AI Music Unmuted

Jorge, who creates under the name Creaydestruye, is the human behind Vicenia, an AI artist with her own voice, visual identity, music videos, and evolving story.
Jorge does not describe himself as a musician in the traditional sense. He comes from photography, communication, and the audiovisual world. But he plays keyboard, develops musical sketches, directs the visual world, and makes the creative decisions that shape Vicenia.
This conversation explores a more difficult question than whether AI can make music: when a human conceives the idea, establishes the taste, guides the process, and is completely transparent about the technology, where does authorship begin and end?
We also discuss why some listeners reject music as soon as they discover the artist is virtual, how AI gave Jorge creative freedom after frustrating experiences with producers, and why he eventually brought human singers, musicians, and producers back into the process.
The episode examines identity, transparency, access to music creation, and whether an artist who does not physically exist can still carry real human intention and emotion.
Jorge speaks Spanish, and David speaks English. English subtitles accompany Jorge’s responses, and Spanish subtitles accompany David’s questions on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RealMusic_AI
Learn more:
https://www.realmusic.ai/
https://vicenia.net/

David Ronan, founder and CEO of RoEx, joins Real Music to talk about where AI fits in music creation, mixing and mastering, and why human taste still matters. We discuss how AI can remove technical barriers without replacing creativity, the difference between assistive tools and fully generated music, how creators can preserve their own sound, and why authenticity may become even more important as AI-generated content grows. David also shares the story behind RoEx, how AI is changing mixing and mastering, and why better tools can help more musicians actually finish and release their work. More conversations on AI, music, and creativity at RealMusic.ai.

Dr. Bill Evans returns to Real Music to demonstrate Prism, a performance-level music technology that can transform recorded audio into something musicians can edit with the flexibility of MIDI while preserving the identity, feel, and intent of the original performer. Bill shows how Prism can isolate individual notes, reconstruct missing sounds, alter timing, change instruments and microphones, control ambience, and reshape a recorded performance without replacing the musician behind it. The goal is not to generate a generic imitation. It is to preserve what makes that specific musician sound like themselves. We also discuss whether easier creative tools can expand musical expression, why traditional audio production methods may be limiting, and how new technology could give musicians more control in the age of generative AI. As Bill puts it, AI itself is neither good nor bad. The question is how we use it. Prism is being developed as a tool that enhances human performance and gives musicians new ways to remain creative, expressive, and relevant. 🌐 More from Real Music: https://www.realmusic.ai

Dr. Bill Evans joins Real Music to break down a side of AI in music that most people never hear about: performance restoration. Instead of using AI to generate songs from scratch, Bill uses it to recover, reconstruct, and better reproduce the fine details of real performances by top-tier musicians. He explains why performance lives in the space between the notes on the page and the emotional impact a listener feels, and how that perspective shaped his work.
We get into how badly damaged live recordings from Flying Colors pushed him to develop what he calls “performance restoration,” including a case where seven seconds disappeared from the middle of a Steve Morse solo and he had to reconstruct what was played and what the intent of the performance was.
Bill also explains how his work evolved from early AI-assisted restoration into building virtual performance models, including a Marco Minnemann drum instrument that could preserve the exact feel of a recorded performance while allowing new MIDI-driven variations. From there, the conversation opens up into what it really means to restore, recreate, or even predict a performance at the artist level.
If you care about musicianship, production, AI, and where performance-level music technology is headed next, this is a fascinating one. 

In this special excerpt from a full conversation with Dr. Bill Evans, legendary guitarist Steve Morse joins the discussion to react to something unexpected.
Using AI, Bill was able to recreate a missing portion of one of Steve’s live performances, filling in a section that was never properly recorded. When Steve heard it back, he couldn’t tell where the original ended and the AI reconstruction began.
From there, the conversation opens up into something bigger.
They explore what it means to use AI at the performance level, where it can restore and enhance what actually happened, and where it still falls short. While AI can replicate elements of style and sound, it struggles with context, feel, and the real-time interaction that happens between musicians.
Steve shares his perspective as a lifelong performer, comparing AI to a powerful technology that can be used for both creative and destructive ends.
This is not about AI creating music from scratch. It is about what happens when AI steps into the space of human performance, and what that means for musicians going forward.

