Episode 45: AI Landscape

AI Music on Streaming Platforms: Bandcamp’s Ban, Spotify’s Embrace, and the AIODE Session-Musician Tool

Hosts Rich Bozic and Justin Hochella  begin by briefly discussing busy studio work and Justin's new Logic Pro Launch Pad course at logicprolaunchpad.com, then sharing recent podcast listener cities worldwide. The episode turns to AI in music, contrasting Bandcamp’s stated policy (posted January 13, 2026) banning music generated wholly or in substantial part by AI and prohibiting AI impersonation, with Spotify’s more welcoming stance toward AI-generated music and concerns about labeling, artist impact, and potential platform incentives. They also discuss AIODE (A-I-O-D-E), a tool that can import a song and generate instrument parts (e.g., bass, guitar, trumpets) based on real musicians’ performances, noting both its practical uses and risks of enabling fully AI-created songs. They conclude that AI cannot replicate human lived experience and artistic expression.

00:00 Welcome and Updates
01:00 Logic Pro Course Launch
03:03 Podcast Listener Stats
04:38 AI Music Topic Setup
05:49 Bandcamp Bans Generative AI
12:41 Spotify Embraces AI Slop
15:39 Should AI Music Be Labeled
17:09 AIODE AI Session Musician
21:51 Is AI a Tool or Replacement
28:09 Human Experience vs AI
30:39 Recap and Sign Off

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

Rich 0:05

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Face Your Ears podcast. I'm joined today with Justin Hochella from Michigan. How are you, sir? My name's Rich Bozi, by the way, for those of you who may be new to us, how are you, Justin?

Justin 0:23

I am doing well, rich. How are you?

Rich 0:26

I am doing well, I'm doing well. Things are cooking along here in New Jersey. Did my schedule for the upcoming month, but time this episode airs, I'll already be working on the next month.

Justin 0:39

Yes. Voice lessons galore. Yes.

Rich 0:42

Oh yes. Been doing things in the studio. I've been working on. Finishing up some songs. I've been working on some, promotional things for release of a song.

Justin 0:53

Excellent. Yeah. You've been busy.

Rich 0:55

yes. Yes. But it's been going well.

Justin 0:58

Yeah. Things are going well. I recently released my Course Logic Pro Launchpad, which is available now@logicprolaunchpad.com, so you can check that out. If you're someone that wants to learn Logic Pro and it is maybe a beginner or somebody who's just starting out. This is the perfect course to take you to the next level. So check it out, logic pro launchpad.com. So in the throes of marketing that course and getting it out to the people. So yeah, it's been quite a journey, but I'm so excited that it's finally up and out and available to the world.

Rich 1:37

That's great. How is all of the, logistics around marketing and stuff going, are you finding that process something that's straightforward

Justin 1:47

No marketing stuff is quite an area of expertise that I lack, but I'm figuring it out. And I have found a company that. That does promotion and marketing that I think I'm gonna be working with. Hopefully it gets the word out even further than I, I have the ability to. Yeah, it's a challenge I think marketing and

Rich 2:10

and

Justin 2:10

promoting stuff and but it's a necessary thing. To learn about. So that's where I'm at really, is just learning how that's done and how to approach it best and what's right for me and all of those different things. But it's a journey. It's part of the journey. And the one, one mountain was climbed, which was actually creating the course. So the next mountain is. Is, the marketing mountain. And when I get to the peak of that mountain, I'll be able to scream from the mountaintop, Hey everybody, this course is available. And then hopefully more people will be able to hear that and respond in kind. But yeah, so far, so good. And it's all just part of the journey and part of the process.

Rich 2:48

Absolutely. People check out this course. If you're new to Logic. If you have someone that you know in your life who's new to Logic and can use a very to the point, good course. Check it out people. So Justin, I wanted to share some stats about the podcast with you.

Justin 3:08

Please.

Rich 3:10

observing where our

Justin 3:12

Hmm.

Rich 3:12

Is happening and some of the cities I'm gonna talk about, the top cities are listening

Justin 3:18

Okay.

Rich 3:19

will at least I guess the last five episodes we got Frankfurt Frankfurt,

Justin 3:25

Okay.

