Creating music was never more accessible than it is now.

Conversely, the likelihood of making it big just by making some good damn music was never lower than it is now. Makes for a fine hobby though.

▲

diggan 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Conversely, the likelihood of making it big just by making some good damn music was never lower than it is now.

Is that statement backed by any facts? Otherwise it sounds like a soundbite that sounds good, but I'm not sure how true it is. Maybe what "making it big" has changed more compared to how many people make their living making music, which for me would be enough to be considered "making it big".

	▲	AlecSchueler 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Do you believe more people per capita now make their their livings as performing musicians?

▲

usrusr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How will that hobby fare against gen-AI prompt composing? Synths and samplers and sequencers were once removed from playing real instruments, softsynths and DAW twice removed and now there's genAI, thrice removed and arguably the biggest jump of them all. When softsyths appeared, real instruments weren't affected at all, but physical synths all but disappeared, just carried on by inertia, integration with real instruments and a bit of nostalgia. Will the same happen to soft synth now that there's an alternative thrice removed from real instruments?

I believe so: in an aging softsynth community I still mingle with occasionally, everybody who is still actively involved with music seems to have either moved on to genAI, or to soft-on-Rpi for better integration with real instruments (including synths of all kinds).

	▲	sbarre 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> How will that hobby fare against gen-AI prompt composing The beauty of a hobby is that you do it for yourself, not for others. So even in a (terrible) world where 100% of commercial music was AI-composed, someone's hobby of writing music by hand would likely remain unaffected.
	▲	otabdeveloper4 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> physical synths all but disappeared Disappeared from where? In terms of units moved I'm guessing there's an order of magnitude more sold today than in the 90's or 80's.
	▲	zeknife 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I assume you're not very interested in the subject if you think synthesizers aren't real instruments
	▲	AlecSchueler 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> How will that hobby fare against gen-AI prompt composing? Pretty well, I believe. The joy of playing is largely the act itself, becoming one with your instrument and stepping into a world outside of time. Composition is an adjacent pastime.
	▲	piltdownman a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Not only are companies like Behringer completely redefining the cost of entry to the hardware synth market, while continuously launching affordable replicas of some of the most desireable and rare synths of all time, but traditional software-first companies like Arturia are now pivoting to release hardware hosting platforms for their V-Collection to bridge the soft/hard synth gap https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/astrolab/as... This is without even referencing the huge cross-pollination and massive influx of development in the Modular Synthesis scene spurred on by things like vcv rack and its EuroRack ports. In short, it has never been a better time in history to be a hardware synth enthusiast, and it's mainly down to soft-synths popularising the unique sonic qualities of historic hardware synths.