Say you’re a songwriter and you need to write a song for Adele. You can compose the whole thing and drop in a reasonable AI facsimile of Adele’s voice to see how the final product might sound. Songwriters and producers will love this.Voices will become digital assets to be licensed and purchased. Here’s an example.
I do a lot of voicework and narration and sometimes it gets so busy that I have to turn down jobs. What if I could license my voice, complete with all its intonations and quirks for use in the voicework gigs for which I don’t have the time to do? I can even see a future where my agent just sends out a demo reel to clients who then mimic me for whatever the project. I just cash the cheques as they arrive in the mail. Sounds pretty sweet to me.
AI now gives the estates of Tupac Shakur, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Prine, or any other dead artist the opportunity to license the deceased’s voice to new collaborations that don’t involve finding old, static vocal tracks from the past. Instead, it uses something called “vocal emulation.” Let’s say, for example, Eminem wanted to duet with Pac on a song about the night he was shot and died.
These are interesting times, the wild wild west of AI music production. But as we saw with synths, sampling, and drum machines, it will be codified, legalized, and monetized. The future will be interesting.Subscribe to Alan’s Ongoing History of New Music Podcast now on