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).

> 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.

> 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.

I assume you're not very interested in the subject if you think synthesizers aren't real instruments

> 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.

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.