It’s hard to look at just about any publication or news feed and not see an article about AI these days. Yes, we’re all sick of the hype, but for those of us in the music industry, the real question is, “Just how much are musicians and producers actually using AI music tech?” Well, now we have a better idea since Sonarworks commissioned Sound On Sound to conduct a survey to find out.
The survey reached about 1,200 musicians and engineers, and covered a variety of topics. The majority (64%) were producers and recording engineers.
Surprisingly, only about 21% said they were regular users, while almost 49% considered themselves still experimenting with the technology. About 15% said they weren’t interested in using it at all.
The Biggest Benefits
When those users were asked what they considered the biggest benefit from using AI:
- 56% said it boost their efficiency
- 32% used it as a collaborator
- 32% indicated they used it for inspiration
- 29% pointed to cost savings (I’d love to find out the detail here)
- and 22% said it enhanced the quality of their work
But There Were Concerns
When asked about their concerns about the technology:
- 77% said loss of creativity (a very common theme amongst creatives)
- 54% said ethical and copyright issues
- 53% were afraid that they might be contributing to AI slop
- 42% were concerned about job displacement
- and 37% cited authenticity and audience backlash (something I’ve experienced myself)
How It Was Used
Users were using AI-assisted tools that were more machine learning rather than large language model. For instance:
- 58% said they used it for audio restoration (an excellent use case)
- 48% used it for mixing assistance (which I take to mean processor plugins)
- 34% indicated they used it for AI mastering
- 30% said lyric and idea generation
- 26% said Ai vocal processing
- 21% indicated they used it for music generation
- and 19% cited sound design
Music Genres
This is the part that I never expected. When asked what music genres they worked in:
- and 29% said experimental
Less than 10% went for games, ambient, hip hop, and EDM (only 2.6%).
This is really interesting because the genres that are generally the most natural and the least “on-the-grid” and artificial were the ones that used it most!
I believe that this survey, while very useful, is somewhat skewed because electronic, ambient and hip hop producers aren’t generally Sound On Sound readers. It would be interesting to see what a larger sample size would show us about how they used AI music tech. Hopefully that’s coming soon.
You can read the survey for yourself (with some pretty charts) here.
