As an established indie composer in the genre of peaceful and relaxing instrumental music (having composed many tracks that some people might refer to as "functional music"), I found this interview very interesting and well executed. I'm glad you pushed back on many of Stavitsky's claims and explored the ethical side of their business. My key takeaways and opinions after listening to the full episode are the following: 1) Their idea and scientific work on generative audio for specific purposes is very interesting and no doubt very well made. It makes total sense for them to run their own app for this purpose. However, when it comes to creating an artist profile on DSPs and literally distributing thousands of AI tracks, I don't think it's the way forward. In my opinion, this shouldn't be allowed by the DSPs before they come up with a system that clearly labels AI music as such. 2) He claims that they want to support real artists with their AI model and that artists are waiting in line to work with them. However, if you look at their discography, the vast majority of their tracks on the DSPs are solely created by Endel, including the 20 tracks they've released in 2024 alone. If their goal is to help artists and they've created an easy model to work with, why aren't all their releases collaborations with real artists? If I were them and really believed in making a positive change for real artists, I would delete all DSP releases that were solely generated by their AI and focus exclusively on collaborations for the DSP releases. 3) It seems a bit shady and strange that he didn't want to disclose who their distributors are, considering this is public information. A quick search for their releases on TH-cam Music reveals that their main distributor is Platoon Ltd, at least for the releases I checked. 4) Registering the 6 co-founders as "songwriters" on all tracks that are not collaborations, with the sole purpose of extracting performance and mechanical royalties from the PROs and MROs (organizations that were specifically created for real musicians and composers), is in my opinion unethical. Yes, I understand that they can technically do this, but for me it makes no sense that the software engineer/company behind an AI music model should get performance royalties for thousands of generated musical works. However, this is a complex topic and will surely be discussed a lot during the years ahead. Great episode, Ari! Thanks!
He took offense at Ari saying they were “pumping out tracks” but a few minutes earlier when asked how many tracks they have he said, “I’ve lost count…thousands”.
Yes. It seems quite likely that Endel's six co-founders + some/all of their additional musicians and engineers are very happy to be earning substantial streaming revenue from the THOUSANDS of tracks they have created and released. Thank you, Ari, for clearing pointing out the difference in scale of what Endel has generated, fine-tuned, and released compared with what one individual recording artist could do in the space of a few years.
Ari, I appreciate your work in this interview. This guy begins by saying their content isn’t music, that it is “sound”, and then proceeds to call it music over and over and over again. Btw, I’m only 16 mins into this. He answers like a politician.
The man said in the next few years a software developer will be nominated for a grammy award I cringed when he said that.My dreams were crushed. He's not trying to make wellness music he's trying to make a billion dollars.
It’s like going into the DSPs with a giant royalty vacuum powered by sheer volume (number) of tracks and sucking away the royalties that would otherwise remain for hard working human artists.
Yes, the technocrats who achieve success via yet another disruptive idea/technology seem to feel very comfortable earning large sums of money from their efforts - even when it comes at the expense of others... It's an updated version of what used to be called greed (which was once considered to be a sin).
If he can make a sound library of thousands of songs in 2 months then the game is over. I guess the social media influencers are next Ai will create a automated video of someone explaining stuff that sounds and looks like us. Which they already have done.
Ari, you are a boss, man. I’m thankful musicians like you exist to push back. I listened to this while running so I was breathing too heavy to feel uncomfortable.
Thank you, Ari, for another great interview/conversation. It was very helpful for Mr. Stavitsky to explain their work flow process - and also how some of their collaborations (such as with Grimes, who was already using their technology/music in her own life) developed organically/serendipitously. Having some sort of Endel plug-in (or Endel sub-DAW option) as an aid to creativity in the studio also sounds intriguing. However there's no denying what you underlined in this interview - that Endel has been able to release thousands of tracks (so many that Mr. Stavitsky can't accurately recall the total...) in the same amount of time (a few years) that an individual artist would have been able to release tens (or hundreds at best) of tracks. I also feel like there is some meta-irony happening. Mr. Stavitsky mentions near the end of the conversation something about how AI will allow us "to do more work faster." And yet it is this pressure to do more work faster which is causing so many human beings to lose sleep at night, to be unable to concentrate, to work more hours for less pay, to get ulcers, to spend too much time in front of their computer/phone screens, to feel anxious and disconnected from others - all of which his company is aiming to alleviate via their scientifically-rooted musical tracks...
