Berlin MusicTech Meetup #14: Human Virtuosity in Music Production with AI

PRESENTATIONS IN DETAIL

Expect different perspectives on the topic and the potential of AI for music.

1st Presenter is Moises Horta Valenzuela

SEMILLA AI

Moises is a self-taught sound artist, creative technologist, and electronic musician hailing from Tijuana, México. His work predominantly spans the realms of computer music, Artificial Intelligence, and delves deep into the history and politics surrounding budding digital technologies.

He will talk about his latest project SEMILLA.AI. An artistic research project in the realm of sound art, experimental music instrument building, and AI music focused on exploring novel forms of interaction with artificial neural networks for audio synthesis.

Rooted in the concept of visualizing the latent space of neural networks, the synthesizer employs advanced deep learning algorithms, namely RAVE and MelSpecVAE. These drive a generative neural network built on the Variational Autoencoder architecture, enabling the network to learn features and patterns from a vast corpus of sound and subsequently produce new synthesized audio.

Beyond mere technology, SEMILLA.AI grapples with the intricacies of generative neural networks, aiming to demystify them for artists and the general public. Central to the initiative is the collection of audio datasets from historic musical instruments and contemporary sound practices. This effort seeks to cultivate a culturally contextualized and diverse representation of sound traditions within the ambit of generative AI, thereby enhancing the capabilities of generative neural networks and probing their applications in sound art.

The nomenclature and iconography of SEMILLA.AI are deeply anchored in the ancient Mayan numerical concept of zero, depicted as a seed glyph. Notably, the Mayans were among the pioneers to conceive zero not as a void but as a symbol of potentiality, a stark departure from Western interpretations.

2nd Presenter is Bruno Kramm

Hands on Music AIoT

Bruno Kramm, speaker of the KI Association and since more than 30 years in electronic music production at home presents beside the Retro Future Synth Composer (a SaaS KI Midi Composer on Transformer basis) his Robotik Cimbalom from Ukraine, which is controlled by the KI Composer. On midimesh, a platform for IoT sequencing will be presented, on the basis of which the first IoT DAW will be created.

In 1984, at the age of 17, Bruno developed his first computer game on a Commodore 64 and won a “Golden Disk” from CHIP magazine. Five years later, he founded one of Germany’s first alternative music labels and toured Europe, the USA, Russia and Asia with his band. In the mid-90s, he was involved in the founding of Spektracom, the first private Internet provider in Upper Franconia. As a music producer, he supervised numerous successful music productions behind the mixing desk and as an arranger.
As deputy head of the AI Association in Central Germany and head of the AG Kultur, he networks SMEs, politics, and AI startups and works to reduce societal concerns about AI with creative projects. In the competition “Together it Becomes AI” organized by BMAS, he was awarded by the Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil for his AI music project PaRoO.
As CEO of Infinite Devices GmbH, he is responsible for developing and marketing the open-source AIoT platform infinimesh and AI applications such as the Truck Norris truck safety solution and the Audio Recognition Framework.

3rd Presenter will be Steffan Ianigro

Non-linear Plecto LFO

 4th Presenter is Portrait XO

Urgent call for action by Portrait XO

Since the first time Portrait XO presented her early research in AI and music at the Berlin Music Tech Meetup in 2019, she returns to share some important insights with an open call for creative industries to work together on developing an open framework to help navigate the nuanced decision-making process that needs to happen. As the use of AI has been challenging creative industries to redefine how we use these technologies with regulations taking shape, Portrait XO addresses concerns with suggestions of how we can work together to facilitate and navigate difficult decisions within the context of AI.

NEW MUSIC TOOLS PLAYGROUND

AutoBeat by Achillefs Sourlas

Additionally, Achillefs Sourlas will set up a table where everyone can try out AutoBeat. A MIDI plugin that leverages the power of AI models (in particular GPT-2) in order to generate MIDI beats in various styles, which can be dragged and dropped as MIDI clips/regions into a compatible DAW.  It aims to make beat generation easier, more efficient, and fun, by offering an endless source of inspiration to a wide range of users. Achillefs talked about this idea at the last meetup and has now a working prototype. Yeah!

Wall Of Opportunities

We will set up the “Wall Of Opportunities” again. A big piece of paper, pinned to a wall on which you can leave a note. No matter if you are looking for a project partner or if you would like to offer your skills to others, make sure to let everyone know.

For Everyone

We aim to facilitate an event that is interesting to all of you. Whether you are interested in learning more about musical instruments, you consider actively engaging with new technology for musical expression, or you just want to hang out with the music tech people in Berlin.

Drinks

Beer is FREE. Thanks to our amazing partner Neue Bühne Friedrichshain,  the Off club for music, photo und theater at Boxhagener Straße 18, in Friedrichshain.