉 GPT can be used in countless ways that do not interfere with our artistic voice. AI also is not religion, there is no initiation, and it can be used by anyone.
I bet it would be damn good at inventing religions though. Create an idea vast money making cult with a single prompt. Humm. There are some real possibilities there. 🤔
Couple it with AI agents on an automated fund raising phone bank? Damn!
As I mentioned, I see little difference in being inspired by an artist and using machine learning.
Before I played guitar in my band "Detour" in and around the DFW metroplex I learned to play by listening to my favorite artists and (poorly) copying their playing, much like most musicians.
I learned Tony Iommi's Iron Man and a whole host of other Black Sabbath songs. I learned Ever Step you Take by the Police and eventually Eruption by Eddie Van Halen. I used their styles to build my own.
I did buy Black Sabbath records and Van Halen ones too. Even went to see them in concert. Never got to see the Police.
But all of their work was evident in my playing, even if it was a poor imitation at first.
And I'm certain that they were inspired by artists too. How should we have properly compensated our influences?
Would Rock and Roll even exist if people like the Rolling Stones and Elvis hadn't blatantly ripped off blues artists? And in most cases those artists were never properly compensated.
I understand my opinion is just that. My opinion. But that's my reasoning.
We can agree to disagree. If in the end lawsuits remake the landscape and artists do receive some form of compensation I'll celebrate with you.
A.I. is not a religion... yet. Once we have systems which know everything about every one of us, maybe we'll feel a bit different about it.
But then again, we don't really have artificial intelligence, we have predictive systems, LLM (large language models) all based on collected datasets. Today's systems already have in them the totality of human knowledge to draw from.
Coming soon (no matter if you like him or hate him), Elon Musk says we'll start to see these systems designing, engineering and making genuinely new things, not based on prior data. New math, new medicines, new inventions.
https://fortune.com/2024/04/09/elon-musk-ai-smarter-than-humans-by-next-year/
Of course there are similarities, but there's a huge difference, and that's scale. We're not talking here about a human individual learning by imitating. AI is machines doing this on an industrial scale, with perfect recall of the millions of books it has been fed in a tiny amount of time. Don't worry, you're allowed to have your opinion, it's fine that people have different opinions. AI could indeed be a force for good, but I think there's plenty of evidence which means it's more sensible to be sceptical. Social media could have been a force for good, but it didn't fit the selfish interests of Zuckerberg etc to go down that road, so again the cons ended up outweighing the pros, I'd say. I think the harm caused by AI will vastly outweigh the benefits (if it continues to develop at pace and if problems like 'hallucinations' are solved, which is by no means certain!).
By the way, Rick Beato (of YouTube fame) is one of the biggest critics of generated music around, but he can also evaluate where things are when he hears them. This was an interesting video with him that made some headlines recently.
Now, this is pop music, which is a very specific kind of musical product. It is made for mass consumption. It's about marketing, image and wide appeal. This is the music BUSINESS. For pure musical EXPRESSION, others don't care about the marketability or appeal of their creations and that's never going to be an issue. When I refer to music production, I'm talking about music that will compete and sell versus thousands of other people trying to also get paid by selling something.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/o-l4dMzCnYI
No threat intended. I know what it means to be worried about having a job, moreso than ever of late.
And I agree, AI is not a religion.
I sometimes wonder if the same can be said for Art.
Some people seem to worship the concept. I do not. I love writing lyrics. I love finding chord progressions and interesting melodies. I love bending a note in a guitar solo and shaking every bit of emotion I can muster out of it. I love drawing and taking pictures with my DSLR.
But I don't worship Art.
I enjoy it. I appreciate it. But I apparently don't have the same reverence for it that some do. Maybe it's my general lack of spirituality. Maybe it's because I'm not neurotypical.
AI allows me to express myself in ways I never could before.
But I understand it isn't for everyone.
Good points and an interesting perspective.
I think that is exactly the reason why Claude took those exemples to bring some water to the mill 😂
As someone who learned to play an instrument just like you, and who writes and compose his own lyrics and music, I'd be a fool not to be aware of the level of imitation in the creative feedback loop. That was not the point.
I personally love Elvis and Led Zeppelin as much as the artists they borrowed from. But I think the exemple of Led Zeppelin is a great one. What they did mainly on their first 2 albums, namely including some tracks that were obvious ripp off of blues artists, no matter if they added a bit of their own magic, without crediting nor paying royalties was definitely wrong. Lawsuits corrected this. In the case of Suno and Udio, I think the lawsuits are still going on, and I doubt fair compensation will be given to the artist's who's music was used illegally to train those AI. That's the only important point to my eyes here. Fair retributions. As to the creativity part...by now, I think we all know most AI are language models basing their answers on complex statistical calculation. There is no soul and will never be with those models, so I am personally not worried about the pure creativity part.
One part of me says, “If it sounds good, it sounds good…”
Another part of me, louder, reminds me of what I also admire about the musicians who make music I enjoy, which is their chops, creativity, etc. There’s just not as much for me to admire if an AI did most of the creative work. I guess I could admire the prompt engineer’s ear, but that doesn’t make them much more creative than someone who curated a Spotify list that I liked.