Is it music or is it "sound", like he calls it? If it's only "sound" maybe stop making music money of of your "sounds". "Gaming the system" is exactly what this is-- great interview and I'm glad you asked him the tough questions because he didn't have good enough answers.
I hate to say it but, the creatives in the music business over the last 15 yrs paved the way for these guys to claim they’re songwriters, simply because they can repeatedly press the “refresh” button until they hear something they like…. Because we started calling any engineer that can layer a kick drum a songwriter.
This guy seems very shady and elusive with his answers. It's not that we release music everyday but earlier Ari was like you released thousand's of songs in 2 months. He said soon Ai will be able to churn out songs on your DAW wow!
My take is this: If Endel is essentially a scientific "DJ" that processes user data in order to play back Original Works by composers then that's fine.. If it's an algorithm/AI that makes music that's fine too but should NOT take a royalty and should certainly not be released on Streaming platforms. I think the real question is: is Endel the major labels way of pocketing the royalties for the functional music revenue? I have a strong suspicion it is. Very clever.
I agree. 100% generated AI music should not be entitled to receive the same type of royalties as human work. The major labels are also behaving very contradictorily regarding wellness and AI music. One day they're completely against it publicly, and the next day they're collaborating with a platform that churns out thousands of AI tracks. Deezer takes a stance "for artists", then the next day they release a wellness app consisting of mainly AI music (Zen by Deezer). You can certainly not believe everything these big platforms are saying at first glance.
First tell-tale sign/red flag: he keeps looking up all the time. 'nuff said. You guys still run on foot, and I have a super robot speeding at 400 km/h, but I'm playing fair... ;)
AI is good for the medical biz, but it doesn't need to invade the music biz .. I don't wanna hear ANY AI music, period .. I'm the world's biggest Beatles fan, but I thought their "Now & Then" recording was fabricated bland corporate trash. Lennon didn't release it for a reason - it was a partial song kernel, not a developed song. Good sounds aren't good enough. Music is an expression of humans. When it becomes an expression of robots it loses its soul. Fabricating thousands of songs with AI software is WEB SPAM.
I have to agree with Oleg here. I don’t think they’re taking anything away from us as musicians. I was a lot more concerned about AI until I started using it to develop song ideas. In the long run, a lot of things will change that we have no control over and will have to accept that. I’ve been writing music without AI for decades and have come to terms with this. Oleg explained EXACTLY what I’m currently doing. I create full songs with music, lyrics and vocals all produced by AI, tweak them, then record them with more professional production, real and virtual instruments, etc. Songwriter’s block no longer exists for me and for at least the next year or so, what I can produce will sound better than what AI alone produces. Once the tech can equal that or produce better, I have a plan B. I think the key is diversification. We have to be able to do more than compose music. Our end products as artists will need to be standalone productions that include visuals. AI graphics and video are here and learning those tools will also be necessary. Unless you are a performer, just writing songs isn’t going to work for you once AI can do everything at human scale and with professional quality audio. Music licensing and libraries aren’t likely to be viable sources of income for many artists once AI can handle that area without human input. Tech savvy musicians will survive this and the creative process with AI is even more enjoyable than without it. If you keep your head in the sand and just complain about things, you’re going to suffocate. I don’t mean this to seem like a shameless plug, but my channel currently only posts AI versions of songs I’m in the process of recording. I have no plans to try licensing or directly monetizing any of these AI tracks, not even the human versions. Until things get figured out with copyright and royalties, it's worthless anyway. Plus, I think the amount of music available is going to skyrocket and the value of directly monetizing single songs as "just music" won't be worth the effort. I'm just trying to learn how AI works and what the real potential is for artistic expression. Everything you hear on my channel is AI, no human vocals either. To my ears, it sounds pretty good. The platform I used is called Suno.ai and it’s allowed me to generate over 120 useable ideas in the quality you hear within a couple of weeks.
These songs generate a lot of revenue via streams. It’s very easy for people to incorporate these soundscapes into their DAILY rituals, morning routines, night routines, etc.
