“We do not support AI-generated music, and our process will reflect that going forward”: D’Addario admits it used AI-generated music in promotional campaign
Last month, a promotional clip for D’Addario’s new NYXL HD electric guitar strings got a lot more attention than the brand had anticipated. The reason? Keen-eared listeners suspected that AI-generated music was included in the promo – an allegation that D’Addario adamantly denied.
However, the company has now edited its previous denial and admitted that it did use AI. Specifically, D’Addario has confirmed that it used Suno Studio to “regenerate the original track” that had been recorded for the promotional video.
“We got this wrong,” the new statement says. “We’ve completed a full review and confirmed that Suno Studio was used to regenerate the original track. We shared inaccurate information, and we’re truly sorry.”
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“Music is made by people-their ears, hands, taste, and emotions,” it continues. “D’Addario exists to give artists the tools to shape their own sound, not to blur the line between human creativity and AI-generated content.”
While nobody is thrown under the bus, the statement implies that, somewhere along the line, someone used AI without D’Addario’s approval. “We do not support AI-generated music, and our process will reflect that going forward,” the company writes. “We’ll require our employees and creative partners to disclose any use of generative AI, and we’ll more closely review everything we put into the world.”
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The unfortunate reveal comes after pushback from countless commenters and YouTubers, all suspicious of D’Addario using AI-generated music. At first, the company defended itself in a statement to Guitar World by saying that the demo music was just “over-produced” and that including the demo in a “fully produced mix” was a decision that had “backfired”.
D’Addario also shared behind-the-scenes clips of recording sessions for the track, as well as explaining in a since-deleted post: “[This track] was not created by AI. All guitars were tracked in real-life, drums and synths were MIDI programmed, plus a whole lot of plug-ins and production.”
The company even insisted that it was “a music company, built by musicians for musicians,” and therefore “naturally, [shared] the growing alarm that generative AI can remove the musician from the creative process.”
“Remember, we are a company whose products can only be used by people. If AI replaces musicians making music, then we’re out of business. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the chilling thought of musical expression being co-opted by machines. As a company made of hundreds of people, we desperately want to preserve human expression through music.”
Given the truth, these words seem very ironic… especially considering the company used Suno. When it comes to preserving human creativity, Suno in particular has faced a lot of backlash for allegedly using copyrighted music for its AI training. Just last month, German courts officially ruled that Suno had violated copyright laws.
Moving forward, D’Addario is keen to prove that it does genuinely believe in human-made music. “We know we can’t fix this with another statement,” the company concludes in its latest statement. “D’Addario exists because musicians trust our products with their sound, and we’re committed to earning that same trust in how we show up for this community.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
