I am not a musician. I studied guitar three times and gave up every time, defeated by the anxiety of scale exercises. But music never left me.
I carried a theoretical foundation and, most importantly, 11 key poems written over decades of shamanic practice. In January 2025, I learned about musical AI and decided to play around with it. It revealed a path: I felt I wanted to hear my poems sung. I’m Tired of Listening to Old Music.
At first, I was like a fisherman trying his luck in a lake. I would put the style in the prompt and wait for the AI to decide everything. The result was good, but “stiff.” It lacked human error. My musician friends felt the sound was robotic, and I knew they were right. The sound was too perfect, and perfection is not human.
The turning point came when I heard a critique of AI bands with millions of hits but no soul. I understood what was missing: variation in drum pressure, micro-detuning, and expressive vibrato. I went to study. Between technical guides and manuals, I discovered I could use tags to control the instruments.
Not satisfied, I dove deeper. With the help of veteran musician friends, I learned about groove, counterpoint, and swing.
I remade the entire album. I created “humanization” commands using technical terms: unquantized timing, organic pressure changes, and vocal dynamics. The sound changed like water into wine.
The album went through four full versions. In the final version, I no longer let the AI decide everything: I defined the feeling of every verse. I chose guitar pedals, the warmth of a tube amp, and even the simulated breathing of a wooden flute. The AI still controls some things—it’s quite stubborn; that’s why I still fight with it.
There were more than 3,000 generations and a year of intense work in my spare time (January to December 2025). AI did not replace the musician; it required me to become a director, a curator, and a student. Brave New World is not an album made “by a button”; it is the result of a constant struggle between my human intent and the machine’s possibilities.
If a person like me, who is not a musician and only knows the basics, achieved these results, imagine what a real musician could do? AI is just a tool. Perhaps it can help music break out of the hiatus it currently finds itself in. It will not replace the musician.
In this track, the level of technical detail reached its peak. I tried to include the zither in all previous versions, but only achieved the desired result in Version 04, once I understood the hierarchy of clusters and style. The challenge was creating a texture that fused Desert Rock with Hindustani accents, using psychedelic modulations like Slow Tremolo and Sidechain pumping to give the song its movement.
04 THE ANCIENT ORACLES NO LONGER SPEAK
Style: progressive desert rock, Indu Hindustani accents, blues swing, powerful crescendo, psychedelic vibe, exciting melody, bass female raspy vocals, Mystery
[human variation] [live room sound] [organic recording] [subtle tempo drift]
[dynamics: natural breathing] [hand-played instruments] [expressive bends]
[instrumental introduction – 1 bar – fingerpicking and strumming, zither and steel-string acoustic guitar texture] [guitar mid overdrive, light reverb guitar style surf rock amplitude modulation: Sidechain pumping, Slow Tremolo Depth, vintage reverb, low-rate amplitude modulation, atmospheric and hypnotic.]
[Verse 1] [ 2 bars – Smooth drum intro, along with fingerpicking steel-string acoustic guitar and bass.]
If something pushes me toward the unknown void
Who are my wise masters?
On which mountain are they hidden?
The ancient oracles no longer speak
Great sages have become legends in fiction stories
[Pre-Chorus] [1 bar – mid crescendo, powerful chorus, drum crescendo]
Old tribes ceased their rituals
[Bridge – Climax] [2 bars – Pulsating the crescendo in power blues rock, Bring in electric guitar, light distortion and reverb, light bass and drums as the base, mid mellotron accents.] [crescendo – natural dynamics rising]
There are no immutable certainties anymore
And the world of reason has become volatile
Reality is now surreal
Are fermions and bosons the new masters?
Are the great sages physicists and their quantum theories?
New tribes ritualize in the dance of superstrings
[Guitar Solo – 2 bars] [blues escale] [complex and expressive phrases, long bends] [electric guitar, light distortion and reverb, human bends, sustained notes, mellotron accents]
[Verse 2] [2 bars – [guitar mid overdrive, light reverb guitar style surf rock amplitude modulation: Sidechain pumping, Slow Tremolo Depth, vintage reverb, low-rate amplitude modulation, atmospheric and hypnotic, mellotron accents.]
Myths are now stories in archaeology books
Old gods are just carvings
on stones of ancient sites
No new legends exist
Nor do the Vedas echo a glorious past
[Chorus] [1 bar mid crescendo, powerful chorus, drum crescendo]
New tribes no longer have rituals
[Outro] [ 1 bar -smooth exit with fingerpicking acoustic steel-string guitar and bass accents]
There’s no vision of paradise anymore
Nor the drum of old tribes
The candles are going out
[Fade to end – zither and steel-string acoustic guitar texture] [warm tone – slow vibrato – natural decay]
Album BRAVE NEW WORLD – Robson Seloti – 2025 ©
