Sascha Franck

This! And fwiw, regarding the LG ripoff, it's so similar I'd consider it intentional (and possibly cleared with the original IP owner).

I don't own an iPhone and I wasn't even cynical.

Of course. And I only described what I read from it. Which I found totally off the mark.

Fortunately not. But in my personal "environment", plenty of people (including myself sort of indirectly) depend on music being about money as well. And I also think that music as a "success thing" has been the force behind quite some people to get into it deeper. Bluntly: Had the Beatles not been able to sell Sgt. Peppers, it likely wouldn't even exist.

Of course they meant just that. And that's why I found the video to be awkward. Because apart from not being true in many aspects (try playing guitar on your shiny new iPad - good luck already), they're trying to showcase a bright future that is actually as dull as it gets. It's undoubtedly great for guitars and trumpets being two different things requiring different skillsets. And it's undoubtedly great that none of these skillsets involves swiping around on a sheet of gorilla glass.

That's how I wanted it (if I still wanted it) and how you had to do it in the environment. I gotta admit that I got pretty much used to the way things are right now, so I hardly ever miss the option to independently move a mixer channel. There's a few situations where I'd like to be able to see the mixer window stay the same while I mock around in the arrangement (such as in moving/editing parts simultaneously for a while), but they're actually pretty rare.

I already mentioned that live playing is a different thing. Anything else, especially once it's about generating money, will see an incredible impact thanks to AI.

Personally, I'd think the jury's still out on this. Depends on where all the live business goes - which IMO is tough to predict today. Fact is, playing live more and more becomes the only thing to make money from. Record sales (regardless of the medium) are pretty much dead and financially relevant airplay likely will be in a while, too. And everything else that's left in non-live musical environments will soon be completely plastered with AI stuff (Udio and Suno are scaringly good already). So, to young folks, creating music on computers might become rather little attractive when a website based service that you might even still be able to use for free will outperform all their efforts left and right. Hence, as a result, live playing is the only area where you might find some appreciation for what you're doing - and apart from some folks really only doing it for themselves, I'd say appreciation is a decent driving force behind making music (even if it - hopefully - is not the main one), especially when you have a band in mind. You just want to get out and do the rock'n'roll thing. Which leaves me with the question: What will happen with small and medium sized live venues? Will they be able to survive or will they vanish? Or will they even become the next trendy thing because people are bored by megalomanic superstar shows and uber-polished (soon AI-based) productions? I'd say that's almost impossible to tell. The only thing I'd place bets on would be that making a living (or even just any kind of revenue) from recorded music will be as good as dead very soon. Even so soon it's scaring. There will be a handful of folks left to assist some big acts (as they still need recordings to push their live game), but otherwise there's pretty much no more money to make. Even today, if I were, say, doing video ads - I could already ask Udio if I needed some bits of music behind it. And noone in the target audience (those that I want to sell my chocolate bars to) would be able to tell. Next year, not even folks out of this very business will be able to tell anymore. Having said all that, if you haven't checked out Udio or Suno yourself yet, I recommend doing so. Be warned, in case you're able to abstract things and imagine the next level (which is coming very soon, rather today than tomorrow), it's a scaring experience.

Of course it's the environment. And it wasn't too shabby once you had your templates done. In fact, it's been quite excellent IMO. But, just out of interest, I had a look at what it'd be like with 10.8.1 (hadn't opened it since months, maybe longer...), and I think it's fuglier than ever before, as if they deliberately wanted to scare you away from it (which perhaps is exactly what they actually want). Anyhow, in a smarter world as the one we have, the environment would now be a matured modular thing, working for all kinds of audio manipulations as well. I remember using a sub-host called Energy XT back in the Windows days, and it's been just that. You could route audio streams any way you like and manipulate them in multiple ways. Has been excellent. I think Bitwig has some parts of that kinda thing going on today. Whatever, Logic could've been the first to go there. Just imagine all the MIDI things also being possible for audio.

So, nobody on this one? I really keep wondering what's going on in the Logic folks' minds. I mean, it's working in one version, then it's not. Then it is again. Add to this it's always working to different degrees. Can't they just keep fooling around with it (and ideally leave it working)? I keep constantly trying to adjust level and pan with my scrollwheel in the dual channel strip, so that really got part of my muscle memory. And it's *way* more elegant and efficient in comparison to actually grabbing a parameter and pushing the mouse. Let alone it's working for plugins, too - so why in the world would you make it work for plugins but not in the mixer?

And fwiw, it's possible since decades - but only in case you don't need automatic track management and can get along with the looks of the environment (which is now more hidden than ever before).

Yeah, I remember reading about it already. Was just using the term "programmed" because, well, it's MIDI - and so that came out of my fingers. Exactly. I think it's at least sort of well defined, but it's still pretty blurred because things such as Drummer (which certainly is pretty far from AI as it doesn't generate any grooves on its own) may appear as AI to some.

Drummer certainly isn't AI at all. It's a very, very cleverly implemented huge amount of pretty decently programmed MIDI files (in fact, for some styles, they might be among the best you may find). The "follow" function is nothing exactly special, either (it exists in Jamstix as well), it's just about the kick and (very occasionally, from what it seems) snare patterns, so that's pretty easy to do (the rule being: "analyse audio for accents, in case they're around beats 1+3, place the kick accordingly"). Just so that nobody gets me wrong, they have done an amazing job with Drummer (given that you can deal with things you don't roll on your own), IMO it beats pretty much any pattern based drum player out there in some styles (certainly can't do metal and what not, but the DKD kits aren't exactly suited for that, either). But none of that makes it AI.

Just that they can't (obviously). I really love digital technology, I sometimes also love riding on the edge of it. In addition, even as a guitarist, I never aquired a sense for "mojo", analog snobbery or whatever it might be. So replacing analog with digital not only isn't new to me but even appealing (I'm using amp modeling for my live purposes since almost two decades by now, pretty much exclusively since around 8). But the gist of that video is "any analog music device can be replaced by something digital and we've managed to squeeze it into this thinner than ever device". It's likely even meant to be somewhat funny or whatever. But it isn't. Not only because it's completely wrong but even because there's some sort of belief into that behind it. "We have our new session players, why would you keep that dusty piano in your home at all? And why even bother to learn playing it?" As much as a logical (hah, there, I said "logic"al - I'm such a funny, funny person) thing all this might be, as much as I even may use it myself, it is my firm belief that AI was/is the worst to ever happen to music. Oh yes, it could be super useful in some areas, such as in education - but as it's mainly used for other things, I just loathe it. And a company praising it by even going beyond what's actually possible (an iPad isn't a replacement for an acoustic guitar just yet), regardless whether it's meant to be funny, futuristic or whatever, doesn't earn my respect. Add to this it's just cheap and tasteless by advertising video standards.

Doesn't make it much better.