Inside the Studio of the Future: Recording with Apple’s AI Session Musicians
Imagine recording an album without calling a drummer, hiring a bassist, or booking studio time — yet still having a band that can adapt, experiment, and groove in real time. Over the past year, I used Logic Pro’s AI musicians to create a full guitar-based instrumental record titled Fret Salad. Here’s what the process revealed about the evolving role of technology in composition, the blurred line between “producer” and “performer,” and the opportunities AI opens for independent artists.
Been on my bucket list a long time
I was a teenager when I heard that guitarist Rick Derringer had played all of the instruments except drums on his album All American Boy. Wow, I thought, that is incredible! How cool is that! And instantly I wanted to do it myself. Over the years, I “dabbled” with digital audio workstation programs, recording both covers and originals I’d written. I became familiar with MIDI and adding that to audio recording. But it never really came together and produced recordings I was proud of.
So there it sat, on my “bucket list.” The things I’ll do when I retire and have time. Eventually, it got to the “front burner” and I created a plan and executed. I’ll spare you the details, but I sought advice from friends who had studios and set up mine around Apple’s Logic Pro software.
One of the attractions to the latest version of Logic Pro was the addition of AI-based “session musicians” covering bass and keyboards. As they had a drummer session player for years, the result for me was a potential full band around me that could play my compositions and provide the setting for my guitar work. I worried, of course, that the result would either be substandard or too hard to control to be useful. Neither proved to be true.
The “session musicians” became members of the band
Once I figured out the session players, I was able to use the drummer and keyboard player extensively and their work allowed me to create, edit and shape musical arrangements quickly and efficiently. However, I found the Logic Pro session bass player to be harder to control and I much preferred my own bass playing. I also found the interactions between me as a bass player and often multiple guitars tracks to be musically interesting (and personally fascinating!).
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The developers at Logic created interesting controls of the session players using sliders, dials, patterns of dots, etc. I’d say they did a pretty fair job given the tools available and using familiar conventions. However, this is a pretty complex arrangement, setting a musician in an ensemble, and these are certainly not the perfect controls yet. I invested a considerable amount of time and “trial and error” based experimentation in learning to work the drum and keyboard player interfaces. It’s a learning curve I am still on, even after producing a full album with “these guys.” I call that album “Fret Salad.”
As I worked with these songs and experimenting with the session players, sometimes the result was exactly what I intended and other times, the session players took the song feel or expression to new places I hadn’t considered. I love those results as it feels like the songs grew wings and started off on their own. The session drummer and keyboard player provided more than enough variation in their playing to not feel “pre-programmed.” The Logic Pro sound libraries full of drum kits and instruments allowed me to layer in sounds and feelings that were not in my guitar-based pallet.
The latest version of Logic Pro has a chord feature, where you can enter the chords for each measure. This allows you to share the song map with the session musicians. This makes instant sense, as you’d need to share the music charts with live breathing musicians when using them, of course you’d need to do the same with the silicon versions. It’s also a nice visual road map to follow for the live players, keeping to the correct chords in front of them.
Wearing the producer hat
The catharsis that happens to the individual player who begins this process is that you become a producer, responsible for the overall “gestalt” of a musical composition with your hands locked on the controls. I found this to be invigorating and opened up so many things I wanted to do with the raw compositions that entered the process. I now had tools to shape and bend the sound and feel of my songs in ways I had not even considered when I wrote them on the guitar.
As I navigate through the final editing and mixing of the album, I am struck by how much happened in a short period of time. Once I finally set up a DAW that worked as advertised, I’m able to feel comfortable bringing my creations to life. And while I miss so much about making music with friends, I found this a useful, alternative process. The AI players in Logic Pro are unlikely to be the ultimate sonic partner for any of us, but as an always-available and instantly-ready player in my studio, it’s a bit a dream come true.
All that being accurate, the interface and control of AI players will need to evolve considerably to keep this interesting. Also, the ability for AI players to emulate (i.e. play just like) known players is coming; it is already used in vocal AI agents. That will add another fascinating wrinkle to the ongoing Artificial Intelligence in music production saga.
For today’s independent artist (and isn’t that nearly all of us?) injecting AI musicians into the mix, surrounded by excellent tool and sound samples, yields better music faster. You can accomplish great things through the creation of an AI backup band, an ability not available just a couple years ago and certain to see ongoing development and improvement.
Eric Lundbohm serves as musical director for “Fret Salad,” an innovative project blending human artistry with AI musicianship. Fret Salad is available on all streaming services. For more information please visit www.fretsalad.com