I have mixed feelings on this - it seems natural that this evolution is natural in a technology era - but it should not be a competition....it should be labeled as AI...and kept as it's own category / genre - and man made music is it's own category .... no different than separating Hip hop from rock or edm. I don't want to compete with AI music, but in a greater historical sense, I don't want to stifle evolution either. - I get it though, the problem is corporate greed valuing income potential over human creativity - so you can't blame people for spending their money where they want. We still have to respect people freedom to like what they do. Can we really get upset at them for for getting 300k fans, no, we can't blame 300k fans for liking machine music either, it's new and interesting. - the shops simply have to evolve to keep AI music in it's own category / genre, not play it off as human made.
Now I better understand the 1000 minimum plays Spotify is implementing... the sheer quantity of AI music in a short time frame ruined it for human artists...
Yeah, that's certainly a big reason... They also mentioned that it's to limit streaming fraud by people that release thousands of tracks and then generate a low number of fake streams per track to go unnoticed. If done at a massive scale, even a few streams per track can generate substantial royalties in total.
SOMETHINGS FISHY GOING ON... WHY IS THIS GUY KEEPING THE DISRUBUTION COMPANY A SECRET????? I THOUGHT COPYRIGHT LAW SAID YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT AI MUSIC....
Unfortunately this company isn't getting it right! This man does not have the standing to criticize any form of musical expression and he's doing that in half of his conversation. He dosen't have a clue.
Came for the indie promition tips, stayed for the top notch investigative journalism. Seriously man, great interviewership.
thank you!
As an established indie composer in the genre of peaceful and relaxing instrumental music (having composed many tracks that some people might refer to as "functional music"), I found this interview very interesting and well executed. I'm glad you pushed back on many of Stavitsky's claims and explored the ethical side of their business. My key takeaways and opinions after listening to the full episode are the following:
1) Their idea and scientific work on generative audio for specific purposes is very interesting and no doubt very well made. It makes total sense for them to run their own app for this purpose. However, when it comes to creating an artist profile on DSPs and literally distributing thousands of AI tracks, I don't think it's the way forward. In my opinion, this shouldn't be allowed by the DSPs before they come up with a system that clearly labels AI music as such.
2) He claims that they want to support real artists with their AI model and that artists are waiting in line to work with them. However, if you look at their discography, the vast majority of their tracks on the DSPs are solely created by Endel, including the 20 tracks they've released in 2024 alone. If their goal is to help artists and they've created an easy model to work with, why aren't all their releases collaborations with real artists? If I were them and really believed in making a positive change for real artists, I would delete all DSP releases that were solely generated by their AI and focus exclusively on collaborations for the DSP releases.
3) It seems a bit shady and strange that he didn't want to disclose who their distributors are, considering this is public information. A quick search for their releases on TH-cam Music reveals that their main distributor is Platoon Ltd, at least for the releases I checked.
4) Registering the 6 co-founders as "songwriters" on all tracks that are not collaborations, with the sole purpose of extracting performance and mechanical royalties from the PROs and MROs (organizations that were specifically created for real musicians and composers), is in my opinion unethical. Yes, I understand that they can technically do this, but for me it makes no sense that the software engineer/company behind an AI music model should get performance royalties for thousands of generated musical works. However, this is a complex topic and will surely be discussed a lot during the years ahead.
Great episode, Ari! Thanks!
He took offense at Ari saying they were “pumping out tracks” but a few minutes earlier when asked how many tracks they have he said, “I’ve lost count…thousands”.
Yes. It seems quite likely that Endel's six co-founders + some/all of their additional musicians and engineers are very happy to be earning substantial streaming revenue from the THOUSANDS of tracks they have created and released. Thank you, Ari, for clearing pointing out the difference in scale of what Endel has generated, fine-tuned, and released compared with what one individual recording artist could do in the space of a few years.
Ari, I appreciate your work in this interview. This guy begins by saying their content isn’t music, that it is “sound”, and then proceeds to call it music over and over and over again. Btw, I’m only 16 mins into this. He answers like a politician.
Exactly! A compromised politician!
Ari, one of the best interviews you’ve conducted.
thanks steven!
The man said in the next few years a software developer will be nominated for a grammy award I cringed when he said that.My dreams were crushed. He's not trying to make wellness music he's trying to make a billion dollars.
