I'm sorry to be so negative, it's great you're returning to the material after all these years, but the AI versions I've listened to all have the same smoothed-over quality that loses everything interesting and relatable to my ears in the original versions.

My musical taste tends toward less produced, rougher/lo-fi recordings, e.g. Guided By Voices. So, it follows that I prefer the original recordings.

There is one aspect that I find slightly dehumanizing -- the AI changed the singer's voice so drastically that I don't recognize the original singer anymore. The uniqueness of the voice has been smoothed out to be much more generic. For me, music (and art in general) is in part an expression of one's identity, so I'd consider this a negative outcome. I'm sure similar things could be said of the instrument performances as well.

But again, this is all just my two cents, and it's a matter of taste. Ultimately if you're happy with the results, that's what matters!

I have a classical piece I wrote over a decade ago for piano [2] (it’s the instrument I play), but it was always intended to be an orchestral work. Using AI allowed me to sonically experiment with a stringed score which was pretty cool.

It’s basically the equivalent of taking a piece you’ve written and running it through an arranger keyboard or Band-in-a-Box on steroids.

[1] - https://mordenstar.com/blog/dutyfree-shop

[2] - https://mordenstar.com/blog/screwdriver-sonata

FWIW, I'm (now a hobby) musician and have done studio work. Even the latest and best models have this unmistakable sound.

I want to be able to rap like Twista. If I use AI to change my voice and speed it up, it’s kinda fake.

Where’s the originality in that. I’ll never be *that good*, but I have fun doing it.

Now I guess using AI strictly for mastering is OK , but even then the results haven’t been good for me.

I've read the "how revival works" section, but still have no idea "how the revival works".

("We've used ai" is all I got from both this intro on HN and the we pages I read, though possible I missed some section.)

Can you share?

I.e. Did you take original audio recordings and run it though some audio chain that optimizes the mix and volumes? Did you put the sheets and lyrics into ableton and recreate the music? Did you feed audio files into chatgpt and prompt "make it better"? Something else?

In the interest of transparency, understanding what happened here will significantly guide my own emotional response :). I appreciate the details of 5 core principles, but spending so much time on principles without actual detail on what got done makes me skeptical and even cynical, which may not be the intent. For example, I personally distinguish between a raw photo, edited photo, composite image, and AI regenerated image, and one of the things I'm trying to understand is the path / traceability from human to final audio file.

Thx!

I might have to revisit some of my old songs...

The originals sound very much like demos, and from a producer's perspective are very low quality (no offense). They're definitely more raw, but objectively not as good - i.e harmonies aren't tight, the levels are not well balanced, etc.

It's funny that people hate that AI can improve this, because even without AI, modern music uses a ton of digital tools to mix and master - and true musicians don't care whether it's digital or not.

These commenters would be the same people who boo-ed bob dylan when he went electric.

Look at John Mayer - he uses AI to model amps, instead of lugging around giant heavy tube amps.

Question for you - what was the workflow exactly? I've been wanting to test out some AI tools to do similar things with my music.

In the first example guitars sound very lively, like I'm actually listening to someone playing live. Very warm and cosy feeling. 2026 version is just some standard over-produced pop-music, that I would have completely ignored if I heard it "in the wild".

In the second example, 2003 vocal performance might be not perfect from a technique perspective, but I can hear real emotion in his voice. 2026 version sounds very bland, just like every other song that I might here on a pop-radio.

I want to say that I am not an anti-AI fanatic, I am generally curious about new ways to use technology (including gen-AI, but not limited to it) to create art. So I am not coming from "it's AI, therefore it's bad" perspective. I genuinely tried to listen with open mind and hear the music without thinking too much about how exactly it was created.