Personally, when I see a team of people who are passionate about what they are doing create something new and interesting, I like to cheer them on.

I think the technology is interesting and cool. Even if it isn't marketable in current form (what 1.0 product is), I wish them the best in iterating on it until it is.

The investment model is set up to let founders "burn through" money while they explore new approaches to old industries. The investors don't really care that the money is lost. To be an investor, you have to assume 9 out of 10 of your investments will be write-offs.

So if you're not defending the investors' money, and if the founders are happy doing this, then why are you intentionally being harsh? Let them do their thing. Yeah they might fail, but so what? It's the only path to success.

It's not really productive to try to save people or companies via internet comments. You're more likely to demoralize them than to change their minds. Unfortunately, demoralization is often someone's hidden motive.

Moreover there is great ideas* in this thread that can actually help the company.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10707389

As a developer, occasional FPS gamer, and musician, I'd like to see them tackle adaptive generative music that is actually convincing. I want music that takes cues from the gaming environment without obvious loop splicing points and without feeling mechanical.

1. I upload a video 2. Jukedeck finds me the perfect audio for it.

Be respectful. Anyone sharing work is making a contribution, however modest.

Ask questions out of curiosity. Don't cross-examine.

Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is learning, help them learn more.

When something isn't good, you needn't pretend that it is. But don't be gratuitously negative.

Calling someone's startup "headed for the deadpool" is the definition of gratuitously negative.

I wish people were more frank about what they think of start-ups, and I wish there was an acceptable way of doing that without insulting people.

(1) Convenience - There's limited market demand for royalty-free music that you have to manually edit and sort through yourself. By virtue of making it simple enough for consumers (vs. professionals) to use, the market got a lot bigger. By way of comparison, you could have said that there was limited market demand for mobile apps prior to the App Store. But the convenience the App Store offered with respect to finding and installing apps made all the difference.

(2) Licensing - This is proof of concept for the overall technology. You could view Jukedeck as a play to simply generate the sort of interest you need to get larger players interested in licensing tech, rather than an end-game in and of itself. E.g. you could imagine Apple licensing the tech for use in iMovie.

(3) Legal risk - It's one thing to say some random music track on the Internet is royalty free. It's quite another to prove it. There's no easy way to guarantee that the supposed original author of a track didn't copy it from someone else. This might seem like an edge case, but per the above points, if Jukedeck licensed their tech to companies like Apple, those legal issues become much bigger deals. Algorithmic music simplifies the legal question quite a bit.

I think the project is great, maybe they haven't found the right niche just yet. Hint: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=midi+loops

There's some basic algo-comp in Logic and Ableton already. But generally, musicians really hate the idea of having a machine writing all of their music for them.

This even applies to musicians who only work with loops, and to DJs who only work with complete tracks.

I think there are business models for algo-comp, but this isn't the best one. I'm not sure JukeDeck is necessarily heading for the deadpool, but it's maybe 50:50 at best.

Also, the production values on good stock music are very high - higher than here. Try https://www.shockwave-sound.com/ for some examples.

I think JukeDeck isn't quite up to the lowest quality tracks on there, and it's a very long way short of the better tracks.

Then why at least 3 musicians in this thread have requested MIDI export?

> Musicians really hate the idea of having a machine writing all of their music for them.

You don't get the point. I'm not saying that all your songs should be composed by a NN. This is valuable as a starting point (phrases, chords, chord progressions, melodies, etc). Then you build on top of that (or transpose accordingly). You know, there are those days as a musician when things just don't sound great and you need a spark.

I've been producing since I was 12 y.o. in MS-DOS. I know the market pretty well and I have producer friends that own recording studios and write songs for professional bands (rock, metal, etc). And I'm 100% sure they'd buy the concept because they've previously asked me for related tooling.

The technology is the key here, and could be used as another tool.

A "real" musician probably takes cues from other music, other sounds in the world. Why discriminate against algorithmically created sounds?

Secondly, there's a clear distinction between taking cues and reusing a harmony or a melody from another source. People have always done it and will do it more than ever, if they have the right tools.

Of course, it only matters if we still think about music as more of an art form than a production of non-material goods. Hope we still do.

Similar ways of diminishing other people's work are used everywhere, but are typically a result of being more or less elitist. "Not a real X if you didn't do it in way Y or use tool Z."

For some, the process is more important than the outcome (or just as), but I think it's wrong to impose such opinions on everybody else. Just my opinion, of course.

... unless they develop the algo that writes the music. E.g., think Autechre and their Max/MSP patches?

I think this is the perfect example of "failure of imagination"

GoPro is a $2.5B company based around low cost equipment for amateur film makers. They produce film editors that let you edit your films around per-licensed sound tracks.

Let me say that again - you make your film around the sound track they supply.

The opportunity for Jukedeck isn't competing with the thousands of individual composers 1-on-1. It is building a platform that generates sound tracks automatically, and selling the platform as software both to end users and sub-licensing it to companies like GoPro.

At the moment the per-unit cost of per film is constant. If software "composes" the music then the per-unit cost drops with each additional user.

That's the radical thing.

But it's not. There's considerable spread in the price of music depending on the quality, specificity, popularity, and licensability* of what you want to buy.

* up to a particular number of copies made, or with restrictions on sublicensing or other contractual factors.

You make a new film (which includes the entire range of things from Hollywood films, to pro-Youtubers to films you share with a couple of people).

For music you can

1) Get custom music written specifically for your film. This is usually expensive (unless you do it yourself, or know someone to do it for you) but has the advantage (if done well) of matching exactly what you want for your film

2) Find an existing piece of music and license it. This has variable costs (or maybe free), but won't be written specifically for your film and possibly will also be used elsewhere.

3) Use "template" music included in whatever software tool you are using.

AI-generated music has the advantage of (1) but the cost structure of (3).

It'll be a long time before it is useful for Hollywood films. But for Youtubers it is a completely different story.

Plus, the idea that I've paid for legit copyright use and I still have to deal with takedown BS is doubly frustrating.

Being able to construct a track with the right feel without worrying about copyright would be amazing for a simple video editor or on something like Instagram.

*http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/storytelling-socia...

why didn't you go for one of those sources?

honest question, as gf is having the same problem sourcing music for her channel

Maybe it's not good enough for the final product but it could be good enough for testing and development.