Artificial Intelligence is a hot button topic of the day. Everyone wonders where the A.I. rabbit hole will lead us, and one of those areas of conversation involves music and media production. For years now, computers have been helping musicians to create their music and also to improve upon whatever it is that they’ve made. From autotune to sampled electronic versions of analog sounds, the digital recording landscape has gone too far to completely turn its back on music production in the 21st century. But, how can this relationship grow without us humans relying too much upon the tools available to us in our digital sheds?
Darren Burgos is doing his part to explore and demonstrate the synergistic connection between digital production and us old fashioned human beings. His recently released album, Connections focuses on electronic pop composition and synthesizers, but his work also ponders the complicated human relationships that live amongst the 0s and 1s. In addition to his work as a musician, Darren is also considered one of the world’s leading experts in Apple’s Logic Pro digital production software; because of this, Darren has taught thousands of new and established musicians how to produce music in the digital realm.
Darren and I discuss his latest release, but also the sometimes perplexing relationship that human beings have with technology; how even with all of our Luddite tendencies, humans have always had an innate and organic need to create and connect with technology. How this relates to music has yet to be fully envisioned, but Darren might be one of the more qualified folks on the planet to imagine what that future looks like. The digital music of the future might sound good, but will it sound human?
Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.
