Ableton Live Getting AI? Co-creator Robert Henke: “We are looking at ways to incorporate that into our workflow”
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Is Ableton Live getting AI? Robert Henke calls AI “the big development of our times.”
Ableton Live Getting AI?
Like it or not, AI is finding its way into more and more aspects of our lives. That includes DAWs. Apple recently added a whole suite of AI tools to Logic Pro 11. There’s also RipX DAW, a digital audio workstation with AI as a core function. It makes sense that AI will eventually come to other DAWs. That includes Ableton Live, as hinted at by co-creator Robert Henke.
Ableton Live Getting AI: “It’s become much harder to do something radically new”
“We have tons of ideas regarding things we would like to do because our competitors are doing them and the market demands it,” Henke said referring to Ableton Live in an interview with MusicRadar.
“Of course, the situation is different nowadays because there’s so much interesting software out there that people have high expectations regarding quality and functionality and it’s become much harder to do something radically new.”
Ableton Live Getting AI: Something Radically New
That “something radically new” that Henke is referring to is, of course, AI. “In broader terms, it is clear that AI will change a lot of things in the music industry and already has.”
How that will manifest in Ableton Live is not yet apparent, though. “We are looking at ways to incorporate (AI) into our workflow in a way that’s inspiring, beneficial and interesting,” he said.
What can we expect to see in Live? Henke didn’t specify, but AI-assisted effects and musical phrases, such as in Logic Pro and plenty of third-party plugins, are a good bet.
How Will AI Change Music?
Beyond just Ableton Live getting AI, Henke sees artificial intelligence as playing a major role in the creation of music going forward: “It’s the big development of our times and as important as sampling or the development of laptop computers and will definitely change the way that music is made.”
He doesn’t, however, think that AI will completely replace humans as the force behind new music.
“We’ll understand that certain things will be taken over but in 20 or even 50 years people will still like to plug a single oscillator into a filter.”
How do you think AI will change music production? Do you think it’s a force for good or will it make everything just terrible? Let us know in the comments.
More Information
- Robert Henke’s home page
- Ableton’s home page
- All about Ableton Live
- All about DAWs
- All about AI
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4 responses to “Ableton Live Getting AI? Co-creator Robert Henke: “We are looking at ways to incorporate that into our workflow” ”
It sure will replace samplepacks and services like Splice. It will be crate digging on steroids and a samplers dream. And of course it will replace a lot in the industry. But at least for me it wont replace making and writing music, because I do it for enjoyment and not for living, turning knobs and slicing a sample on Push is a satisfaction no AI can take away 😉
a samplers dream, i agree with this – so in other words it won’t change anything. copying or stealing someone else’s output (wether you do it or use a database that did it for you) is nothing new. AI-generated vocals are actually a novelty, but i’m not interested.
My cat likes AI tuna. Perhaps I make AI tune with Ableton.
It would be nice to have generative tracks created by AI. A generative AI track could have user provided inputs. One of the inputs could be one or more audio / midi sub tracks provided by the user that gives some idea of what you want the AI to produce in the main track. A user could create sub tracks by simply humming or tapping a beat and for each of these sub tracks the user could specify the real instrument to be used for that part. The AI would then create a single or multi instrument finished audio track or multiple finished midi tracks from the provided sub tracks.