Audio Fusion Bureau releases ReCONSTRUCT : Neural Synth, a free AI-powered virtual instrument for macOS and Windows.
AI, in some form, has been a hot topic for many, many years.
In the 1950s, universities worked on intelligent chess and checkers programs, and every sci-fi movie since gave us a fanciful glimpse into the future of AI. While we have yet to hit Star Trek heights, we are most definitely entering a new age of consumer-level artificial intelligence.
Audio Fusion Bureau has released reCONSTRUCT : Neural Synth, a virtual instrument that harnesses the power of AI to create unique sounds.
reCONSTRUCT is based on advanced neural networks, and it creates these unique sounds by taking a few user-defined parameters as a foundation.
The free version of reCONSTRUCT is limited in that it allows you to generate sounds and unusual timbres using the advanced neural network, but it doesn’t allow you to refine the results in the same way the paid version does. The paid version costs $29 and might be worth looking into if you want some advanced editing controls.
Potentially, the free version could serve as more than a demo because there’s nothing to say that it won’t generate some sounds that are ready to go straight into your track as they are or perhaps with some external help.
Audio Fusion Bureau has gone all in with AI and even created the interface for reCONSTRUCT with the help of artificial intelligence.
The last time I covered something from Audio Fusion Bureau, it was Bongo Cat Band, so I have to say, this is quite a departure. But I like to see a developer aiming to push boundaries while not being afraid to have fun.
The upside of this instrument to a beginner is that it should generate complex timbres with minimal effort and hopefully serve as a learning tool simultaneously.
As for more experienced users, everyone struggles for inspiration sometimes, and reCONSTRUCT could prove to be a valuable assistant in those moments, offering a vast range of sounds.
Opinions on AI are divided across the board, and I have mixed feelings, too. Generally speaking, I like anything that provides a helping hand with the opportunity to learn, but I don’t like anything that offers a shortcut with no chance to understand what the AI has just done.
Unfortunately, I think we’ll see more and more AI-generated music created with very little if any, input from a human, and I’d hate that to become the younger generation’s idea of being a musician.
However, reCONSTRUCT seems to be on the helpful side of AI and worth checking out.
It’s available in AU, VST, VST3, and AAX formats for macOS (10.13 upwards) and Windows (8.1 upwards).
Download: reCONSTRUCT : Neural Synth (Free version or paid version for $29)
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7 Comments
Shok
onYou find fun instruments for creativity and smiles. Thank you for your time.
MRG
onThere’s tons of different genres of music. I’m sure AI will, at some point, be very useful, perhaps especially in gaming and VR, when changing the mood of the soundtrack can be useful. So, realtime AI-driven muzak, I’m okay with. Now there’s Pop. What do we do about it? Is AI doing formulaic Pop worse than some known producers out there doing it, basically the same way? I honestly don’t know.
But AI will never be -fun- to use. AI will never express what -you- want to express.
Make music for you, first. If your music finds an audience, good. If not, who cares?
There’s tons of different genres of music. Find the ones that speak to you. Don’t be afraid of trying other styles once in a while. There’s a place for all of them, in time and space.
There’s tons of different genres of music. And that’s a good thing.
Now can you get me an AI that shows me the download link to the free version, ’cause I can’t find it anywhere. o_O;
MRG
onNevermind, got it. You need to “add to cart” with the link at the top of the page, the link at the bottom gets you the paid version. I expected the opposite, duh. :p
AVFJ
onI’ve been hearing this same concern since the early 80s, when synths became more accessible to the masses. That is what was responsible for so much of the electronic sound in that decade. The same fears of non-musicians now entering into the domain of “true musicians” is nothing new. The same happened when digital cameras hit the market, and traditional photographers were all up in arms over the onslaught of amateurs. The ironic thing about that argument is that it was no more than a decade prior that photographer was still the ugly duckling of the art world, with painters whining about the same thing about photography.
So on and on we go. In the end, it doesn’t take all that much to discern an amateur who is dependent largely on the extremes of software presets to create something. However, I generally don’t care if someone is a classically trained pianist, guitarist, or kazoo noodler or not (as if that has anything to do with sound synthesis anyway), yet can produce something well beyond the typical from of what normally is expected from 1st timers.
Behind it all has always been this resentful taint of sour grapes. But here is the rub. . . There are not that many classically trained, or decades long musicians who actually are all that great at creating something new or fresh. Sure, they may have the chops, but other than the fantastic technical ability they’ve mastered, their creativity can often be. . . meh. Whether or not they ever had it, or it was trained out of them, who can say.
If you look back at some of the most iconic musicians of the latter 20th century (60s onward), many of them either couldn’t read music, or had only picked up their guitar a year or less before hitting it big, but were somehow consistently able to produce incredible and original music. These are people who did not spend a decade or more slugging away while children and teens sweating at a keyboard or whatever.
Anyway, maybe someday the human spirit will evolve out of the sticky ugliness of what we hold onto from our Calvinistic Puritanical attitudes (and there are so many), particularly with the notion that work is in itself its own reward. Because I suspect that is where some of this comes from.
James N
on“Calvinistic Puritanical” is a bit of a stretch, my friend. at least for me. I can’t speak for all, but my dislike for some uses of AI in music has nothing to do with self indulgence, snobbery, or even technical ability. Creativity has little to do with being classically trained, so I think we can remove that from the debate.
Some of my favourite musicians barely play more than three chords; some by choice, and some because they can’t, they aren’t instrumentalists in that way, and it doesn’t matter because they still have their creative mind.
Some purists don’t consider a synth to be a real instrument in the same way that a piano is, and some photographers might not have liked the arrival of digital cameras. The difference is that you still have to learn how to make your own choices with a synth, and a digital camera makes the creative process easier, it doesn’t remove the user from it entirely.
AI software that generates music based on tags, or creates chord sequences without explaining anything makes it impossible to discern one artist from another, and whether a musician can play J.S Bach’s Inventions or Chopsticks, I want to hear their personality, that’s the only concern.
For what it’s worth, I’d also say that suggesting not many decade-long musicians are great at creating anything new or fresh is pretty far off. Being a trained musicians isn’t a detriment to creativity in typical cases, nor is not being a trained musician.
I’m all for AI that helps musicians make creative choices, just not AI that takes everything out of their hands.
Go
onBe extremely careful with this link because you could lose everything from the registry! So at your own risk.
Mike
onCould you clarify? That sounds very scary, but how so? I already downloaded, installed, and ran the plugin before I read your comment and my computer seems to be fine.