@Draven Grey @Kenny Kendall all true. Under the hood most every LLM is given a system prompt and the default is almost always some version of "you are a helpful assistant..." Even the most advanced professional systems that doctors use I'm sure have a system prompt of something like "you are an extremely knowledgeable medical professional..." So they're just playing a role as best they can. I wouldn't sleep on these things though. They're getting smart crazy fast.

@Kenny Kendall LLM = large language model. True enough, but an AI can never get up on stage and put on a riveting performance. It's only the WAV files that have been compromised. I think it's important to differentiate that what you're talking about is only it being harder to *make money* with music, or at least to gain notoriety. No one can take away your ability to sing or make the music you like, for yourself alone in your room, if for no one else. I just see it as the continuation of a trend that already existed. The internet made it so everyone in the world was your competitor. Then the ubiquity of DAWs made it so everyone and their mother was a producer. Now it's everyone and their mother and AI. Maybe I'm just biased because I've never actually had any commercial success myself, but it doesn't really seem all that different to me. The internet was already saturated with content long before AI came along. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way defending Suno or anyone who would use it and I'm just as baffled as anyone on how this will play out, but I would just focus on live performance more than anything and if you want to use YouTube as a promotional tool, you might need to pivot towards live streams or something of that nature. Human beings will always be more interested in what other human beings are doing than what an AI is doing, no matter how proficient it is. That you can count on. So the market isn't going away.

yeah, you'll always notice all sorts of mistakes when you listen back to things. Actually, I think that's kind of the point. You *can't* notice while you're actually doing the thing, only later when you have time to sit and be analytical about it. That's why I say it is really important that you do listen and analyze in between practicing so you can consciously target things to work on. With time and training, things start to sound more and more like what you want. I find that even when you are sounding really good and doing it right, it's hard to be conscious of that *as* you're singing. It just becomes instinctual over time.

@Draven Grey The shouty nature really isn't by design, I would say. That's maybe the main thing I'm working to get under control. It's all a work in progress (my voice, that is). But I am very much of the mind that you can't just train and train and expect to get perfect before you even begin doing a thing; doing the thing is an essential part of getting better. So if that was the skill I had at that point when recording this song, then here is accurate documentation of it. Technical skill isn't what makes music good, anyway. Of course, in order to have more options in expressing yourself, if you really care about your craft, you owe it to yourself to always be trying to improve and get more control over your skill. Personally, I'm seeing so much progress that anything I post will automatically be outdated. So it's true that I always seem to be posting my worst songs since they were the ones that were recorded months ago. Ha ha. Pitched singing is definitely what I'm going for, so I am training on it for sure. I feel like I have a pretty good foundation for it, although my clean singing has mostly been in the style of Thom Yorke of Radiohead. A strong mix, very high and back. What I'm training on now has a totally different placement. I've attached something I just recorded the other day that shows the maneuverability I've developed in this new style. Believe it or not, I'm actually singing with grit in that clip. It may not sound like it, but it's actually the exact same shape as when using the heaviest of grit (plenty of cry plus smoker's voice), just the most subtle application of it. The placement feels very high up, but also a little forward. I've discovered there's this sweet spot you can nail, which feels like it's just under the nostrils, or maybe the very, very top of the upper gums. Smoker's voice gives you the shape, but to describe it more from the outside facial expressions, it's flared nostrils, maybe a little bit of a stiff upper lip and wide mouth, as in corners of the mouth pulled back, but also jaw open top to bottom. It's a sneer or an expression of disgust. Those expressions probably look far less extreme when singing with such a minimal amount of grit as in my clip, but it is the exact same thing. Relaxing into that spot for heavy grit but keeping it just as utterly effortless is what I'm working on mostly now and I am getting there.

@Kenny Kendall Hey, thanks. It's not intentionally lo-fi. It has just as much fi as I feel is necessary to convey my ideas and I spend no more time and energy on production than that. I'd rather be playing instruments and singing than clicking things on a computer. I would never make music specifically to fit into one genre or to not fit into one genre. I'm just making whatever I feel like. I wouldn't even know what subgenre it would supposed to be fitting in. I suppose I wind up gravitating towards noise people online (both of the labels I've released something on are noise labels) but that's just because they'll accept anything, heh. Honestly, 99% of noise music I can't stand myself.

In the spirit of sharing something that's totally unfinished, I'll post just this one line I recorded yesterday. I just went through a large move, so I haven't really been able to sing in any serious way for about a month. When I finally started again, I find I'm pretty rusty, but I also feel like I was able to come to what I was working on from a new perspective. And things are suddenly starting to fall into place that I was struggling with before. I feel like I have the understanding and it's just a matter of putting in the reps to get back on track. In particular, I'm really trying to relax into adding subtle grit to effortless singing and I think this line exemplifies that

@Draven Grey Hmm-hmm. I may end up with one of these myself soon.