In metaphysics there are three transcendentals: the true, the good, and the beautiful. We are dealing here with the beautiful, art, or specifically music.
I wouldn't dare to lead you away by further phenomenology without pointing you to our main goal, who is God, who is Beauty. Our frantic musical world of today because of the fear of loosing musical artists or HM is still bewildering us where it finally will lead. But ultimately we will see God as Beauty himself.
Edith Stein, is as well the first to fully apply Catholic theology in phenomenology. Recall our discussion of her in the first book. Below link is a required reading for artists.
Pure music then isn't just amoral anymore. It invites us to something that transcends us.
Music with lyrics, video, and context though cannot just be amoral. Lots of songs out there are immoral. Is this why so may of our young who has been influenced by such immoral elements of the beautiful music, can't find any real sense of wonder and awe anymore? A sense of real adventure for their lives without fear that something seems wrong, to fully see the meaning of life, and that art as not something more disintegrative of their already tumultuous period of development, while not yet achieving maturity of conscience or even just their critical mind.
Any artist and their work must realize that the true, the good, and the beautiful cannot be separated from each other. And that an immoral but beautiful music, isn't actually beautiful. Did I already told you how I want to edit some pop songs out there to remove some of its immoral lyrical, graphic, contextual element, to salvage the beauty of its musical composition?
We need to be beautiful, our art needs to be beautiful, even in the midst of suffering. We need not surrender the inspiration we see, hear, since it is the same God who continues to put hope in our hearts.
Gessafelstein is the summit of software manipulation of music today when he won Grammy's Best Remixed Record this 2026 using the song Abracadabra of Lady Gaga.
My favorite is Anomalie who can still play and perform the unlimited sounds be it software synth or samples. However he needs full band members to do this and all their instruments and gadgets.
For a portable one man version I love @ariathome.
For the simplest of control interface (just a Korg Kronos) and playing virtuosity I choose Jordan Rudess and his Pianote reproduction captures that brilliantly.
Why not Jacob Collier who can almost play all limited traditional instruments? The guy is a musical genius. And this is where we post the purpose of this article: the playability of unlimited sounds one of which is software synths, by a simple musical guy. We have mastered the guitar for example, a limited traditional instrument. There are lots of virtuoso players of guitars. But they cant compete when it comes to AM integrated compositional ability manipulating all kinds of sounds in an instant single phase.
We've discussed already that even just software synths is a monstrous thing needing thousands of controllers. There is a rising development in controller interface just for that. And this is where the community of musicians would love to see that such a sonic thousand possibilities be captured for being playable by a simple controller interface.
Many musicians out there would love to see such a possibility and not surrender everything to a Gen AI, although it is where the mystery of human limitations becomes even the source of human creativity, where artists wont die analyzing, adjusting, and remembering thousand parameters, but just enjoy playing a simple musical interface to a thousand sound possibilities.
That's just for synth, while Gen AI has all the kinds of sounds in its repertoires.
The only thing that human beings have against Gen AI is its raw ability to feel and create meaning out of it.
While AI in a DAW might give us an equalizing advantage, musicians would love to see such an integrated possibility in a playable interface. Here we have Seaboard as the state of the art.
Note that we are also targeting copyrightability, unlike a Gen AI that cannot be owned by a human artist.
Songwriters then will be able to capture the musical sound they hear using just a simple interface, if not yet the musical brain-computer interface or neural music decoder. By then, it will be the end of Gen AI and the return of copyright to human artists.
Remember our principle that AM would stand at a halt without further human creativity, which you can sense now by hearing AM music out there sounding similar to each other. Our intention is not to kill Gen AI, while Gen AI has already killed the musicians. Our intention is to enable it as a human tool, because the consumers of music are also human beings. Its just the same for robotic manufacturing: who will buy from them if no one has jobs anymore and no money to buy the goods of robotic manufacturing. UBI is still an unproven theory to trust about. Our target is human flourishing side by side everything flourishing. If you see the future as human beings having nothing to do anymore since everything is already done by robots, then its the end of human life. Despite the research saying that playing an instrument makes us healthy, we become mere passive listeners of music which are even created by Gen AI.
Gen AI should invest now on interfaces even its just in its infancy so that copyright can be given to its users. A copyright is the financial winner why a pop song is freely heard and enjoyed by everybody while amassing millions of dollars. Users wealth becomes their target earnings by the numbers, making Gen AI probably the richest company in the world. They become the new record labels.