It’s like going into the DSPs with a giant royalty vacuum powered by sheer volume (number) of tracks and sucking away the royalties that would otherwise remain for hard working human artists.
Yes, the technocrats who achieve success via yet another disruptive idea/technology seem to feel very comfortable earning large sums of money from their efforts - even when it comes at the expense of others... It's an updated version of what used to be called greed (which was once considered to be a sin).
If he can make a sound library of thousands of songs in 2 months then the game is over. I guess the social media influencers are next Ai will create a automated video of someone explaining stuff that sounds and looks like us. Which they already have done.
Wow, this was interesting and slightly uncomfortable to watch at times. Great questions and excellent interview. Will be sharing this one!
I agree, Carlos!
Me, too! I can think of lots of fellow musicians who need to hear this excellent conversation.
Thank you, Ari for being so articulate, clear and firm. and standing up to this money-oriented charlatan. “Engineers are the new Artists…” - WTF?!?!
Ari, you are a boss, man. I’m thankful musicians like you exist to push back. I listened to this while running so I was breathing too heavy to feel uncomfortable.
5:44 ready to give him the business. 😮
Thank you, Ari, for another great interview/conversation. It was very helpful for Mr. Stavitsky to explain their work flow process - and also how some of their collaborations (such as with Grimes, who was already using their technology/music in her own life) developed organically/serendipitously. Having some sort of Endel plug-in (or Endel sub-DAW option) as an aid to creativity in the studio also sounds intriguing. However there's no denying what you underlined in this interview - that Endel has been able to release thousands of tracks (so many that Mr. Stavitsky can't accurately recall the total...) in the same amount of time (a few years) that an individual artist would have been able to release tens (or hundreds at best) of tracks. I also feel like there is some meta-irony happening. Mr. Stavitsky mentions near the end of the conversation something about how AI will allow us "to do more work faster." And yet it is this pressure to do more work faster which is causing so many human beings to lose sleep at night, to be unable to concentrate, to work more hours for less pay, to get ulcers, to spend too much time in front of their computer/phone screens, to feel anxious and disconnected from others - all of which his company is aiming to alleviate via their scientifically-rooted musical tracks...
Interesting discussion. Great questions asked.
thank you!
Thank you too!@@ArisTake
Is it music or is it "sound", like he calls it? If it's only "sound" maybe stop making music money of of your "sounds".
"Gaming the system" is exactly what this is-- great interview and I'm glad you asked him the tough questions because he didn't have good enough answers.
Subtitle translete please
I hate to say it but, the creatives in the music business over the last 15 yrs paved the way for these guys to claim they’re songwriters, simply because they can repeatedly press the “refresh” button until they hear something they like…. Because we started calling any engineer that can layer a kick drum a songwriter.
This was hard to watch. It took me all day to get thru it.
This guy seems very shady and elusive with his answers. It's not that we release music everyday but earlier Ari was like you released thousand's of songs in 2 months. He said soon Ai will be able to churn out songs on your DAW wow!
My take is this: If Endel is essentially a scientific "DJ" that processes user data in order to play back Original Works by composers then that's fine.. If it's an algorithm/AI that makes music that's fine too but should NOT take a royalty and should certainly not be released on Streaming platforms.
I think the real question is: is Endel the major labels way of pocketing the royalties for the functional music revenue? I have a strong suspicion it is. Very clever.
You’re on to something here
I agree. 100% generated AI music should not be entitled to receive the same type of royalties as human work. The major labels are also behaving very contradictorily regarding wellness and AI music. One day they're completely against it publicly, and the next day they're collaborating with a platform that churns out thousands of AI tracks. Deezer takes a stance "for artists", then the next day they release a wellness app consisting of mainly AI music (Zen by Deezer). You can certainly not believe everything these big platforms are saying at first glance.
The nodding is disturbing my OCD... (have to scroll to comments and just listen sadly) lol. Great information, though! As usual, always informative!
all of these interviews are also available as audio-only on any podcast platform.
@@ArisTake lol
He’s all about the money, nothing about any of his answers says otherwise.
First tell-tale sign/red flag: he keeps looking up all the time. 'nuff said.