Rich 3:26

Germany,

Justin 3:27

Excellent.

Rich 3:27

Miami, Florida. People are sipping their cocktails by the beach listening to the face. Your podcast down there it's fantastic.

Justin 3:36

Okay.

Rich 3:37

Of course, Somerset, New Jersey. Of course the home crowd. Yep. Tallahassee, Florida.

Justin 3:43

Oh, okay.

Rich 3:45

That's nice. More Floridians into the, into DIY home recording. We got Sydney, new South Wales.

Justin 3:53

Okay.

Rich 3:54

They're checking it out down there. It's great. And then Norfolk, Virginia. Is that how you'd say it?

Justin 4:02

Yeah. Norfolk. Yeah. Wow. The word is spreading about face your ears. That's great.

Rich 4:08

based on the amount of listenership we have. I I'm assuming, we'll, be number one and. I dunno, maybe a few hundred years here it's,

Justin 4:19

Yeah.

Rich 4:20

But anyways, thank you everyone for listening and it's great to see people all around the world to check us out. It's a

Justin 4:26

Thanks.

Rich 4:27

thing.

Justin 4:28

Thank you everybody. Yeah. We enjoy putting this podcast together and it's nice to hear that people out there are listening not only in our backyard, but all across the world. So thank you.

Rich 4:38

So Justin. This has all been so positive. This start of this episode has been so positive.

Justin 4:45

We're gonna take a dark turn.

Rich 4:48

Why are we here today? What are we talking

Justin 4:50

yeah. So as the title of this podcast, I. So clearly implies we are talking about AI and the AI landscape. Yes. And once again we're talking about AI and it has just been continually evolving and growing at such a break. Next speed. It's hard to keep up with, but we just wanted to jump in on this episode and talk about some of the things that we've heard about or. happening in, in the news and just what's going on out there with AI and music. So that's what we'll be focusing on today, and we hope to get through it without losing our minds. But but yeah, that's what we're digging into today. There's some very interesting things happening out there, and we are eager to talk about them.

Rich 5:41

Alright, so Justin, go ahead, launch the nuke on us here. What's the first thing we're talking about here?

Justin 5:49

One of the things I saw out there is this idea of AI generated music existing on streaming platforms, and there seems to be different camps on this. No surprise. There is the band camp. Camp, the band, camp camp, which is basically saying that, no, we're drawing a line to AI generated music. So the band camp platform, if you're not familiar, is more or less a grassroots, artist driven kind of platform. it's like if Bernie Sanders created a streaming platform, it's for the people, by the people. It's actually really great. I have some stuff on band camp actually, and it's just a, way for people to share and sell their music without the corporate, overlords involved. Anyway, check it out. bandcamp.com. But Bandcamp actually released a statement. Recently on their stance on AI generated music, and they're basically coming out saying, we will not allow music that is generated by AI to exist on our platform.

Rich 7:05

So did they specify like what percentage of the song could be AI generated? Because what I'm curious about that. Is it I know that, if the song is a hundred percent ai, yes, they have a hard stop. But what about people who are using ai instruments and things

Justin 7:21

Let me read the statement actually from Bandcamp. Why not? Okay. So here's an article directly from Bandcamp's blog and it's an article or a post they shared titled, keeping Band Camp Human. Band Camp's mission is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans. We believe that the human connection found through music is a vital part of our society and culture, and that music is much more than a product to be consumed. It's the result of a human cultural dialogue stretching back before the written word. Similarly, musicians are more than mere producers of sound. They are vital members of our communities, our culture, and our social fabric. Band Camp was built to directly connect artists and their fans and to make it easy for fans to support artists equitably so that they can keep making music. Today we are fortifying our mission by articulating our policy on generative AI so that musicians can keep making music and so that fans have confidence that the music they find on Band Camp was created by humans. Our guidelines for generative ai, music and audio are as follows. Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on band camp. Any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited in accordance with our existing policies, prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement. If you encounter music or audio that appears to be made entirely or with heavy reliance on generative ai. Please use our reporting tools to flag the content for review by our team. We reserve the right to remove any music on suspicion of being AI generated with this policy. We're putting human creativity first, and we will be sure to communicate any updates to the policy as the rapidly changing generative AI space develops. Thank you. And that was posted on January 13th, 2026. Uh, So not, not long ago.