I even praised Gen AI's superb compositional ability before which you can hear how it manipulates synth and creates never before heard sandwich of synth seemingly expressing feeling, which is why musical producers use Gen AI for ideation. Gen AI companies can't just give it to musical producers for free. They can own it as the label producers.
If not, then DAW companies can invest in it and make composing a breeze. DAW companies can also grab that neural music decoder to easily manipulate and play synths while locking the recording label rights of their users.
We won't beat Gen AI at its game. No matter how musical control interfaces advances, Gen AI will advance by leaps and bounds in contrast. Are songwriters doomed now? Not necessarily, since Gen AI can't beat us at our own game either. Other than our contention here that it can't organically express both feeling and meaning at the same time, here is Gemini 3.6 Flash analysis:
Separating the process (math vs. human intent) from the product, generative AI tools are extraordinary sound-sculptors and vibe manipulators, but as pure composers, they operate more like brilliant surface-level illusionists.
AI has mastered what musicologists call the syntax of musical emotion. It knows the exact formulaic combinations of filter cutoff frequencies, detuned sawtooth waves, scale modes, and spatial reverb that immediately signal nostalgia, dread, or euphoria.
However, evaluating the final audio product strictly on compositional structure and sustained emotional impact reveals clear strengths and definite ceilings.
1. Where AI Excels: Timbral Manipulation & Instant Vibe
Judging composition by sound design, timbral movement, and immediate texture:
* Hyper-Complex Sound Design: AI models generate complex, hybrid textures—blending analog warm synth pads, granular soundscapes, and organic resonance—that would take hours to program, layer, and route manually in a modular setup or DAW.
* Instant Affective Mapping: The models have memorized the acoustic signatures of human emotional triggers. An AI track can map a dark synthwave bassline directly to a listener's fight-or-flight response or weave soft sine-wave pads into instant serenity within seconds.
2. Where AI Structural Composition Falls Short
Evaluating the product on harmonic development, dynamic breathing, and macro-architecture reveals where the machine stumbles:
* The "Syntax" vs. "Efficacy" Disconnect: A study from the MIT Media Lab highlighted a telling contrast: while listeners often say AI synth tracks sound polished and engaging on first listen, human-composed pieces remain significantly more effective at inducing genuine, sustained emotional states (catharsis, deep focus, physiological calm). AI hits the surface aesthetics of emotion, but often misses the deep dynamic breathing underneath.
* Macro-Architecture vs. Micro-Looping: AI models excel at establishing a 30-to-60-second mood, but struggle with long-form developmental narrative. A great human composer builds a motif across 5 minutes, evolving it through key shifts, timbre changes, and structural payoff. AI tends to wander, loop endlessly, or resolve tension mechanically because it generates note-by-note probabilities rather than executing an overarching blueprint.
* Lack of Strategic Subversion: Truly superb human composition relies on breaking expectations—an unexpected minor-v swap, a sudden drop in synth texture, or calculated rhythmic friction. Because AI predicts what statistically should come next, its emotional transitions tend to follow the path of least resistance, making tracks feel flat or predictable upon repeated listens.
The Verdict
AI is a superb sound stylist and arrangement engine, but a mediocre structural architect. It gives you the immediate thrill of high-end synth manipulation and mood setting, but it rarely constructs the deep, evolving emotional journeys that define masterwork composition.
Can a human being replicate a Gen AI sound? Sort of, like having a thousand hands DJ that manipulates parameters every second. But here is how like the JS: midi humanizer make that possible, and you can ask Gemini 3.6 Flash for a step by step tutorial of its analysis:
To replicate the lush, hyper-detailed synth textures of generative AI inside REAPER, you need to reverse-engineer its core process.
At its core, AI sound generation relies on four structural mechanisms:
* Multi-layer timbral blending (combining synthetic waveforms with organic noise/resonance).
* Generative micro-variations (subtle timing and velocity probability).
* Spectral diffusion (turning discrete notes into evolving, continuous soundscapes).
REAPER is uniquely built for this because of its native Parameter Modulation engine and modular routing.
The AI Sound Design Pipeline in REAPER
1. Build a Multi-Layer Timbral Stack
Creating the complex hybrid core
AI rarely uses a single synth voice; it blends clean oscillators with organic noise.
