With gushy enthusiasm, I proudly announce my new music project, CTRL ALT CREATE.
Let’s not mince words: CTRL ALT CREATE is an AI-assisted project.
We’re all entering into a bold, new technological world together. Since people have varying degrees of knowledge and understanding of AI (and disdain for it)—and because the term “AI-assisted” could mean so many things—please allow me to detail my process.
CTRL ALT CREATE’s songs come about in three specific ways:
1. AI FOR POLISH
I first compose the music and vocal melodies in FL Studio. Then, I upload everything to SUNO, allowing the AI to “cover” my song. I define the parameters of instrumentation, tone, and flow, and AI does some magic. This results in a mix that is fuller, more dynamic, polished, and instrumentally diverse than what I am currently capable of producing on my own. Then I replace the AI vocals with my own recordings.
99% of the male vocals in CTRL ALT CREATE songs are my own. The remaining 1% are on some choruses, where using AI for back-up vocals delighted my ears.
Unless otherwise stated, 100% of the female vocals on CTRL ALT CREATE are AI (this occurs on a very small percentage of the songs).
I wrote 100% of the lyrics. That will always be the case.
2. AI INSTRUMENTATION
For some songs, I input vocal melodies I wrote and recorded without any music, specify genre(s), describe progressions, and any other desired attributes, and prompt SUNO to generate its own music around my words. Thanks to this feature, I have manifested songs that have incubated in my heart and soul for over twenty years. That is just dazzlingly cathartic.
3. AI AS A VOICE COACH
In rare instances (less than 5% of the time), I don’t even write the vocal melodies; I only input lyrics, define the song’s parameters, and let SUNO build the vocal flow, melodies, and everything else. Then like with the other methods, I replace the AI vocals with mine.
You might understandably think that this is the laziest and most hands-off of the specified approaches, but you’d be missing one key fact:
AI is a better singer than I am, so replacing AI-generated melodies with my own stretches my abilities more than any other aspect of this project!
Look. I understand that AI is one of the many polarizing issues we’re working out as individuals and as a society. If you hate anything that AI has had any part in, more power to you. That’s valid. I support and celebrate you.
“BACK IN MY DAY”
I’ve always embraced exploring the limits of what’s possible with technology.
Back in 2002, I was the lead singer in an electronic band called Anorkia, with collaborators from all over the world (U.S., Germany, Poland, China). We did something unprecedented—built deep collaborative relationships while making music together despite never meeting in person.
Hell, we didn’t even have video chat back then, and talking on the phone internationally was expensive and unreliable. Our communication was handled mostly in AOL Instant Messenger and email.
And my dude, we all had dial-up, which meant each vocal .WAV file I sent for mixing in Germany took hours upon hours to upload.
We never complained at all. We were enamored with technology and all the new frontiers it promised. It was an exhilarating time to be alive, like being pioneers at the edge of a new world.
CO-CREATING WITH MACHINES
My sole role in Anorkia was to provide lyrics and vocals.
So, perhaps you can imagine that from my point of view, my role wasn’t all that different in execution than working with AI. Whether the music comes from a person or a computer, my role is to turn it into a story.
From my perspective—as essentially a poet and amateur singer that likes to express myself with sound—the benefits of working with AI-assisted music are numerous.
When I am feeling inspired and ready to create, I don’t have to wait for my collaborators to work through their writer’s block or other hindering circumstances.
With AI, clashing egos and creative differences are a total non-factor, as AI always supports my unique vision. This means I don’t have to sacrifice ideas I am passionately attached to in order to make space for other people’s visions.
PLEASE DON’T GET ME WRONG
Sometimes that tension between people’s contrasting visions is what makes music so incredible, so real, so dynamic. I am not in any way whatsoever undermining that.
But seeing as how CTRL ALT CREATE is a solo project, AI tools like SUNO have empowered me to realize my artistic vision on a clearer, more accessible level than has ever been possible for me before.
Accessible is a keyword here. I’ve been making obscure industrial music for the past twenty five years. Never heard of it? Good. Neither has anyone else.
But I put all, and I mean all, of my heart and soul into every single song I’ve ever been a part of. It’s been a lonely trip sometimes, to put all of myself into something that very few people ever received or appreciated.
Time will tell how CTRL ALT CREATE will resonate with you, but at least in terms of production value and sound dynamics, this will by far be the best shot I’ve ever taken at creating music that could appeal to a few more people than my past work.
And at very least, no matter what, these songs will mean something to me for the rest of my life. That matters.
Previews and release dates coming soon…
Collaborating with computers and loving all humans ‘till the end and then some,
—Andrew ‘Dr3w’ Hicks
P.S. This post was 100% human-made. I was overusing EM dashes before AI was a sparkle in its daddy’s eye—and I ain’t gonna stop now ! 😎
