Arts·digi-Art

From AI to floppy disks, musicians are 'collaborating' with tech to make wildly original sounds

The latest episode of digi-Art is all about music made with machines ... and by machines.

The latest episode of digi-Art is all about music made with machines ... and by machines

CBC Arts' new series digi-Art looks to the horizon to see what's possible with tech and art — charting a course led by creatives and innovators toward new worlds and ways of creating.

Maybe you've heard the story about Eminem and David Guetta — or not Eminem, exactly, but "Emin-AI-em," a deepfaked version of the superstar rapper. In February, Guetta, the Grammy-winning French DJ behind hits like "Titanium," tweeted a video from a recent gig. In the clip, he plays a brand new track for a massive crowd, and it's an unreleased banger that sure sounds like it features an Eminem guest spot.

That "performance," if you can call it that, was entirely generated with AI. Guetta has insisted that he made the song as a joke, with no intention of releasing it as a record. But the shockwaves have been felt, nevertheless. Are pop stars an endangered species? Is AI already capable of making music better than humans? 

Plenty of industry experts have sounded off on that hot topic, but Guetta, for one, says AI is leading a revolution. "I'm sure the future of music is in AI. For sure," he told the BBC earlier this year. "I think really AI might define new musical styles. I believe that every new music style comes from a new technology."

And on the latest episode of digi-Art, host Taelor Joseph-Lewis meets with two Canadians who are working with technology — new and old — to create wildly original sounds.  

Machine music

The episode begins with a blast from the recent past. Over the last decade or so, a whole online community has formed around making musical instruments out of upcycled tech — obsolete hardware that's destined for the scrap heap. You've probably seen viral videos like these: covers of "Sandstorm" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as played on wonky disk drives. Maybe you even backed this Polish creator's Patreon so he could build The Floppotron 3.0, a veritable mega-orchestra that includes 512 floppy disk drives, four flatbed scanners and 16 hard disk drives.

Heck, disk drive music has even gone Hollywood. Emmy-winning composer Bear Grills (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead) used old disk drives to produce his score for Revolt, a 2017 sci-fi flick starring Lee Pace. Whether you've heard of it or not, making music with old tech is sure becoming more legit.

Vaser888 is a YouTuber who also makes music with floppy disk drives, and digi-Art went to his home in Montreal to learn the nuts and bolts of how he does it.

Graphic for digi-Art episode 2. Colourful text on a cyan background reads: "digi-Art investigating music & machines." The right side of the composition is a still from the episode. Two people, host Taelor Joseph-Lewis and YouTuber Vaser888 stand in a room bathed in blue and magenta light. A table of old disk drives is in front of them. They smile and appear to dance. Taelor is a young Black woman with a curly bob and glasses. Vaser888 is a young white man with short dark hair and a goatee.
On this episode of digi-Art, meet Canadians like Vaser888, a YouTuber who is "collaborating" with technology to make wildly original sounds. (CBC Arts)

"Most people would look at this stuff and think it's garbage, but you can re-use this to make music instead," he says on the episode, showing off his collection of disk drives. As he explains on the show, he's connected 12 floppy drives to a microcontroller, which is then connected to a computer. The drives themselves are capable of making a range of sounds, all produced by the vibration of their mechanical parts.

"You can almost think of it like a guitar," he explains. "When you play a string, it vibrates at a certain frequency. String them all together, then you will create music."

Music by machines

Computers can inspire creativity, and you can even use their parts to produce some seriously unique sounds — as all those floppy-disk cover songs have shown us. But what happens when computers do the creative work themselves: composing, arranging and even performing?

Arne Eigenfeldt gave digi-Art a demonstration. He's a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and as part of his research, Eigenfeldt works with "Musebots" — autonomous software that's capable of composing and playing music. 

Still from digi-Art. Host Taelor Joseph-Lewis stands in an apartment with YouTuber Vaser888. Taelor is a young Black woman with a curly bob and glasses. Vaser888 is a young white man with short hair and a goatee. He holds a floppy disk drive and floppy disk and the two stand in front of a table covered with similar computer hardware. Taelor clasps her hands and displays an expression of surprise and delight as she looks at the disk.
Yep, it's just like the "Save" icon. YouTuber Vaser888 shows digi-Art host Taelor Joseph-Lewis a floppy disk. (CBC Arts)

A Musebot can improvise with other Musebots, or even human musicians. And on the show, Eigenfeldt introduces digi-Art to an AI jazz trio: Musebots that have been modelled after Miles Davis and his band. As Eigenfeldt explains, each Musebot has been programmed to approach the creative process with a different personality.

"These Musebots can make music by themselves?" Joseph-Lewis asks Eigenfeldt in an interview. 

"Mmhmm. That's the whole point," Eigenfeldt replies. 

So what's his role in the process?

"I kind of view it almost as a parent and children," he explains. "I'm teaching the Musebots to do something a certain way. I'm really guiding them. I'm very involved in how they react, but at some point I just sort of let them go and see what happens."

Still from digi-Art. Host Taelor Joseph-Lewis, a young Black woman with short curly hair and glasses, sits at a desk looking at a laptop. On the screen is Arne Eigenfeldt, a white man with short grey hair and glasses who is seated in front of a wall of guitars. The room Taelor sits in is dark and a blobby grey vase is on the wooden desk behind the laptop.
Taelor Joseph-Lewis, host of digi-Art, interviews Arne Eigenfeldt of Simon Fraser University via Zoom. (CBC Arts)

By machines for machines?

The Musebots are capable of creating music, but the question remains: do they ever play music just for themselves? 

"I think that's one of the goals," says Eigenfeldt, but as it stands, he's amazed by what the technology can already do.

Eigenfeldt has jammed with the Musebots over the years, and he says he responds and reacts to their contributions the same way he would any human player. "They influence me. I change my mind and I go, 'Wow, that wasn't the direction I thought I was going to go, but let's go down there and explore that.'"

"For now, what they're capable of already feels magical."

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Say hello to our newsletter: hand-picked links plus the best of CBC Arts, delivered weekly.

...

The next issue of Hi, art will soon be in your inbox.

Discover all CBC newsletters in the Subscription Centre.opens new window

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service apply.