I also know there’s some nuance depending on how it’s being used. In some instances, it’s not very different than using samples and people are using AI generated stuff in a construction kit kind of way.
Then there’s the issue of the music used to train it, which no one was paid for. Anthropic already had a 1.5 Billion settlement with plaintiffs over its use of copyrighted texts for ChatGPT. The music industry is going after Suno.
The lawsuits will work themselves out over time. I'm not too concerned about that. There's also "Fair Use" which may ultimately render these and future lawsuits powerless.
I hope / reckon people drowning in slop will then be delighted by plays with live orchestration and bands. As animatronics gets better too, could be sweet seeing a live play with dudes fighting robots on stage. Pew pew!
If the quality of outputs gets better I will probably get into it as raw material for mashups and sample fodder but it still all sounds so mushy to me like low bit rate mp3s. But yah I was a huge sampler-head in the 80s and 90s I am sure those old instincts would kick in, but now with laundered and untraceable sources. Yah I stink.
They don't act like storage systems. AI models do not have literal perfect recall of their training data. They store statistical relationships, not full works verbatim. Memorization does occur sometimes, but it is not the default behavior.
It is difficult to see and call prompt engineering as a pure creative process, especially n the current infantry state of those AI models. This will be another story on the day the level of details input in the prompt can translate the exact vision of a creator. When that day comes (and it will surely ) I think we can start talking about a real interactive and creative process between man and machines. For now, people input a prompt with a global /vague idea or concept hoping for something pleasing. Sometimes because they don't have the time nor the financial means, sometimes because they simply lack the talent or technical skills to do it by themselves. It is both sad and paradoxal as we live in a time where it has never been so easy and accessible to create something by yourself. Anyone with a tiny bit of talent, time and will could make, let's say, a great movie with a phone and a drone... Wouldn't cost an arm...
Instead, some prefer to tweak a prompt, until they reach something decent to their eyes. At this point, it is easy to convince oneself that it was exactly the vision one had in mind to proudly assume ownership of the "creation". still ... One will have to be ready to omit the few unwanted artifacts like those ugly 6th and 7th fingers on a human hand but hey "I didn't have any credit left to use the latest and most accurate model...). This, tbh, looks more like fishing than creation but fishing is surely a fun activity.
In a creative context, I think the use of AI as a tool to gain time is valid as long as you let it do something that you could do by yourself. I am putting aside highly technical domains like medical imagery diagnostics, where AI clearly outperforms humans and could potentially save millions of lives. Let's stick to creativity. Again the day AI becomes the perfect assistant to the creator's vision, I think we will be able to call that a creative tool. Not quite there yet.
Your argument is using AI outputs as construction kit to build something is not a bad one as well. As long as the bricks you use to build were not stolen from the cathedral nearby. I want to believe AI companies like Suno will start to "self amend". The other day, I was reading a comment on YouTube of a guy who was unhappy that the new Suno models didn't let him use a Billie Eilish voice on his "creations" anymore. As a singer and guitarist who still values the idea of real human performance, I was quite happy about that. You want Billie Eilish on your track? What about supporting one of your fellow human on fiver? Still, I believe it was an isolated case. Someone on the forum recently posted music with clear rip off performances of singers like Thom Yorke, James Blake, Dan Auerbach to name the few I could recognise. I am sure it must feel very rewarding to hear those great voices on your own music production, but I can't help thinking there is something wrong ethically with that. Especially when some of those artists have explicitly expressed their opposition to such practices.
Then there is this last point which I find very cynical. About the whole AI enchilada. Recently There are new options letting the user upload their own track to have the AI generate a cover of it. I think those options are only available to subscribers so I think people keep full ownership and copyright to their own music. Fair enough. On the other hand, it is not clearly stipulated whether or not the AI is going to train itself on the material you uploaded. Given those companies practices and ongoing lawsuits, it is fair to assume they will. If that's the case, I find this extremely cynical as basically the user pays for a monthly subscription to upload his own content, get a generated cover. During the process , your song will train the AI without fair royalty retribution. Eventually, the company can potentially make money from the material you paid to provide them. If that's the case, they found a real tricky way to finance the settlement they will have to pay to the music industry. Squeeze the orange until there's nothing left 😂🤣🤮
@JanKun
When it comes to making images with AI, "prompt engineering" is the lowest entry level tier. There are far more interactive and expressive means like ControlNet which enable us to make exactly what we envision in our minds eye. Also it is open source, can be used offline without an internet connection on a fairly standard gaming pc, so it does not train a shitty oppressive scammy corporate server somewhere. I haven't seen anything like it for music but the day will likely come at some point.
When this of kind of thing comes to music creation, I see nothing wrong with embracing it as long as it here to serve our vision and not the other way around. I am not much into image generation but I'll definitely check ControlNet as it sounds more like what I would want from an AI
It was interesting a few years ago seeing these free open source tools coming out at first before all the press, where the verbiage was very much about empowering people. It was all pretty hippy dippy on the one hand, but of course apocalyptically disruptive for visual creatives on the other. But because it was available to all with minimal hardware investment (that will only get cheaper and more accessible in time) it did come across as a kind of coming singularity / paradigm shift for creativity in general.
