The SLR interview
G Hi there, Greg Zeroin here with tech news at Sci-fi Music. Today I brought you a mind bending story about another new technology that is supposed to revolutionize the way music is being… er
R Exactly.
G Folks, this is Mr. Rob Ottmann from SLR Inc.
R Hi.
G Rob, may I call you Rob, Sir?
R You may.
G Thanks, Rob, SLR stands for self-listening recordings. What does self-listening even mean?
R Well, it means a lot more than self-listening actually. We work hard to help anyone and everyone involved in music.
G OK, let us start at the beginning then. Do you help composers?
R Absolutely. Our artificial intelligence algorithms write music that is indistinguishable or better than human-written music. Our AI musicians play every note on a world class level. Our AI sound engineer algorithms record, mix and master everything at the highest standard and..
G Wait a second, why do you think you can help these people by replacing them with AI?
R Oh, we’re not replacing anyone. However, you know, human composers often run out of ideas. Sometimes they get frustrated, depressed, they need that extra spark that brings them back to the Zone.
G And you can provide that extra spark.
R Precisely. Our system works as a guide to the Zone but also an architect of the Zone that makes it increasingly bigger and more accessible.
G How about musicians?
R Human musicians are even worse…um...I mean, they can get exhausted, they feel useless at times, and then they need help that gets them back to peak performance on stage or in the studio. And if they need more time to recuperate, to sober up or get clean, it’s good to know that our system never loses the groove. It never loses expert level command over any instrument. Now talking about recording, mixing, mastering - those are tricky business as well, you can get yourself lost amongst the knobs. You can drop your magic touch from time to time, and it is good to have someone on the team who never fails to deliver gold. And that’s how it works without replacing anyone. All the people are still there, doing what they like. What is absent with SLR technology is taking any risks, getting any headaches or frustration in production.
G R-right. And where does the self-listening part come in? Is that some kind of quality check?
R No. It’s much more than that. Our records literally self-publish and self-listen themselves.
G Wait. You’re trying to get rid of the publishers and the audiences too? Jesus…
R No, haha, what an idea! We’re not getting rid of anyone OK? We’re there to provide assistance. Human publishers are only human you know, they can devote a certain level of energy onto their job. And sometimes they need a break. Just to hang out by the pool, lit up a nice cigar and chill with the confidence that the important recordings are getting out like they should. On time, professionally.
G Hmkay, but self-listening, why did you come up with that part?
R Greg. Human audiences are people. People have lives. They cannot go on all day listening to new music. And even when they do, their attention wavers. There are distractions in their life like consumption, digestion, cats, sexuality or taxes. And even when they listen in their dedicated audio chambers (if they have one, most of them don’t) on some high end sound equipment (if they own one, most of them don’t), do you think that their mind does not meander off of the music they are supposed to listen to? Greg, human audiences are important but good music needs stable, reliable and focused reception. We provide that stability and devotion built into every self-listening album we release. And even for avid music lovers it should feel deliberating to know that someone will listen carefully even if they are being decapi… I mean incapacitated at the moment.
G I am having a hard time understanding this part. What...how…
R Why am I not surprised?
G Excuse me?
R Go on, I can keep explaining it.
G Alright, so how exactly does self-listening go? How can a music recording listen to itself?
R Once the music is ready to be released it releases itself, which is pretty straightforward since it is basically filling out online forms with self-evident information. After release, our music creates copies of itself and starts listening to the duplicates. And by listening we mean a devoted kind of concentration that focuses on every instrument, part, chord progression, every groove, every lick, every musical phrase. However subtle or ephemeral it may be, no single nuance of the music will escape its ever watchful attention. And the process does not stop there. Every copy contains the self-listening algorithm, so they start making copies too. As a result, the number of constantly listened copies increases exponentially. If it is an album, the individual tracks listen to themselves and the other tracks too. The copies share and discuss their experiences and that makes the quality of the listening more sophisticated as there are more and more times the tracks were played and experienced.
G How big numbers shall we imagine for a self-listening album, like how many times does it listen to itself in a day?
R Well it depends on the local resources the system can find and dedicate to listening, but in a typical high speed internet area it could be anything between ten to the 45th or the 65th power times per day.
G Well I don’t know, they sound like big numbers compared to streams by human listeners...
R You guessed that right Greg. Now, the most frequently played tracks gather a couple of billion streams in years. And to be fair, most of that is done by bots that only pretend to be human listeners but they do not listen at all. Our SLR albums reach that number in a matter of seconds.
G Wow! Now, since the authors or copyright holders are being paid after streams...will these numbers make the streamer services go bankrupt in short order?
R Ha ha, Greg, you certainly have an interesting way of thinking about music if I may say so. Perhaps those services would go bankrupt if self-listening would count as human listening. But it doesn’t. Fortunately, AI enhanced listening is not about money. SLR is about pure, uninterrupted, quality music appreciation and experience without the added burden of monetary desires. We leave that bloody business aspect of music to humans, together with that f..excuse me, impatience and illiteracy of the human listener. Look, Greg, today, composers are forced to get to the main theme in less than three seconds or else people will lose interest and jump to the next track. This is not an audience, this is a bunch of babies scrolling through the menu and smashing pulp over everything. But we’re not here to remedy that kind of ignorance. We’re merely leaving that behind, setting up a clean slate where composers, musicians, producers, engineers and listeners are guided by specialized AI that guarantees musical experience of the highest degree.
G Wow. So we, ordinary human listeners, are we getting excluded from this…
R On the contrary Greg, no one is getting excluded from anything. You just look for the SLR logo on digital recordings and you are very welcome to join in.
G Which is the first record that comes out with an SLR logo?
R Excellent question Greg, the very first self listening album is “Ten Ways to Lose Yourself” by Palatinus - a rather obscure electronic science-fiction guitar hero. It was released in mid november.
G And what if I do not wish to go on that journey with him?
R That’s alright too, Greg. He’ll invite you again some other time.
G Sounds fair enough, Rob, thank you very much for sharing all this exciting news with us, music lovers.
R Thanks for having me.
G Alrighty then, folks everywhere out there, Greg here, I’ll be back with more tech news in music next week, stay tuned and try to listen as carefully as a machine!
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