Proposal - a new category

We've already got rules here that allow those who want to know whether a song is A.I. or not. That allows all those who are worried about HOW a song was done rather than whether it sounds good and is compelling. I can name four people who used to be active here who have been effectively run off this site by "snipers" taking potshots at HOW their music came to be. They didn't leave. . . just quit posting. I know them through Soundcloud.

If we put one more barrier up for anyone who is using A.I. then it will encourage the snipers, and run more people off.

IF, the purpose of the site is to critique the quality and sound of the songs. . . it's a viable and valuable site.

BUT, IF the purpose is to be allowed to become a debate about HOW songs must be written, then it's only valuable for those who agree with one side of that debate and others will leave. They won't find any relief on other forums. The snipers here are taking potshots on other forums too.

The people who quit posting here are posting on sites like Revrbnation, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp. They are getting quality feedback there from people who just comment on the quality of the music, not on HOW the music was written.

The point is that there is competition for people's attention. The songwriter forums are not the "only game in town." There are other media they can post on. No one has to come to songwriter forums to get attention for their songs. Any group of people who are made to feel unwelcome on the forums will be motivated to seek the same attention somewhere else where they feel welcome.

Yet another "unwelcome mat" on the site is, in my opinion sure to be detrimental to the site. In the future, there will be more, and more, and more people able to create music because of A.I. The first of the forums to remove the "unwelcome mats" will get an advantage. Those which add new 'unwelcome mats' and those which keep the old ones out too long will suffer, and probably die from lack of interest. That's not a prophecy, just an opinion.

That's how I write , is it cheating ? No its using new technology

Firstly, let me say thank you for the post. I appreciate anyone who is thinking about how to improve the site.

TSF was originally set up by Mike Frisbee as a place for people to help each other write songs. And I try to continue that.

Here is how I'm thinking about that in terms of AI assisted songwriting:

• A human should contribute something to the song. If a person is not contributing either lyrics or the music, then there is no one to help. Right or wrong, prompting does not feel like songwriting to me. These are currently banned, and I have no plan to change that
• It should be clear when there is AI involvement, and what that AI involvement is. AI is becoming more commonplace, but it can still be a polarizing topic. We have rules in place for that by labelling it up front. Anyone who dislikes AI can choose not to comment on those aspects. But in the example of a human written lyric set to music by AI, there is still a lyric to comment on even if you dislike AI generated music. I think this is a reasonable balance respecting both viewpoints.
• Even prior to AI, I've found that more granular categories leads to sub-groups of people who tend to stick within their categories of interest. So we used to have genres like Country, Pop etc as categories, then split by Lyric only / Lyric+Music within that. And that often led to lots of categories with few posts in them, and few people commenting on them. And little chance for cross pollination between people of different genres. I understand your suggestion is far less granular than that, but I deliberately went for mixing everything in together in this version of the site specifically to encourage cross pollination and mixing of musicians and lyricists together. I think it's at the intersection of different skills, genres and abilities that a lot of the magic happens.

In summary, I'm not going to take up your suggestion. But I wanted to explain the policies behind that decision. And I really do appreciate you taking the time and effort to consider how to improve the site. You deserve an explanation why I don't want to use them.

FWIW. . . Utilizing A.I. does not in any way preclude using your own voice. There is no need to accept the A.I. version of the vocals. Other technology (both within the A.I. site itself, and from third party software sites) allow us to get rid of any instrument or vocal that we think is not exactly right.

Hmm I didn't know that. So I can create a song on SUNO and then do the vocals in my own voice. I looked to see if that was possible a while back and it didn't seem to be

You can do that on Suno.ai - theoretically. I haven't been able to make it do that, but I wasn't desperately needing to figure it out. I use a third party site called LALAL.ai to separate stems. All that I currently use it for is to separate vocals from instrumentals, but it will create stems for all the separate instruments. I've only had about 2 or 3 songs that I felt that the whole vocal was done right (to my vision of the song) and didn't need correction regarding a few areas with cadence, mispoken words etc. Most of my songs I just shut off the Suno vocal and sing my own. I've been doing that since about January of 2025.

Says the man using it daily! Speaking as one who was never going to pay the 700 pennies, it feels like the ability to do something that couldn't be done before, to hear my songs at a professional level rather than with my scratchy guitar playing and nasal twang. That is quite addictive!

Actually it's 70,000 pennies to steal a AI melody and humans play the parts and I sing it, verses one penny for a AI song that robots play and sing .

Owen (RDM) has always said clearly that his policy is to be all inclusive and that everything should all remain on the one page. I can always agree to differ and so I’ve gone along with this. But it doesn’t mean that I’ve changed my mind. I can see absolutely no logical reason why there shouldn’t be a separate page for music that is in some way AI generated. I think it would be fairer for all concerned.

The reason I don’t frequent this place as much as I used to has been the sheer volume of AI generated music and some of the disputes we’ve seen on the back of it – especially early on. It's getting even more complicated now as some folks are using AI to cover their own rough recording/arrangements and turning them into something else. I totally get why they do it, but I just don't feel a part of it. If I was younger and I had the time and energy, I'd set up a real musicians' songwriters forum for people like me because I feel like I'm drowning in all this AI stuff, and I know I'm not alone. I'm still in touch with one or two other contributors who have quit the forum for the same reason.

When Sid Shovel first started posting AI generated music here (his own lyrics we were told), I said that I thought that AI should have it’s own page but I got my head bitten off by him and others. I honestly have nothing at all against folks using AI – but it isn't a part of my musical journey and I make no apologies for that. I have a few live gigs coming up later this year which will hopefully put things back in perspective. I'll be 72 in May - gotta play some real music while I still can!!

ha ha ha some ego thing , its a song for 3 minutes AI or not

Naw he just don't like AI songs , cuz he's a playing musician . Like this is cure for cancer or something . it's a fairytale for 3:00 AI or not . Ego based really , 7 months ago I would completely agreed with him , I hated AI . Actually I kinda still do , its bullshit

I wonder if drinking coffee is considered cheating like AI ? Didn't Sid leave the site 6 months ago ? if you drink coffee you should be banned from songwriting sites . You are on drugs .

https://ai-detector.net/

That doesn't do anything , it says would words could be used by AI , it has no idea , it's free thats why . Do you really think Chris is going take lyrics and put it in there , He hates AI period . if your using Suno your only half a thief

It is now really important that I withdraw from this thread for reasons which I won't go into.

Let's just say that resuming the old slanging match between me and Sid is not constructive and it must stop. I apologize if I inadvertently triggered it. It wasn't my intention at all.

Your to serious , Anybody you uses AI is stealing from session players . whats the big deal ? Sids been gone for months. it was right at when I was thinking about killing my self over life , damn wasn't that fun Elvis ? oh yeah . Something he had suicide in a song , then he vanished , Well I'm at 155 lbs now , good fighting weight