World's Largest Music Company Is Helping Musicians Make Their Own AI Voice Clones

Universal Music Group has partnered with AI startup SoundLabs to offer voice modeling technology to its artists. The MicDrop feature, launching this summer, will allow UMG artists to create and control their own AI voice models. The tool includes voice-to-instrument functionality and language transposition capabilities. RollingStone adds: AI voice clones have become perhaps the most well-known -- and often the most controversial -- use of artificial intelligence in the music business. Viral tracks with AI vocals have spurred legislation to protect artists' virtual likenesses and rights of publicity.

Last year, an anonymous songwriter named Ghostwriter went viral with his song "Heart On My Sleeve," which featured AI-generated vocals of UMG artists Drake and The Weeknd. The song was pulled from streaming services days later following mounting pressure from the record company. Ironically, Drake got caught in a voice cloning controversy of his own a year later when he used a Tupac voice clone on his Kendrick Lamar diss track "Taylor Made Freestyle." Tupac's estate hit the rapper with a cease-and-desist in April, and the song was subsequently taken down.

Autotune

[sunderland56]

Sadly the public accepts the use of autotune..... this will probably go the same path, first be a "feature" everyone over-uses, then just be used subtly by many many artists.

Re:Autotune

[quonset]

Sadly the public accepts the use of autotune..... this will probably go the same path, first be a "feature" everyone over-uses, then just be used subtly by many many artists.

Autotune does have its uses when done properly. Look at this [youtube.com] for example.

Freedom from "Artists"

[Roger W Moore]

Forget digitizing existing artists. If this works a lot better than the horrendous autotune just create new voices then you can free songwritiers to easily create and profit from their work without having to team up with artists and recording studios using AI-voices not modelled on anyone in particular. This way we can avoid all the crap around today's music industry and "artists". (Yes, I know this will never happen but I can hope!)

Re:Freedom from "Artists"

[sunderland56]

just create new voices then you can free songwritiers to easily create and profit from their work without having to team up with artists

Vocaloid already exists. Hatsune Miku has been a singing star since 2007 and has even gone on tour.... but is 100% software. No AI needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[BigFire]

Rick Beato (music producer in Atlanta) was unable to distinguish between real and current generation of AI generated singing. His teenage son on the other hand can tell it right away as sounding weird. https://youtu.be/zbo6SdyWGns?s... [youtu.be]

Re: Freedom from "Artists"

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Isn't he like 60? Ears as well as brains are more like oatmeal at that age...

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Depends on the genre though right. Top 40 style Pop music? I feel like that genre is always going to have the most layers of production put atop it and live performance can usually be expected as more of a visual performance than a vocal one. Feels like "popstars dont have to actually be good singers, it's studio magic" has been a thing for a long time.

Of course its pop and rap artists

[Berkyjay]

The people with the least bit of music integrity are going to be the ones going whole hog in on using technology to further remove the hassle of actually doing something creative.

Re:

[Visarga]

I'm in there for the music not for the hassle.

Positive side of this

[schneidafunk]

There's plenty of reason to criticize this, but how cool would it have been if stephen hawking was able to record his voice before losing it? This kind of technology can help a lot of disabled people.

Re:Positive side of this

[ddtmm]

You mean that was not his real voice?

Universally bad

[PFritz21]

Of course, those hacks at NBC Comcast Universal is doing something as terrible as this. They havenâ(TM)t put out any decent music IN YEARS.

In what world is this good?

[sharkette66]

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't want the AI in my music.

Re:

[Visarga]

No, you don't understand, the whole thing here is to put some weird ass lyrics that only mean something to you alone. Then listen once and throw it away. It's like imagination.

Read the fine print.

[Gravis Zero]

There is zero, ZERO doubt in my mind that somewhere in the fine print is a clause that allows them to use your voice for anything they want.

They are a profit driven group and they will screw you as hard as possible if it means they can increase their own profits.

Perfect for

[q_e_t]

weird AI Jankovich.

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

First, he does(did?) well with his flavor of satire.

Second, is that 'A L' or 'A I'? Because poor Al must be tired of hearing about AI, or maybe I should be using a different font.

Re:

[q_e_t]

A I, not A L. I was riffing on how without serifs AI and Al look so similar and joking about how voice mimicry could help a musical satirist, given his name is already hard to distinguish from our artificial soon to be overlords. (Who I welcome of course, please don't send the kill bots round).

first normalise, then mandate

[cas2000]

Right, "helping". in the same sense that mafia goons "help" small business owners ensure that their premises don't burn down.

If this is voluntary at the moment, that's only because UMG is in the normalisation phase of exploiting this technology. Once it has become normalised and accepted, it will become mandatory - with all musicians required to make AI clones of their voices AND assign ownership of those clones to the corporation. And a contract which prohibits "competing" against the corporation-owned vo