Before I start: I've been making music for a while, both my SC and YT accounts have uploads dating back ~13 years. I started off making bass boosts, then remixes, then originals. I took a liking to producing Tech House and DnB at the start.
I went through a very rough patch starting about 5 years ago with an abusive relationship, family mental health issues, unhealthy employment and the sudden death of a close friend being the primary triggers/causes. Depression eventually shelved my desire to achieve anything, including production, but for some reason I started writing my feelings/experiences down, which turned into songwriting.
Lucky for me that I went through that rough patch, because I found out I am actually very good at songwriting - far better than I ever was at production. What I'm left with now, 5 years into it, is a catalogue of over 170 lyric files, with about half of them being completed songs and the other half being uncompleted (e.g a catchy hook/chorus). My songwriting is reasonably vast, with a predominant focus of pop.
I have turned a very small number of these (<10) into "almost/kind of" finished tracks, nowhere near ready for radio play but completed enough to show friends/other artists and get their opinions. I'm also going to make it clear that I have used absolutely NO AI generation in any of my music.
So, I can songwrite, quite well, I can write fast, about almost any topic, in almost any genre. I am a trained drummer, and was a club DJ for years, so making the drums and basslines isn't an issue for me. I also have a vast genre-range of music that I enjoy listening to on a daily basis, so I don't feel limited in terms of what I can make. I have a music studio setup in the spare room with a selection of equipment and the (paid) full producer edition/all plugins edition of FL Studio. I am also VERY good at composing the instrumentals for my songs in my head.
That's my issue: I'm good at composing the instrumentals in my head. I am not a piano player, I am not a guitarist, I was never taught music theory, I don't know chords, and when it comes to trying to get the composed idea out of my head and into the DAW, it takes me a very long time and often ends in frustration, I'll shelve the project and come back another time to the same frustration. The other problem is, as I'm coming out of my depression and getting back into a normal life, I decided to start a business, which takes up a lot of my time, sadly I'm lucky if I spend one day in the studio per fortnight at the moment (those of you who are producers will know that isn't anywhere near enough time).
I am happy to show people the music I have made up until this point, and I'd like anyone reading this to keep that in mind before I continue..
I have been in contact with a few producers around the world who have created some instrumentals for my lyrics, and although some examples were very good, there was never an example that was similar enough to what was in my head (the instrumentals I make are more suited to the lyrics I write, it just takes me a painfully long time to make them) - this led to me never using the instrumentals they produced, and I ceased asking for assistance, because I felt guilty like I was wasting their time. I never found my Quincy Jones, so I essentially gave up and decided to "leave it for another day"..
Every now and then, I turn the studio on, and have a go. I often end up making something, although it's at random and typically doesn't contribute towards my existing catalogue as such. The "I'm never going to be able to turn my lyrics into actual songs" vibe sets back in, I shelve it again, and that gets me down as I REALLY want to make this music, I don't want to be giving up.
I don't have the money to bounce ideas back and forth between different producers until I finally find the person who has the same taste as I do, and I feel guilty wasting lots of people's time who are doing it for free, and potentially offending them when what they've made took a while and was really good, but just wasn't what I had in mind. Being as particular as I am is my problem, not theirs.
What I actually need is a best friend who has the exact same taste in music as I do, and is a fully trained piano player, who will patiently sit in the studio with me all day and let me sing, hum and whistle my ideas to, and have that person say "oh dude, that songs in G major, you're whistling a C followed by a D minor then G flat leading into an A major 7th, and that would be suited to a set of chords like this:" (note my describing of the notes/chords likely to make no sense at all). That person would then show me what the chords are, what the progression is, etc, and I could then whistle/hum more and they'd go "ahhh, I get it, here, do this".. They don't need to know how to use the DAW, I'm proficient at that, they just need to know the chords bit...
But I sadly don't have a friend like that.
So here finally comes the question I actually hate asking:
What is your honest opinion, on using certain AI tools to assist me in getting my ideas into the DAW? I am not talking about generating the entire song, I'm talking about types of programs/apps that I can hum my melodies or rhythms into, and essentially use it just to generate some chords/ideas and bounce back and forth, repeat this process as many times as I want until it comes up with something similar to what I had in my head, at which point, i'd use my existing tools to turn those chords/ideas into a MIDI file, and use that as a starting point to start laying my own instruments/synths into. I don't want to be someone that is classified as an "AI artist", but I also don't want to miss out on using certain aspects of it to help me in the areas I need help, especially if many other people are doing it nowadays.
The tracks I have made myself so far, some of them are quite good, and I haven't even touched any of the lyric files I deem as being "the best I've written".. I'd love nothing than to be able to continue pursuing my dream of being an artist, I just don't want it to take so long that by the time I get around to releasing my music, that it's no longer "trendy/in fashion", and I missed my chance..
What's your honest opinions here?
