Participants 2024
About the TEAM
The team consists of 6 students and 2 professors from the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, USA. We are a mix of songwriters, musicians, academics, AI researchers, producers, and engineers. Our team name is a portmanteau of computing/browsing error codes and the Miami phone area code 305. The students took a class on Music + AI in spring term and are currently involved in a university-funded project called CHAI (Concerts with Humans and Artificial Intelligence, https://chai-music.glitch.me), investigating the societal impact of AI’s use in music. So we were inspired to see what participating in the AI Song Contest would be like!
About the SONG
"Heart not found” is about infatuation that turns more desperate and obsessive. The lyrics begin “You have the sweetest face”, and end with repeated exclamations of “I want you, and I want you bad”. To mirror these lyrics in the arrangement and in our use of AI, we start the song in an RnB sound world, then transition gradually into a grunge sound world, where the song finishes. We love that in terms of genre, the end of the song sounds nothing like the start, but if one takes any 20 second segment, there’s not a clear or discrete switch from one genre to another. The vocalist that is at the beginning of the recording, Raina Murnak, is different to the vocalist at the end of the recording, Amanda Pasler. While we used AI in many aspects of the song, we are really excited about how we used voice-blending to craft an imperceptible transition between Raina and Amanda’s voices, reflecting the change in feelings from something sweet to a much darker place.
About the HUMAN-AI PROCESS
The creation process began with Amanda writing some lyrics and a melody line. Tom and Raina collaborated earlier in the year, recording vocals characteristic of different genres, as we love the idea of AI making it possible to explore hybrids of existing genres. We also used MAIA Markov to generate clips of RnB chord sequences and grunge drums and basslines. The chord sequence underpinning the chorus at 1’17” comes from an RnB-trained version of MAIA Markov; the bassline at 2’38” and surrounding segments comes from a grunge-trained version. Jack used Synplant’s Genopatch AI to create variations on one-shot drum samples, while the content of the drum loops themselves are Jack’s own creation. Similarly, our other human musicians – Spencer, Ryan, and Eli – contributed human-created rhythm guitar, bass, and lead guitar material, respectively. Aditya used Kits.AI to make two custom voice profiles – one trained largely on Raina’s voice singing RnB clips, and a second trained largely on Amanda’s voice singing grunge clips. Having recorded Raina singing the first half of the song and Amanda the second half, Spencer then used Kits.AI-generated re-renderings of the middle part to blend seamlessly between the two vocalists. Clearly the opening and ending singers are different people, but it’s difficult to pinpoint where the change between them occurs. We like how this reflects the gradual change in the lyrics – the infatuation turns from sweet to dark, but it’s difficult to pinpoint where. Spencer mixed the song and used Logic’s AI Mastering Assistant as a final AI tool.