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There's More Than One Way To Do It

Software and Hardware Tools for Music Production(2021)

Share three year advancement

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Introduction

I listed AI tools for music production three years ago.

Since then, the technology advancemnt drives new tools. Today I share each tool summaries.

Noise reduction, Sound editing, Sound separation

Original name is Hit’n’Mix Infinity. When name changed, the internal model has changed. Focusing band music.

From the information of libraries, I think they firstly separate voice then separate instrument.

  • Spleeter

Open source sound separation

Input, Input support

DAW with strong integration to Melodyne。Since ver. 4, chord change is applied not only for MIDI, but also recorded sound.

Custom MIDI keyboard like button accordion, chromatone, bandoneon. Velocity cannot be modified. There's variation like right-only giabaLEnai.

Button accordion keeps the same hand shape even if you change the key. MIx of keyboard and guitar.

ja.algonote.com

Keyboard supporting vibrato like strings. Choking feature with keyboard is attracting, but key stroke is small.

Roli was under bankruptcy. Currently they started piano for beginners.

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  • AKAI EWI USB

Digital wind instrument. It can be used for strings.

  • Roland Aerophone

EWI competitor

EQ, Mastering, Mix

No song making. No composition. Only final processing.

Automatic mastering. Just drag and drop the sound file to Web interface produces the result. Fine tuning is not supported.

Almost Japanse version of LANDR. Mainly for video. They say there's advantage on keeping dynamic range.

At 2021/03. the core algorithm is open sourced. github.com

Automatic mixing tool. On DAW, it inserts to sound output. It adjust EQ curve and volume after one play.

Mastering plugin. There's adaptive feature for adjustment.

Semi-auto music generation

Select only important features.

Select genre, mood, then generate.

GoogleのMangenta plugins. "Generate" generates four bar phrases.

Book published on July 2021.

Generate song from genre and tempo

Convert melody to background music.

www.youtube.com

Select genre and generate songs.

  • Music Maker
    Generate music from song genre, instruments and length

  • Amadeus Code

Semi-auto song generation

Small input is needed.

Music generation software since 2006. Lyrics is converted to song automatically.

2 bar melody is extended to full song.iOS app

When I tried on 2019/11, mic to midi feature was not working.

Automatic composition software for composer. Chord progression, instrument set can be modified with deep control.

Since Orb Composer v1.5, melody is imported to melody and stand alone mode is supported.

Imported MIDI is used as just motif. The control is hard like Chordana Composer.

www.youtube.com

  • Flow Machines

Sony CSL software. Only limited mobile app is public.

Sing voice generation

YAMAHA vocal synth engine. Crypton Hatusne Miku is famous one.

Free Japanese voice synth. e.g. Kasane Teto

Vocal synth software supporting English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It uses the hybrid of neural network and traditional technology under patent application.

2020/7 is the production release. Web version doesn't support save.

Indie development vocal synth software. AI Kiritan using Touhoku Kiritan is famous. It supports the other voices too.

When I tried on 2020/07, 5 degree jump was bad pitch. There may be the improvement.

  • DeepVocal
    Chinese vocal synthesizer. The successor of SharpKey.

  • XStudio

Chinse vocal synth software using Microsoft technology. To export, chinese tel number is needed.

Hanzi is recognized as is. vibrato can be written by pencil.

Script

Modify tone by program control

  • Logic Pro Scripter MIDI plug-in

  • KSP

Script language for KONTAKT PLAYER

  • Blue Cat's Plug'n Script

  • Scripts for Synthesizer V Studio Pro

Lua, JavaScript

Song search

  • Shazam

Apple acquired in 2018. Good for original song

  • SoundHound

Good for humming search

Guitar

  • Line 6 Variax Standard

The sound of electric guitar is different between Fender and Les Paul. Using SSH model for Fender or ProBucker for Les Paul, you can change the sound, but not perfect.

Variax is electrically control the sound. It means one guitar can emulate all guitar sounds.

Guitar-like input assistant

YAMAHA toy guitar with light(Ended production). The fret is longer than InstaChord.

Right hand is no need. Just putting left finger makes midi input. Guitar voicing can be inserted as is. Barre chord is harder than real strings.

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Drum

  • Logic Drummer
    Apple's DAW, Logic Pro feature. You can generate drum track by selecting drum player, sound set and genre.

  • iMaschine2

Drum is too large for poor man's home. Loud noise is hard than the other instruments. Finger drum is one of the solutions.

『Finger drum for DTMer』is good book.

  • Drum pad

Drum pad is more realistic alternative.

Voice Changer

Male voice to female one or the opposite. Not perfect.

  • Voidol

  • ROLAND VT-4 Voice Transformer

  • TC Helicon C1

Music to sheet

  • Yamaha Clavinova Smart Pianist

Only Piano

Polymorphic pitch estimation. DAW embedded feature only supports single voice.Melodyne support multiple pitches.

You can change the single sound of chord. As far as I know, This feature is only supported by Melodyne.

  • DECODA

Convert sound to chord

Since v1.1, the result is exported to ChordPro, Perl library format.

Made by KAWAI. Infer sound chord. Chord split ratio can be customized in detail.

Tab score is shown. Auto scroll can be the alternative of score sheet.

midi melody is converted to chord. nanoKEY2 doesn't fit. Sound source is supported, but the accuracy of sound to midi is lower than that of Logic Flex Pitch.

Others

Sample browser using machine learning

Visualize how far melody from chord root

  • YAMAHA AVITECS

Sound-proof room

Closed service

iOS recording app published by Apple. Melody is converted to chord. I often use this app but they ended the support.

Impression

In TV series Sillicon Vally, the protagonist pitches music-related service to VC. They say 'I don't use.' We sometimes forget the number of musicians are small and the business for small people should not be treated as one for many people. It causes fail.

On the other hand, nobody says Hatsune Miku is fail. Profitable business by createive.ai is hard, but there's success case if that's character business.

In Japan, there are many music instrument makers. The number of players are over the average of the world. Unfortunately world web services from Japan is limited. Game do well. I think Music can be the same.

K-POP has advantage on selling their music to non-Korea countries. J-POP is relatively week. If music hit charts are dominated by the support of Japanese music AI, it's interesting.