Rich 9:24

So it seems like they are anti generative ai, but it seems like they're not opposed to people using AI to be able to craft something themselves.

Justin 9:39

Yeah, it's a really interesting space because. AI is a tool, right? And so it, even the way the language is in that blog post, it's nebulous. There isn't, like you were implying earlier, there isn't 20%, 30% cutoff or whatever. If you look at something like Logic Pro AI is in it. It's already baked in with things like Logic Pro Drummer technically speaking, even Chroma Glow, which is a plugin, uses machine learning to emulate. Yeah, hardware. AI is intertwined to some degree, but I think what they were saying is generative AI to essentially use a prompt and spit out like a full song, that kind of premise. And so what do you think of that though? Like of them taking this kind of hard stance?

Rich 10:27

I like that. think it's good to have at least one platform that is. Doing that, and we can see then we will see what happens. I guess the market will decide, what they want. The problem is band camp is already not very well known amongst the average person. Musicians know, band, camp and maybe music lovers who really want to support bands and artists. Band camp or people who want to get in there and be able to buy stuff. They know about it, but the general populace doesn't. So I hope it will make a big impact. But. Unfortunately, I'm doubtful of it just because of band camp's reach into the average person. Like most people that I know do not use Bandcamp. Like just the average person. It's,

Justin 11:23

Yeah. I agree. I agree with that stance. I think it's great that band Camp is putting their foot down, drawing the line, so to speak. And while Band Camp's influence isn't huge, it isn't nothing.

Rich 11:36

Yeah.

Justin 11:37

band camp's pretty significant. It is probably becoming the. Premier place to sell music, which is a very interesting distinction, right? We're so programmed to think about music as streaming now. We don't, we no longer really think about, oh, you can buy music.

Rich 11:54

Yeah.

Justin 11:54

Yeah. That's what's great about Bandcamp. I have used Bandcamp to purchase music from artists that I really like and respect. There's actually the ability to buy physical media through band camp. There's an artist I like called Arkham Sunset. And they actually had a cassette tape, which I thought was fun. And I bought that on band camp and yeah I think it's really great to, to draw that line and that distinction. And I think their message was crafted in such a way where it was focusing on people like, we're doing this not to. Dissuade people from using ai, but we're, their stance, their vision of Bandcamp is that it is for people

Rich 12:38

Yes.

Justin 12:38

And

Rich 12:38

like that.

Justin 12:39

I like that focus as well. And on the other hand, we have Spotify,

Rich 12:44

Ah, okay.

Justin 12:45

which most people I think listening to this are familiar with Spotify. And Spotify is taking kind of the opposite approach, I would say Spotify is essentially praising the use of ai. They're more or less saying that AI is this great new technology and we should be embracing it, and you can now find just loads of AI music. Some would describe a it as AI slop. I'm just looking at a Reddit post here. Yeah,

Rich 13:19

the other night we were chatting about this and you had said something about this with the incentive of why would Spotify be all right with this?

Justin 13:26

yeah. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, I think, but it tracks a bit. Spotify, as we know, has more or less become the. Defacto standard of how music is consumed nowadays. Like I implied earlier, people don't really think about buying music anymore. They think about streaming music, like it's a faucet. You just turn it on and off at will. And so there's this concern that AI generated music is going to produce a significant amount of revenue for Spotify. And the concern is that Spotify could easily be the ones benefiting from that because they're the ones creating it

Rich 14:10

just generate the music themselves, cut out the middleman,

Justin 14:13

right.

Rich 14:13

Be profiting

Justin 14:14

Yeah. Just like a profit circle, right? Like they, they just pump out the AI generated music and the scale of which they could do that is just mind boggling to me.'Cause you think about Spotify's resources. It's what chance does anybody have on Spotify, compared to that juggernaut of this multi-billion, the B multi-billion dollar engine of Spotify, pumping out AI generated music. And so it, it doesn't feel very artist friendly to me the way band Camp does. And that's the concern is that Spotify would. Create the AI music that people listen to on their platform, and it would just further their profitability without artists being able to share in that.

