Is Mixing Dead? - A Pro Mixer's Opinion on The Future of AI in Mixing

Travis Faritz: 00:00:00

It's finally come for us.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:02

AI mixing.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:04

in that will be coming out in: 2025

Travis Faritz: 00:00:11

Today, we're going to get into the good, the bad, and the inevitable of AI mixing.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:20

Welcome back.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:20

I'm Travis Faritz, a Grammy nominated recording engineer and mixer, and I started this channel to help music production pros like yourself navigate a career in this business.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:29

So my credit list might not look like spikes, but mixing is my gig and it's how I make my living.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:36

So it should come as no surprise that I was as frustrated as what seems like the entire industry when I heard about Spike AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:45

I even let my emotions get the best of me and joined in on the onslaught of comments.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:50

Not super stoked about that, but I did it.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:53

I've since cooled, and I've also had the chance to talk to some really smart people about AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:00:58

Some of those conversations will be on the podcast, by the way, so make sure you subscribe.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:02

And after some reflection and thought, I decided I wanted to do a video.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:06

Here's what this video is.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:08

It's my thoughts as a professional mixer with 20 years of experience as to why this could be good, why this could be bad, and where the outrage over this is coming from, and whether it's justified or not.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:20

And this is solely my opinion.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:22

Lots of other people have great perspectives on this.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:24

There's a lot to think about.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:25

But I want this video to be a conversation starter.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:28

So if you've got comments, you know where to put them.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:31

What this video will not be is it will not be a hit piece on a product that nobody can even use yet, nor will it be an attack on another industry professional.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:41

It also probably won't be as anti AI as you or even I would like it to be.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:47

Before we get into all that, let's do a quick rundown on what we know and don't know about Spike AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:52

I'll make this super quick since I know this info is already out there.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:55

So this is the website.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:57

You may have seen it already.

Travis Faritz: 00:01:58

There is not much info here.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:00

The description Spike AI is an ethical, AI driven platform that revolutionizes music mixing by providing every artist access to high quality, professional grade mixing.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:11

Service is typically reserved for platinum recording artists.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:14

It's a little harder to read than I expected, but we're gonna roll with it.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:16

And then we've got, we don't just harness the power of artificial intelligence, we amplify human creativity.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:22

Our mission is to ensure that artists maintain their unique voice in an industry where AI is often seen as a threat to individuality, this is the kind of language that you see basically with every AI thing that does anything.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:35

And finally, driven by a commitment to ethical AI, we prioritize transparency, inclusivity, and creative empowerment.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:43

Now this is something that I want to bring attention to because in my opinion, ethical AI development should involve the disclosure of training data.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:51

You've got people out there arguing that a mixer's choices are their intellectual property.

Travis Faritz: 00:02:55

So is this trained only on spikes, mixes or other mixes as well?

Travis Faritz: 00:03:00

And if so, do those people know?

Travis Faritz: 00:03:02

And does it matter?

Travis Faritz: 00:03:04

Also, should the master owner be aware, etcetera, topic for a whole other video?

Travis Faritz: 00:03:08

But anyway, then there's also an article online at music connection that has a screenshot.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:13

You can see what looks like track names, some buses, some faders, a prompt box.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:18

The article feels like a PR piece to me, but that's the reality of marketing, so I'm fine with that.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:23

I don't really care.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:24

Okay, now that we know what the basic concept is, where does this fit into the mixing space?

Travis Faritz: 00:03:29

I think this targets artists and producers that have enough technical know how to make their own music but don't have the budget to hire a mixer.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:35

Of any rate, the people that will get the most use out of this and the most value probably know how to get a mix done, but they aren't able to get it to the best it can be.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:46

And that's either because of a skill gap or just lack of perspective.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:50

After writing and producing the entire track, the target is definitely not pro mixers, and the marketing language I think reflects that very obviously.

Travis Faritz: 00:03:59

But despite the outrage, every mixer on the planet is going to do the trial on this thing and I am guessing more people will keep it than will let on.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:08

So let's get into the potential good.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:10

And I'm not going to specifically talk about Spike AI anymore.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:13

I'm going to talk about what is the inevitable future, which is AI mixing of some sort.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:18

So can AI save us time?

Travis Faritz: 00:04:21

Definitely.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:22

Can AI make us more creative?

Travis Faritz: 00:04:24

I think so, but it's going to take a willingness to experiment.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:28

Can AI make us better?

Travis Faritz: 00:04:30

Im going to say this depends on your definition of better.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:33

Is better faster than maybe.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:35

Does better mean an objectively more talented and skilled mixer?

Travis Faritz: 00:04:39

I say no to that and well get into it later.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:42

But I dont believe that AI is going to make you more skilled.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:45

I actually think its going to do the opposite.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:47

So what could be cool about an AI mixing plugin?

