Evaluating Human-AI Interaction via Usability, User Experience and Acceptance Measures for MMM-C: A Creative AI System for Music Composition

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), there has been increasing interest in human-AI co-creation in a variety of artistic domains including music as AI-driven systems are frequently able to generate human-competitive artifacts. Now, the implications of such systems for musical practice are being investigated. We report on a thorough evaluation of the user adoption of the Multi-Track Music Machine (MMM) as a co-creative AI tool for music composers. To do this, we integrate MMM into Cubase, a popular Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) by Steinberg, by producing a "1-parameter" plugin interface named MMM-Cubase (MMM-C), which enables human-AI co-composition. We contribute a methodological assemblage as a 3-part mixed method study measuring usability, user experience and technology acceptance of the system across two groups of expert-level composers: hobbyists and professionals. Results show positive usability and acceptance scores. Users report experiences of novelty, surprise and ease of use from using the system, and limitations on controllability and predictability of the interface when generating music. Findings indicate no significant difference between the two user groups.

Calliope: An Online Generative Music System for Symbolic Multi-Track Composition

With the rise of artificial intelligence in recent years, there has been a rapid increase in its application towards creative domains, including music. There exist many systems built that apply machine learning approaches to the problem of computer-assisted music composition (CAC). Calliope is a web application that assists users in performing a variety of multi-track composition tasks in the symbolic domain. The user can upload (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) MIDI files, visualize and edit MIDI tracks, and generate partial (via bar in-filling) or complete multi-track content using the Multi-Track Music Machine (MMM). Generation of new MIDI excerpts can be done in batch and can be combined with active playback listening for an enhanced assisted-composition workflow. The user can export generated MIDI materials or directly stream MIDI playback from the system to their favorite Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). We present a demonstration of the system, its features, generative parameters and describe the co-creative workflows that it affords.

Apollo: An Interactive Environment for Generating Symbolic Musical Phrases using Corpus-based Style Imitation

With the recent developments in machine intelligence and web technologies, new generative music systems are being explored for assisted composition using machine learning techniques on the web. Such systems are built for various tasks such as melodic, harmonic or rhythm generation, music interpolation, continuation and style imitation. In this paper, we introduce Apollo, an interactive music application for generating symbolic phrases of conventional western music using corpus-based style imitation techniques. In addition to enabling the construction and management of symbolic musical corpora, the system makes it possible for music artists and researchers to generate new musical phrases in the style of the proposed corpus. The system is available as a desktop application. The generated symbolic music materials, encoded in the MIDI format, can be exported or streamed for various purposes including using them as seed material for musical projects. We present the system design, implementation details, discuss and conclude with future work for the system.