Rich 15:02

That's unfortunate because Spotify is like when you think about streaming, you think Spotify first basically, or Apple Music, right?

Justin 15:10

Right.

Rich 15:11

what they decide basically will inevitably affect the landscape

Justin 15:16

guess a way to a way to put it is they dictate the market. They're that big, right? Spotify's influence over the music industry is it like they, they essentially are the music industry.

Rich 15:27

Yeah, basically. Yeah.

Justin 15:28

So whatever's popular, whatever's getting listens or streams on Spotify, that's the bellwether of the future,

Rich 15:38

yeah. Should we be worried?

Justin 15:42

I probably like I mean I think it's it, we seem to be arriving at a place where people, because of stuff like this, people are canceling Spotify. I don't have a Spotify membership actually. Um,

Rich 15:57

neither.

Justin 15:57

I know a lot of people do and a lot of people use it. But, I think the best thing, the best outcome I could see just short term would be them simply labeling music as AI generated. So I think that's the thing in question right now is, look if you're gonna push out this AI slop to us, at least tell us you're doing it. You know, it, it kind of reminds me of like going to a restaurant or something, like, you kind of wanna know what you're eating. Some people don't care. They're like, whatever. I'll go to McDonald's and I'll eat this synthetic, food and, highly processed slop. I don't care. I'm hungry. I'll just eat it. I don't, they don't really pay any mind as to what they're putting in their body. But some people do care and I think people have a right to know is this. Music created by a person, or is this created by a computer? So that's the debate right now is is that gonna happen or not? Should they do it or not? That kind of thing.

Rich 16:51

So it's up to us really the individual. What

Justin 16:54

yeah. Yeah.

Rich 16:56

Will you? Accept AI or will you a change in your life somehow? It's to be seen right as

Justin 17:07

Right.

Rich 17:07

forward. Justin, what else is going on in the

Justin 17:12

Yeah, so that's part of the landscape right now. But there are definitely other tools that are emerging. One of them, of which I don't exactly know how to pronounce, I'll give it a stab is ai aod a ai ODA ad,

Rich 17:27

them.

Justin 17:28

aod, let's go with aod A-I-O-D-E. So AOD is. Essentially an AI based tool that creates parts for a song you're working on. So basically what you do is you import a song and this generates whatever part you want, like a bass line or a guitar, or trumpets, or keyboards, whatever. the premise being it is, it's like a session musician used to help flush out any song you're working on. And the engine itself apparently is founded on real musicians and their performances. The AI is essentially, for lack of a better term, synthesizing all the input from that performer. To create something completely new. So it's this, I mean it's ai, but it's AI based off of, taking in the performance of somebody like a trumpet player or a drummer or something like that. So similar-ish to Logic Pro Drummer or any of the Logic Pro session players that exist. But I would say this has fewer controls and fewer. Nuanced details on articulations and things like that.

Rich 18:39

'cause Logic Drummer is very sophisticated. You could get in there and you could really. Dig in deep with exactly like basically crafting a drum beat and getting really granular with the detail What I got the impression I got you sent me a link to this and. I was watching the guy who was a hip hop producer, I do believe, who was putting together stuff. It seemed like it analyzes the current state of the track and then, you could tell it what instrument you want and then it throws in a part into it. And the way the guy was touting it in the video was basically, if you want to be able to generate some loops that won't sound like anyone else's. This is the, a way to go More unique with your stuff.

Justin 19:25

That was an interesting point you brought up that you can go to something like Splice, which is one of the biggest loop providers on the planet right now, and you can grab loops from there. And there's a likelihood that somebody else has already used that or something very similar to that, whereas this would potentially give you something a little bit more unique and original, which I thought was compelling. I also think This borders to me on like too far, but also like helpful in utilitarian.

Rich 19:56

Yeah.