But then once the really BIG money got involved it all got so gross and competitive so quick, more about consumer fetishism than expression, the initial cautious optimism now feels like it was so naive and it has become tainted in so many ways. But yah, human vision I believe has way more power than statistical machines like this. There will inevitably be people making great things with these machines but there will also be a ton of delusional people thinking they are making great things.
My most recent video.
I wrote the lyrics (perhaps the weakest part of the song) and fed them into Suno. I gave it a bit of melody.
It was almost like bringing a new song idea to my old band. It never remained the same as what I had originally envisioned. Even then, the other guys interpreted their parts in ways I could never have imagined.
The video, inspired by Tom Petty's video for "Don't Come Around Here No More" with it's Alice in Wonderland theme pokes fun at engagement farming, the slot machine like nature of using AI, being an influencer, and the fact that with all that we share online we're all a little internet famous.
Hate it if you must, but I shaped it with my imagination.
https://x.com/KennethRow73543/status/1962692444044050854?t=l5-cL8y9lY26IjAMFzTd-A&s=19
My adult son is a terrific writer. He greatly enjoys interacting with (paid) chatGPT as a sounding board for his story development. He asks it for feedback and is often happy at the new shades it often opens up to him. If he gets stuck he explains the sticking point to it and asks for ideas. Nothing gets written by chatGPT, but chatGPT provides input and guidance. He doesn't write prompts. He has conversations. He's kind of a dope in some ways (😂) but highly intelligent and very creative. In language and writing he's arguably a genius. In 8th grade entrance exams for a private school, he tested post-doctorate level in reading comprehension, writing, and history. (and 5th grade in math).
My point is, there are different ways to leverage AI. If I'm honest it creeps me out when anyone, including my son, is way into chatGPT - especially when they talk about it like it's a person and has emotions, etc.. But he has described some of these sessions, and I can't fault them. It's like having a highly skilled, and even imaginative*, companion and editor to bounce ideas off of. He wouldn't find that in the real world.
I might have an easier time accepting AI help for music in that kind of way. I'd need strict rules on myself that what I write and play needs to be my own, but I might not get queasy about getting feedback and an idea or two when I get stuck.
(* fake imagination, but pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing)
Can't wait for those coming days where will be able to augment ourselves with small pieces of Elon's mind in each one of us. This is gonna be a great day for humanity: make human great again with your own personal ElonPlus©®™🤣🤢
That being said AI is gonna bring a bunch of great advancements for humanity, there is no denying . We can now predict protein tertiary structure very accurately and quickly ! I read an article recently with a study showing that medical diagnosis done by AI alone are now more accurate than diagnosis made by a doctor assisted by AI, and this is only the beginning. Maybe soon a guitar string that never breaks and stays new and bright forever (one can dream).
I think we can start to take seriously the assumption that a kid born on this day will be able to live more than 200 years. Is this a desirable progress depends on what we will make of it. But it is definitely plausible.
I've seen some weird reddit threads, man. There are already some kooky AI cults in full swing...
I don't doubt for a minute that AI can be used creatively by individuals. LLMs can be great personal assistants of creative people, if they know how to use them well. I've really enjoyed many of my own interactions with Ai. My problem is with the direction I think they'll take our societies in. As I said before, they could in theory be great for society, if we lived in a better society where the people who own the tech really had our best interests at heart. The problem is that that's very much not the case. Do Altman, Zuckerberg, Musk and the rest really care about creating a better world? Is that their motivation? I don't think so.
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I don't doubt for a minute that AI can be used creatively by individuals. LLMs can be great personal assistants of creative people, if they know how to use them well. I've really enjoyed many of my own interactions with Ai. My problem is with the direction I think they'll take our societies in. As I said before, they could in theory be great for society, if we lived in a better society where the people who own the tech really had our best interests at heart. The problem is that that's very much not the case. Do Altman, Zuckerberg, Musk and the rest really care about creating a better world? Is that their motivation? I don't think so.
I saw recently the interview of a French philosophy teacher who made an experiment with his students. As an assignment, he asked them to write a short biography of Jean-Paul Sartre. He knew exactly that most of the student will copy paste biography generated by AI. He noticed that most of the biography came with obvious mistakes which ended as the lesson he wanted to teach. It is ok to use machine for your convenience but you should keep your free judgement and always question the world around you, starting with those machines that can be fallible just like humans are.
Absolutely, you need to like, actually know stuff, duh, to be able to judge whether the outputs are good. Anyone trying to use AI to learn from scratch about making music on an iPad, for example, is gonna get fed a lot of horseshit unless they're very, very rigorous in their vetting of the outputs of the machines.
On the topic of Philosophy, it's depressing to think that so much YouTube Philosphy now is the output of AI slop channels whose owners know nothing about the philosophers they (with an Ai-generated voice on an Ai-generated script) opine on.