Comment by johnfn
7 hours ago
When modern DAWs like FL Studio started democratizing music production, there was immediate backlash in the music production community. I know this because I lived through it. Music made with FL Studio was considered garbage, not by serious musicians, amateur. "FL Studio users are incapable of making good music", etc. Of course now well-respected musicians like Tyler the Creator and Porter Robinson use FL Studio and there isn't really a question. This is a common theme every time some new method of creating music comes around - just look at how they called Dylan "Judas" when he debuted electronic guitar, etc.
"Every previous technological advancement in music produced amazing new sounds and styles" is classic hindsight bias. In retrospect, once everything has sorted out, and all the good music has risen to the top, it's easy to look back in history and point to the highlights. But when you live through it, it looks a lot more like a mess with no redeeming qualities.
It's easy to apply the same pattern of "people hated it, then liked it" but I think something's different about AI. I think a lot of the kneejerk reactions are subconscious but I don't think that means they're unfounded or invalid, they just haven't articulated the reason yet.
When AI image generation was a thing that hobbyists were messing around with (before it became good sometime in 2023) a lot of the creative-type people that abhor AI today were interested in it. Same thing with LLMs and stuff like AI Dungeon. ( I don't think AI music generation had a similar hobbyist era but not sure. )
I think the main thing that changed was how big and commercial it became. There's nothing counter-cultural about AI anymore, it's become the polar opposite. Nobody was making billions selling synthesizers & convincing investors it would replace 99% of musicians.
FL Studio was absolutely a massive commercial success. I mean, sure, nothing compared to AI, but in the music community bubble, it was enormous - and still is. It did what AI is doing today - it made a very expensive and time consuming process before (buy a thousand dollar guitar or other expensive instrument or synthesizer, rent a studio, get a producer, blah blah, etc) extremely cheap. This then led immediately to complaints - why is it that all music made with FL Studio so lame?
If we are going to say that the knee-jerk reaction to AI is somehow different I'd be curious to know what the difference is.
FL Studio has advanced a long way since it first came out. The software professionals are using today is nothing like it was 00's. The name at the time "FruityLoops" also didn't help its image as a pro tool.