Justin 19:57

I think it's cool to be able to have a, an assistant, more or less like this, where the song is like 95% done. You're in the studio with another musician or the singer or something and they're like, you know what? I would really like to hear This trumpet part, we don't have a lot of time left in this session. Like time is of the essence kind of thing. And then this could jump in and pot, potentially bridge the gap and create something on the fly fairly quickly. Fairly high quality and maybe it doesn't end up being exactly what goes in the song, but it gives you a facsimile of what it could sound like maybe it isn't what's used ultimately, but it's enough to inspire and be like, okay, it's gonna sound like this. Or you could take that part, sample it, rearrange it. Do something else with it. So I like that. I do think it has some degree of utility. I like that it leverages real musicians and it's not just purely a robot. There is some musical DNA in it, so to speak. Um.

Rich 21:02

Very generous with the, the way you I guess

Justin 21:06

I see the other side though, like I, I see the other side where it's like you, what's stopping somebody from creating all of their parts like this?

Rich 21:14

And it will happen.

Justin 21:15

of course it's human nature. So for people that are altruistic in nature I see it as a utility that could be helpful. One man's utilitarian tool is another man's like shortcut to fame and fortune.

Rich 21:30

Yes. Yes.

Justin 21:31

So yeah, I see both sides for sure. And that's what I think this one is like I was saying before, it's on the edge there where it's like, there are use cases where it's oh, that's cool and that's helpful. There's also use cases where it's oh, it's just a shortcut to. Just basically, creating a fully AI created song with a few extra steps.

Rich 21:51

Me ask you this question, Justin. So as I'm reading through some of the comments on these different tools, one of the comments I run into every once in a while, and it seems like it's probably a younger. Producer who's up and coming, doing their thing in their home studio is just, is saying, oh, you guys are just caught in your old ways. This is the new tech. This is the new way. Either you can embrace it and get on the train and be able to move into new heights of creativity and, usher in a new kind of music. you could be caught in your old ways and be stubborn and waste. Time and money where you could have this tool that can step in and move it all along for you, what are your thoughts on that?

Justin 22:39

They're not wrong. I recall in my day, back in my day I remember people being of the similar mindset with just using computers for music and, people were clutching their pearls like, oh, a computer used to make music. That just rips out the whole soul of it, and my stance then was the computer synthesizer whatever, is just a tool like a pencil. It's a means to an end. And I think there's a degree of that with ai. But I think this is different as well. I think that. Back then it was supplementing the person with a tool. This is replacing the person and replacing the process. I think for me, that's where I get my,

Rich 23:28

Is that where you clutch your

Justin 23:29

that's where I clutch my pearls a little bit is when the person is removed from the equation. Because it's interesting if you think about it, how does one develop taste and style without process? It's a legitimate question. If you're just prompting what are you prompting based off of you're probably prompting based off of what you've heard. And so

Rich 23:54

Mm-hmm.

Justin 23:55

true. Then you're just regurgitating oh, I heard this thing and I need it to sound like this. You're just creating like a cycle, a perpetual cycle of slop because you're not actually engaging in a process that's you, that's driven by you, right? Where you are coming up with a process and you are discovering original things and you are. Butting up against the friction of figuring things out and doing something unique and figuring out who you are and what your sound is. I don't see AI as being a very helpful tool in that regard because that's not really what it's there to do. It's there to do what you tell it to do. It's this genie that's okay, I'll do whatever you tell me to do. And I don't think that there's a lot of room for discovery in that. Not saying it's impossible, I think when one relies upon something too much and one relies on something that removes friction and removes process, I think the results are mediocre. And that's what I would say. I'm not saying that people shouldn't use AI and that AI should go away completely. AI is a pretty incredible tool. And just like anything else, just like back 20 years ago when people were clutching their pearls about using computers and music 25 years ago I think it was about using the tool. In an effective way that yields interesting creative results. I don't know what about you? What do you think?

Rich 25:17

I wanna believe that there is something distinctly. Unique that human beings bring to the process. if I have my choice, like between going to a live show and seeing a human being up on stage versus seeing just, some, AI generating music, I would I would at least at this point always prefer the human being, but also. seen stuff and heard stuff that is very convincing with what is being generated with the ai. Even in that video that we watched of this tool that you just mentioned, this iod or ai, AI owed, whatever it is there was a bass line that he was generating in it and I was like, man, yeah, that sounds pretty good. That's a cool

Justin 26:07

Yeah. And it like contours to the music too, right? Like it it fits in with whatever is going on in the music, which is interesting.