Travis Faritz: 00:04:49

Well for one, if its made correctly then youd be able to mix on top of it or after the AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:04:55

There's a lot more possibility for creativity and time saving if you can, for lack of a better term, collaborate with the AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:02

On the other hand, if it was a standalone software that just spit out a stereo mix that you could only adjust with prompts, then I think the results would be pretty average and no real artist would want to use it.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:12

But imagine the possibilities if you could work in tandem with the AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:16

You could remove all the tedious non creative work stuff like edits, cleanup, matching the rough mix.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:23

We all hate that.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:24

Setting everything up the way you like.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:26

Mixers like Spike have assistants that do that stuff for them so that they can come in and do the thing that only they can do, put their sonic stamp on something.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:36

What if we could all have that to just sit down and be creative?

Travis Faritz: 00:05:39

I mean, I have combinations of soundflow scripts and a human assistant that help me get rid of as much of that as possible, but I can only afford to pay somebody so much.

Travis Faritz: 00:05:48

What if I could download files and two minutes later have a balanced prep session that I can just mix now?

Travis Faritz: 00:05:53

That's not what Spike AI is, but it's not out of the realm of possibility, right?

Travis Faritz: 00:05:57

Imagine training an AI on your own preferences so every mix is closer and closer and you can just do the final touches.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:04

Give it the life and emotion that only a human can give.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:07

Which leads me to my next thought.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:09

I said earlier that I don't think the AI will make you a more skilled mixer, but I do think that the existence of aih will force many people to get better.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:18

The reality is, if you aren't a great mixer and the AI mixing is better, cheaper and faster, then you are not going to get gigs.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:25

So I think this will drive people to get better, train their ear and stand out from the crowd.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:30

And the X Factor here is going to be your sonic taste.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:34

Like I mentioned earlier, it would be great to sit down and just do your thing to a mix.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:38

So if you haven't currently developed your sound yet, then I think that's what you should be focusing on.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:43

As AI starts to insert itself into the mixing landscape, artists and producers that are hiring mixers are going to start moving more and more towards choosing a person with a distinct sound.

Travis Faritz: 00:06:54

Doing a well balanced, clean, nice mix is going to be the first thing AI will be good at.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:00

Doing a Chad Blake or Sean Everett mix is not happening for a long time.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:04

If ever.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:05

Mixers like that are breaking rules and thinking outside the box every day so I've shared an idea in the past that I think is worth bringing back here.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:12

I think there are three stages to a mixed career.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:14

Stage one is you have no clue what's going on.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:17

You're overdoing everything, and it probably sounds crap, but it's okay because artists and producers you're working with, they're in the same stage, and that's how everybody learns.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:26

Stage two, you've got all the skills figured out now, and you're working with people who also have their craft figured out.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:32

So you get super obsessed with matching the rough mix and honoring the artist's vision, to the point that you have kind of a sterile mix.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:40

And finally, stage three, you learn to understand the artist's vision and blend it with your own style.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:47

And that's why people come to you, because you have a sound now thinking about AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:51

Stage one is going to happen a lot less because those inexperienced artists are probably going to be using AI to finish their mix.

Travis Faritz: 00:07:58

As for stage two, AI is definitely going to be able to make the producers rough 10% better, which really just leaves stage three.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:06

That's going to be the only stage that exists, and I'm going to use this to start to move towards the bad.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:12

If learning your craft by doing bad mixes is replaced by AI, and learning to match and improve the rough mix is replaced by AI, how do you ever make it to stage three?

Travis Faritz: 00:08:24

How do you learn the skills if you aren't doing them?

Travis Faritz: 00:08:28

And this, I think, is where it gets weird.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:31

If an AI understands the skills of Eq.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:34

Compression, saturation, panning, depth, etcetera, does the mixer also need to understand those to direct it, to reflect their sonic tastes, and to help the AI honor the artist's vision?

Travis Faritz: 00:08:47

I don't know.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:48

I hope so, but I honestly don't know.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:51

And this brings us to the first and biggest negative impact that I see with AI mixing.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:55

I think eventually it kills the craft.

Travis Faritz: 00:08:59

Do I think it hurts me or my peers or anybody with an established mixing career already?

Travis Faritz: 00:09:04

No.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:05

Do I think it hurts the up and comers who are cutting their teeth right now?

Travis Faritz: 00:09:08

Some of you that are watching this video?

Travis Faritz: 00:09:10

Not really, because we've all learned and are still learning the craft the way it is today.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:16

But what about an eight year old kid who doesn't know that engineering and mixing is a career yet?

Travis Faritz: 00:09:20

They're going to grow up with the possibility that they could prompt an AI to do a great mix, potentially by only making suggestions based on their creativity, without even knowing what they're asking for.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:31

Is compression or what compression is.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:33

This is a crazy thought.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:34

When I started in studios, I didn't think I'd basically be the last generation to come up through the traditional studio system.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:40

But as technology changed, that became pretty apparent.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:44

And along those lines, I definitely never thought that I could be part of the last generation to mix music the way it's been done for 80 plus years.

