THE END OF MUSIC? THIS IS THE REIGN OF GHOST MUSICIANS...

 

 

The music industry has weathered the decline of physical formats and the era of piracy, but the current crisis is unprecedented: the collapse of the “generation layer.” Suno, a generative AI platform, has decoupled music production from human talent. With $300 million in annual recurring revenue and 2 million subscribers, users are generating an astonishing 7 million songs daily—equivalent to Spotify’s entire catalog every two weeks. Producing polished music now requires only a laptop and a modest subscription, and the quality is increasingly impressive.

Monetizing Infinite Content
Suno’s $2.45 billion valuation followed $250 million in venture capital funding. The platform treats music as a pure commodity: anyone with a basic subscription can compile tracks and sell them online. One independent user made $8,500 in six months by simply selling AI-generated music packs. However, as output approaches infinity, the value of each song declines toward zero.

AI Pop Stars Are Here
Record labels are signing AI-generated acts, while streaming services fill playlists with fictional artists. Telisha Jones created Xania Monet, an R&B and gospel act, entirely with Suno, securing a $3 million record deal without appearing on camera. Human artists, such as Kehlani, express alarm at AI displacing real musicians, noting that AI tailors content using extensive data on listener preferences, including replicating human voices. Ghost artists on Spotify and TikTok, like Blow Records, accrue millions of streams and earn substantial royalties from passive listening alone.

Fraud and Criminal Exploitation
The democratization of AI-generated music has also fueled a dark economy. Streaming royalties are vulnerable because platforms distribute revenue based on play counts. Michael Smith, using AI to generate hundreds of thousands of tracks and a bot network, streamed them billions of times across major platforms, defrauding the system of over $8 million. Authorities note that while the content and listeners were fake, the financial losses were very real. This highlights systemic vulnerabilities in the digital music ecosystem.

Electronic Dance Music Under Siege
Generative AI is transforming electronic dance music (EDM) by replacing human ghost producers. EDM’s reliance on structured beats and synthesized sounds makes it especially susceptible. Suno has updated its platform to function as a digital audio workstation, enabling precise beat alignment for club tracks. Digital retailers like Beatport and Bandcamp are imposing bans on fully AI-generated music to protect human artistry, but enforcement remains challenging. As synthetic tracks flood the market, EDM culture is shifting its focus to live performance and community-based value, emphasizing human presence over digital perfection.

THE QUEST OF A MUSICAL PHILOSOPHER'S STONE?

 

I am currently testing GRM Tools (better late than never...). After the IRCAM plugins, I am exploring the infinite transformations and hybridizations of my own recordings in unexpected and exciting directions.

I like the idea of working with sound material in a chain of processing and remodeling, which sculpts its form, volume, motor skills, temporality, and space.

 

These tools can be used with an in-depth knowledge of sound physics. 

 

I prefer to approach them more intuitively, a bit like a painter working with colors or a sculptor working with raw stone or wood.

 

That's how I compose my music.

 

But once the tracks are recorded and mixed, they become the starting point for new sound experiments.

 

Years of practicing with hardware, analog, modular, and digital synthesizers, then virtual instruments, as well as years of listening to classical, contemporary, and electronic music, have trained a bit my ear.

 

By experimenting with today's new tools as a tinkerer rather than an engineer, I hope one day to hear the unheard and perhaps find the musical philosopher's stone that every musician dreams of!

IRCAM LAB — TS 2

I'm starting to learn, play, experiment, and create soundscapes with IRCAM's TS software... The processing radically transforms my original audio track, creating a kind of very beautiful, immersive, minimalist drone that's very hypnotic and reminds me of Pauline Oliveiros, Stuart Dempster, Somei Satoh, and other composers... 

 It really is a window onto a new creative universe... It's probably not going to be a commercial hit, and it's unlikely to make it into the dance music or techno charts (but who knows? ), but it's definitely a direction I'd like to explore in the future... (I've acquired other IRCAM softwares, I'm at the beginning of the learning curve, it's exciting!).

MUSIC IN THE CELLAR

Is music like a fine wine that needs to be left to mature and age in a cellar before being consumed?

The “draft” section of my Bandcamp page is a bit like that cellar, where I organize my music by album projects, letting my compositions rest and withstand the test of multiple listens before crossing the threshold of publication...

It's also a kind of personal journal, where I archive moments of life and creativity that can span several months.

But there's also another reason, inherent to the type of music I compose. It's not written in the traditional sense, meaning I can't archive sheet music. The archive is the recording itself, the stereo tracks resulting from the final mix. I also keep an archive of all the recording sessions on my DAW, the stems of the different tracks, with the presets of the instruments and processes used and the mixing settings. This allows me to revisit and correct a recording months after the original session.

On the other hand, in electronic, ambient, or electroacoustic music, there is the central element of timbres and processes for spatialization and sound transformation. While melodic and harmonic elements can be notated using traditional musical notation, they are not the most important aspects of the music I create: the very nature of the sounds, their morphology, their movement in space, and their hybridization in the mix are the basis of my compositions. 

There are undoubtedly notation and visualization systems that could capture the specificities of electronic music, but to what extent can the singularity of the sounds that make up the compositions be reproduced, and to what extent can a score of this type be played by other performers?

Some electronic music, predominantly melodic, can be written and performed by other musicians or even adapted for acoustic instrumentalists: Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis come to mind in particular. But I find it difficult to conclude that electronic works can become “repertoire works.” A special case is when the composer or group reinterprets their works in concert, with a greater or lesser degree of fidelity to the original work. Backing tapes and computer playback can preserve the essence of the original work. Kraftwerk and Jarre today, but also Tangerine Dream, rely on these devices, which can also take the form of control over pre-programmed loops and sequences triggered live.

But to return to my question, how can music based on drones, atonal layers, and movements in binaural space be visualized on a score?

 

NINA STUDIO

 

By popular request, here's why my music production studio is called “Nina Studio”...

 

I have a very zen artistic assistant with an incredible ear for music.

She's a bit like the muse of my studio. As long as she stays on my keyboard, I know that everything is fine and that she likes what I'm composing. 

 

If she stretches and goes to sit somewhere else, I know there's a problem and that I can do better...

 

In fact, Nina plays a very important role in my music... She sets the mood, the feeling, and the tempo of my recording sessions...

 

And when she purrs, it's a signal that I need to add sub-bass to the track I'm working on...

 

I can tell from the movements of her ears what catches her attention, what leaves her indifferent, what she doesn't like.

 

Every time I sit down at the keyboard, open my virtual instruments, or launch my DAW, Nina is there, front and center...

 

She is the first listener of my mixes, and she lets me know if I need to do a second mix or if I should just give up on the track I'm working on...

 

I think that one of these days, Nina will sit down at the keyboard and record her own solo album, ambient purring embellished here and there with a little harmonic meow...

 

The real artist in Christian Wittman's musical productions is not me, it's Nina.

 

I predict a great career for her as a producer, not only in ambient and contemporary music, but also in the meow meow scene.

 

If you want to evaluate her role as producer, sound engineer, artistic director, creative assistant, press officer (and so on), you will find a retrospective of her career on my Bandcamp site and, of course, on all streaming, download, cerebral plugin, and multivitamin psycho-audio pill platforms available on the market, legally (or not).