Rich 26:14

Yeah. And let's say I, if I took that bass line just by itself and I showed someone and I said, Hey, listen to this bas a lot of people might be like, that's pretty cool. They wouldn't say they were first, response wouldn't be, there's a human soul missing in this bass line.

Justin 26:31

Right.

Rich 26:33

We would hope that would be a possible thing to read, I guess maybe. So we could be like, this is uniquely ours as human beings. But, you know, unfortunately that's not possible. It just, in my mind, it brings up all kinds of like questions about that. Like how much soul is there in a loop that someone reworks, right? or like a drumbeat that a drummer would play that's been played, countless times and many other songs. How much human soul is in that? I mean, I know there's ways to add personal character into it, but just take a straight up ac dc four, four rocking drumbeat. Like we could basically generate that at this point. But I, it's a tough question, man. It's a tough question. I, if I have to make a choice, I want humans to be in charge of the process. I choose this, right?

Justin 27:30

Mm-hmm.

Rich 27:30

Want. This, right?

Justin 27:34

I think for me it does come down to the fact that. If you think about it, AI is just combing existing material and regurgitating something based off of existing material that humans have created. And so if we wanna push things forward and evolve, it seems like we have to do that outside of ai. So AI is just looking backward. And it's just, it's a synthesizing what's already existing. And so I think it really is up to human beings to create the new sound, the new feel, whatever that might be. That's my hope.

Rich 28:09

I watched a video the other day where a guy was talking about exactly what you were just mentioning. He brought up the point that's how human beings operate. Though too, we are a conglomeration of all of our experiences and influences and what we're doing is just taking all of that per mutating it and regurgitating something from what, we've heard. he brought up interesting philosophical kind of argument that we are basically like acting like the AI within our own brain. just created something that's like outside of us that does the same thing.

Justin 28:47

I think the AI doesn't think not really. I think it, it does a really good impression of thinking, But it's not actually thinking. It's doing very sophisticated pattern recognition and pattern decoding. Humans do that too, but humans I think are able to.

Rich 29:06

We got more baggage we bring to the

Justin 29:08

Yeah. Yeah. AI doesn't have things like trauma and like mental health, struggles.

Rich 29:15

Next, a studio plugin,

Justin 29:17

yeah. Yeah.

Rich 29:18

add trauma to your mix and ego.

Justin 29:22

Like the human experience. We're not making light of those things to anybody who's listening. We're not making light of it. We're just, we're making light of the fact that, AI isn't human. It lacks these things and so much of the art and the music that we create is in response to the experience that we've had of being human, of going through really difficult things. And I think that in my mind, can never be replaced, will never go away. Is this this desire to express what we're feeling and thinking through the arts and having that process. And I think that there's something to be said about the struggle of that, of learning to play an instrument and then. Crafting original songs that express yourself. There's just something inherently human in that, that I don't think AI can ever replicate or replace. Something that I always stand by and say is AI cannot have the experience for you. That is never possible. It just isn't. And I think that's important for us to remember is that ai. It can produce a lot of really compelling things, but it can't have the experience of life of being a human.

Rich 30:37

Yes. Justin, it was great to get together to talk about this topic again, I have a feeling we're gonna be doing this again soon,

Justin 30:46

yes.

Rich 30:47

sooner than people realize, Just to recap today's episode, we talked a little bit about the debate between the philosophy that Band Camp has taken on of ai, generative music versus Spotify's stance, and then we also talked a little bit about the A-I-O-D-E tool to.

Justin 31:14

Ad, let's call it aod. Aad.

Rich 31:15

Yeah, the ad tool that helps generate parts in people's compositions. Thank you, Justin. This was a great talk. I think we should get together really soon to flesh this out a little more.

Justin 31:31

Absolutely. Thank you, rich. Yeah, this is, uh. a good conversation. Thanks for digging in deep with me and I look forward to continuing this with you soon.

Rich 31:40

Until next time.

Justin 31:42

Bye everybody.