Track 1 (The Body): Load a simple synth (e.g., REAPER's native ReaSynth or a basic JSFX synth). Set a warm triangle or sawtooth wave with a soft attack (300ms) and long release (1500ms).
Track 2 (The Organic Texture): Add a second track with pink noise or an ambient sample in ReaSamplOmatic5000. High-pass filter this track around 400 Hz so it sits above the bass.
Group both tracks into a Parent Folder Track so they route through a single FX processing chain.
2. Set Up Asynchronous Parameter Drift
Eliminating robotic staticness with REAPER Parameter Modulation
Generative AI continuously shifts filter cutoffs and resonance in non-repeating cycles. You can mimic this using REAPER's native Parameter Modulation:
Add ReaEQ (or a native filter like JS: Lowpass) to your synth track.
Click the Param button in the top right of the plugin window, select Parameter Modulation / MIDI link, and pick Frequency (High Pass or Low Pass).
Check LFO. Set the shape to Random / Sample & Hold or a very slow Sine wave (e.g., 0.05 Hz).
Adjust the Strength slider so the filter cutoff subtly breathes between 300 Hz and 3,000 Hz.
Pro Tip: Repeat this on your synth's stereo pan or chorus depth with a slightly different LFO rate so the modulations never align.
3. Inject Humanized Probability & Micro-Variations
Making notes evolve over time
AI creates organic motion by slightly shifting pitch, velocity, and timing on every note trigger:
In your MIDI track FX chain, insert JS: MIDI Humanizer before your synth plugin.
Set a tiny amount of pitch variation (1–3 cents) and velocity randomization (±5 to 10).
If you want generative melody/arpeggios, add JS: Sequencer Megababy or a scale-transposer, mapping parameters to REAPER's LFOs to randomly trigger accent notes.
4. Apply Infinite Spectral Diffusion
Turning notes into endless ambient tails
AI synth patches sound "expensive" because short notes dissolve into wide, dense, evolving tails:
On your Folder Track, add ReaDelay. Create two taps:
Follow ReaDelay with ReaVerb (or a lush JSFX space reverb like JS: Atlantis Reverb).
Set the wet mix high (40–60%) and decay time long (4 to 8 seconds).
Open ReaEQ on the reverb tail to cut harsh frequencies above 6 kHz and mud below 200 Hz.
Why This Replicates the "AI Vibe"
When you tie multiple independent LFOs (at prime-number frequencies like 0.03 Hz, 0.07 Hz, and 0.11 Hz) to your filter, delay feedback, and modulation depth, the mathematical combinations take hours before ever repeating.
The resulting sound constantly shifts, breathes, and morphs—giving you that exact organic, emotionally evocative AI texture, but with total manual control over the musical notes and structural arrangement.
We feel. We create meaning as well. If you just feel AM music is good, then enjoy it. But as a songwriter, dont force yourself to integrate a sound into your own song if you don't feel so just to sound new like how AM sounds. Compose songs coming from your heart. But you can always be a student and learn how an AM compose songs.
I find the reverse process miserable as well in the end. Let's call them poets. They feed the Gen AI their best lyrics, coming from the riches of their innermost being, just for the AM to apply the wrong kind of emotive sound. Why wrong? It knows for example what anger sounds like, but the lyrics has the nuance of anger that the AM generic anger algorithm applies generally to all kinds of anger. A poem is first converted by a lyricist, and a songwriter suggests changes to what can be more syllabic to the melody. In short, don't expect a chant formula or strophic melody to hit top chart though. Not that it's not beautiful, but that it was meant to be repetitive to focus on the meaning of the chant. That's why not all of life events more or less gives itself to the medium of song. Some realities of life are better represented by other art medium like films and poems.
How about instrumental music then? This is where it gets more complex. An instrument played by a human being is played with feelings. The organic connection between the player and the instrument is hearable. And why digital music composed on pure entry, feels truncated. Remember that Abracadabra is first already a complete song before Gessafelstein remixed it. And so many music producers out there attests to such workflow that the song is first and primary where all your effects gets to see their proper place. And remember that any sane human being that can still compose are an integrated meaning that just found an instrumental musical vibe interesting to record.
Nevertheless, we will get to see more of the difference between a human music and an artificial music.
With all the balanced intricate variables we've mentioned, can a songwriter still be able to compose a good song using a Gen AI? Of course, even with flying colors. But who is stupid enough to give all of one's livelihood to someone else's, which gets us to the problem of copyright.