Travis Faritz: 00:09:52

But that could be possible, which, I'm not gonna lie, which makes me sad, because passing knowledge down to people that are excited about something has been the way of the world for centuries.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:03

It's the apprenticeship model that so many trades are built on in our industry.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:07

It's clearly seen in the studios, and technology has allowed the engineering greats to share even more with people who aren't in studios, with platforms like mix with the masters or pure mixed.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:17

And now AI could one day render all of that pointless.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:21

I do think that there will always be people that want to make records the way they were made.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:25

It happens today, right, with bands that want to track the tape or play down live in the room.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:29

So I think that will always be a thing to a certain extent.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:33

But those are already outliers in today's music scene that already only supports a small number of careers.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:40

Which brings me to the next very obvious negative here.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:43

There will be job loss.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:45

There's no way around it.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:46

If AI is enabling artists or producers to finish their music faster, better and cheaper people will use it.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:53

The transactional clients that pop up on your website will disappear.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:56

They're just price shopping anyway, right?

Travis Faritz: 00:10:58

You don't need them.

Travis Faritz: 00:10:59

Marketplaces like sound better.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:01

Probably no need for those either, because that client base is generally very low budget.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:05

They will also move to AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:07

It is very possible that making a record the way it is made today could become a boutique service not available to everyone solely because of the fact that there will be a lot less people making a living doing it.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:19

Basic economics, supply and demand.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:22

Fewer engineers doing the thing means the thing costs more.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:26

That drives more people to AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:28

It makes it even further.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:29

The norm cycle repeats.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:31

I mean, that's pretty speculative and doom and gloom, but it's not impossible.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:36

And we should talk about rates.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:37

I think this hurts rates as well.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:39

Let's go to a hypothetical here.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:41

AI mixing is embraced by pro mixers.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:43

It allows them to deliver great mixes at a rapid pace.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:46

It's like the golden era of amazing mixes.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:48

They're just everywhere.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:49

I don't think that's going to happen, but this is a hypothetical.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:51

Okay, so can you still charge a premium for something that used to take you a day or two and now takes you an hour or two.

Travis Faritz: 00:11:58

Does that mean you're going to make less money or are you going to be doing more mixes?

Travis Faritz: 00:12:02

It becomes that balance of are people paying for your time or are they paying for your perspective?

Travis Faritz: 00:12:06

Which goes back to anchoring those sonic tastes and the last one before we move on.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:11

I just don't think it's going to be very fun.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:14

I don't want to sit in front of my speakers and prompt an AI to boost eight k on an SSL.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:18

I want to turn the knob, I want to push the mouse.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:21

I want to mess around and find something cool and unique for every song.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:24

Typing into a prompt box just sounds like the dumbest thing in the world to me.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:29

But then again, this is how I learned to mix that eight year old kid.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:33

It's gonna be a different story for him.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:35

And this is the root of the outrage over spike.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:37

AI.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:38

There are thousands of people that learn to craft a specific way and they are afraid that it will change.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:44

And because of that change, they won't have a gig anymore.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:49

That outrage against Spike is fully based on fear.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:52

That was where my reaction came from.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:54

I immediately thought, I have kids.

Travis Faritz: 00:12:57

What will I do when the AI takes my job?

Travis Faritz: 00:12:59

So it's not surprising that the reaction was what it was.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:02

Humans have a strong survival instinct.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:04

We see a threat, we have to react to it.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:07

It's natural.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:08

And I think it's intensified by the scarcity mindset that already runs rampant with engineers and producers.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:13

Many of us already believe that there isn't enough work.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:16

And so when something threatens to validate that fear, it's going to be even more of a trigger.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:20

So what I've come to realize after some thought is that many of us are afraid of this because it's different.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:26

It threatens our core values.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:27

Right.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:28

We're engineers.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:28

We love to be rooted in our beliefs about microphones and plugins and gear.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:32

We will live and die by those.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:34

We refuse to change to a fault.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:37

There were people that never wanted to stop recording the tape, and some of those people ultimately ended their careers because of that choice.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:44

The reality is that times change.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:47

The way most of us mix records right now is not going to be the way it's done in 15 years.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:52

Whether there's AI doing it or nothing.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:55

That doesn't make the future wrong.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:56

It just makes it different.

Travis Faritz: 00:13:58

So we have a choice of adapting in one way or another.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:02

I think this is going to be a tape to computer style moment.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:04

Some of us will not allow AI into our lives.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:07

And some of those may never work again.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:09

Others may embrace AI too much and hurt what is uniquely them.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:13

And they may not work again either.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:15

So after a week of thinking about this, I'm open to using AI tools.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:19

The idea that I could focus on my favorite part of mixing is exciting, but there are a lot of frightening aspects to this as well.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:26

But I do think the only thing I'm sure about is that to dismiss the existence of AI entirely is going to be worse for my livelihood than trying it out.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:35

Like I said, I have zero interest, I mean, zero interest in prompting a mix.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:41

But I'm open to see what tools people create.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:44

Spike AI is just the beginning.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:46

No matter how great it is or isn't, the generations of tools that come after, they're just going to get better and better.

Travis Faritz: 00:14:52

So when it comes to AI mixing, I stand at 50 50, whether it's good or bad, and I think that only time can sway that balance one way or the other.

Travis Faritz: 00:15:00

If you enjoyed this one and you want my opinion on mastering and the value of working with humans, be sure to check out.

Travis Faritz: 00:15:04

Mastering is dead.