Increasingly in 2024, discussions around what the future of music-making might look like heavily figure AI, and the haunting vision of creatives being supplanted by artless algorithms. While many key figures like Spotify’s Daniel Ek might suggest that the cost of creating content is ‘next to zero’, Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava is currently leading the counter conversation, positing a more human-centered view of AI.
In Srivastava’s view, AI will serve the next generation of creators as both compositional aid, and organiser of the vast repository of over 2 million samples that Splice has accumulated since its inception in 2013.
These aren’t just ambitious future-facing plans. Today, Splice has announced its first major DAW integration with PreSonus’ Studio One Pro 7. This integration allows users, in their project workflows, to ‘Search with Sound’. What this means, ostensibly, is that an invisible team of algorithmic assistants get to work rifling through Splice’s acres of digital shelves in search of suitable complementary material that would suit an artist's tracks. It's a matchmaker, for human-crafted arrangements with human-crafted samples.