For a lot of musicians, especially non-drummers, drums can be where the creative process slows down.
Not because they are not important, but because programming them can pull musicians out of the moment. It becomes technical, time-consuming, and disconnected from the original idea.
In this episode of AI Music Unmuted, David O’Hara talks with Jeremy Jost, a guitarist and developer who ran into that exact problem and built DrumBot AI to solve it.
They explore why drum programming feels different from playing, how it can interrupt creative flow, and how AI tools are starting to change that by letting musicians translate ideas into rhythm more naturally.
The conversation also gets into feel, groove, and why AI still needs human input to sound musical. As powerful as these tools are, they work best in the hands of people who know what they are listening for.
This is not about replacing drummers. It is about removing friction, speeding up the path from idea to execution, and understanding where AI fits in a real music workflow.

Jean-Luc Sinclair musician, composer, sound designer, technologist, educator and author(NYU, Berklee) breaks down what’s really happening at the intersection of AI, sound design, and music production.
This is a clear look at how technology is reshaping creativity, why technical skills are rising while creative instincts are slipping, and why AI may actually make experienced musicians more valuable, not less.
We get into:
Why AI is a “force multiplier” for experts
The surprising decline in creative skills among new producers
How sound design shapes immersive experiences in games and media
Where AI actually helps (and where it still falls short)
Why taste and decision-making are becoming the most important skills
If you’re serious about music, production, or sound design, this is the conversation you should be paying attention to.

What happens when musicians build AI music tools?
In this episode of the RealMusic.ai Podcast, host David O’Hara speaks with Rory, founder of Loudly, about the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and music creation.
Rory shares his journey from touring musician to music tech entrepreneur and explains why many of today’s AI music platforms are being built by people with deep musical backgrounds. The conversation explores how AI is expanding creative possibilities for artists while still relying on human taste, judgment, and musical experience.
David and Rory discuss:
• Why musicians are playing a bigger role in building AI music technology• How AI can enable creativity for both professionals and new musicians• The role of samples, remixing, and new workflows in modern music production• The realities of streaming economics and how artists are adapting• Why live performance and human musicianship may become even more valuable in the AI era
This episode takes a thoughtful look at how AI is reshaping music, not as a replacement for artists, but as a new creative tool.

In this episode of the RealMusic.ai Podcast, David O’Hara speaks with Daniel Rowland, VP of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR Audio, engineer, producer, and educator with over ten years of experience working with AI in music. His career spans studio work, technology leadership, and projects connected to Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy recognition.
The conversation moves beyond hype to explore what actually changes when AI enters real music workflows. Daniel shares how his perspective on AI has evolved over a decade, where it genuinely supports musicians and producers, and why human taste, judgment, and intent remain essential to meaningful music.
They also discuss AI mastering, the difference between finishing music and creating it, and how artists can use AI as an assistive tool without losing creative identity. This episode offers a grounded, experience-driven look at where AI fits in modern music making.

In this episode of RealMusic.ai, David O’Hara sits down with Paul McCabe, musician, composer, and Senior Vice President of Research and Innovation at Roland, where he leads the Roland Future Design Lab. Paul shares his 40–year journey from the early days of MIDI and music retail in Canada, through his time as a product specialist and eventually CEO of Roland Canada, to his current global role shaping the future of instruments and music technology.
They talk about how spending years directly with musicians shaped the way Paul thinks about design, communication, and building tools that actually fit creative workflows. The conversation moves into how AI is starting to live inside musical hardware, not just software, and how that can support learning, practice, and creativity rather than trying to replace human musicians. Paul and David dig into the real barriers to music making today, including focus and attention, not just time, money, or “talent,” and how ideas borrowed from gaming and connected experiences might help more people stick with an instrument.
Paul also explains the story behind AIforMusic.info and why Roland partnered with Universal Music Group to define shared principles for using AI in music responsibly. He closes by discussing Project Lydia, a neural sampling hardware proof of concept built with Raspberry Pi and Neutone, and why Roland is putting it directly into the hands of creators to learn from their reactions before deciding what comes next. If you’re interested in where instruments, AI, and human creativity are really heading, this conversation will give you a grounded, forward-looking perspective.