You guys still run on foot, and I have a super robot speeding at 400 km/h, but I'm playing fair... ;)
AI is good for the medical biz, but it doesn't need to invade the music biz .. I don't wanna hear ANY AI music, period .. I'm the world's biggest Beatles fan, but I thought their "Now & Then" recording was fabricated bland corporate trash. Lennon didn't release it for a reason - it was a partial song kernel, not a developed song. Good sounds aren't good enough. Music is an expression of humans. When it becomes an expression of robots it loses its soul. Fabricating thousands of songs with AI software is WEB SPAM.
I have to agree with Oleg here. I don’t think they’re taking anything away from us as musicians. I was a lot more concerned about AI until I started using it to develop song ideas. In the long run, a lot of things will change that we have no control over and will have to accept that. I’ve been writing music without AI for decades and have come to terms with this.
Oleg explained EXACTLY what I’m currently doing. I create full songs with music, lyrics and vocals all produced by AI, tweak them, then record them with more professional production, real and virtual instruments, etc. Songwriter’s block no longer exists for me and for at least the next year or so, what I can produce will sound better than what AI alone produces. Once the tech can equal that or produce better, I have a plan B. I think the key is diversification. We have to be able to do more than compose music. Our end products as artists will need to be standalone productions that include visuals. AI graphics and video are here and learning those tools will also be necessary. Unless you are a performer, just writing songs isn’t going to work for you once AI can do everything at human scale and with professional quality audio. Music licensing and libraries aren’t likely to be viable sources of income for many artists once AI can handle that area without human input.
Tech savvy musicians will survive this and the creative process with AI is even more enjoyable than without it. If you keep your head in the sand and just complain about things, you’re going to suffocate.
I don’t mean this to seem like a shameless plug, but my channel currently only posts AI versions of songs I’m in the process of recording. I have no plans to try licensing or directly monetizing any of these AI tracks, not even the human versions. Until things get figured out with copyright and royalties, it's worthless anyway. Plus, I think the amount of music available is going to skyrocket and the value of directly monetizing single songs as "just music" won't be worth the effort. I'm just trying to learn how AI works and what the real potential is for artistic expression. Everything you hear on my channel is AI, no human vocals either. To my ears, it sounds pretty good. The platform I used is called Suno.ai and it’s allowed me to generate over 120 useable ideas in the quality you hear within a couple of weeks.
Its a money Racket$$$$$
I guess one question we have to ask is: why and how are the DSPs allowing this?
32:00 contradicts own company’s actions by saying “take money away from the pie” is wrong.
unfortunately, DSPs can’t possibly know what’s human created or AI created.
These songs generate a lot of revenue via streams. It’s very easy for people to incorporate these soundscapes into their DAILY rituals, morning routines, night routines, etc.
I have mixed feelings on this - it seems natural that this evolution is natural in a technology era - but it should not be a competition....it should be labeled as AI...and kept as it's own category / genre - and man made music is it's own category .... no different than separating Hip hop from rock or edm. I don't want to compete with AI music, but in a greater historical sense, I don't want to stifle evolution either. - I get it though, the problem is corporate greed valuing income potential over human creativity - so you can't blame people for spending their money where they want. We still have to respect people freedom to like what they do. Can we really get upset at them for for getting 300k fans, no, we can't blame 300k fans for liking machine music either, it's new and interesting. - the shops simply have to evolve to keep AI music in it's own category / genre, not play it off as human made.
As always the market will decide.
Now I better understand the 1000 minimum plays Spotify is implementing... the sheer quantity of AI music in a short time frame ruined it for human artists...
Yeah, that's certainly a big reason... They also mentioned that it's to limit streaming fraud by people that release thousands of tracks and then generate a low number of fake streams per track to go unnoticed. If done at a massive scale, even a few streams per track can generate substantial royalties in total.
SOMETHINGS FISHY GOING ON... WHY IS THIS GUY KEEPING THE DISRUBUTION COMPANY A SECRET?????
I THOUGHT COPYRIGHT LAW SAID YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT AI MUSIC....
Unfortunately this company isn't getting it right! This man does not have the standing to criticize any form of musical expression and he's doing that in half of his conversation. He dosen't have a clue.
Wow, not impressed with Oleg Stavitsky and his entire operation.
His initial claim is HIGHLY specious.