DeepState Empire – Welcome to the idiocracy
DeepState Empire brings a haunting, dystopian edge to the world of metal music. With deep, pulsing beats, pushy guitars and an eerie soundscape, their tracks confront themes of societal control, disillusionment, and the echoes of voices lost in the digital age. Each track invites you to explore a different dimension of a world slipping into the “idiocracy” they narrate.
DeepState Empire is a fictional creation, brought to life through a collaboration between myself and the GenAI tool; Udio 130 v.1.50 (on a 48kHz sample rate). This project serves as an exploration of how AI-driven music tools can craft compelling narratives and powerful sonic worlds. I created DeepState Empire not just for the listening experience but as a means to evaluate the quality and performance of GenAI music tools. I try to apply a light-weighted, generalized variant of the 5-point music analysis method to examining how well the AI captures the distinctive elements that define each genre and style. The evaluation result is addressed for the collection and not for the individual tracks.
Reflections
Sound Design: In general, Udio truly excelled in creating rich, atmospheric stereo soundscapes. Each track varies in the sound changes, character, space & volume. One some of the songs the panning’s and stereo width was used effectively between song parts and instruments, which created a richer variation of the arrangement and composition. Especially needed as this gener is kind of a challenge when it comes to mixing, due the number of instruments fighting over the same frequency span. In that aspect, I’m still stunned that the AI can create this kind of results. The guitar sound on some of the songs is truly amazing. “Idiocracy” was created as a remix of an older track and apparently, somehow, the second takes get lesser sound quality. This has been my experience, lately.
Genre Adherence: Udio recognized the typical variations between parts associated with this type of geners; half-time tempo & double-kicks switches, strong bridges and other attributes. Not so much long guitar solo and occasionally there where some guitar riffing intros that had a couple of hickups. Not so perfect, but somewhat a milder hickup could actually be realifing and add a bit of authentism to the whole experience. Sometimes I wonder if the common listener even hears this?
Emotional Impact: For the most of the songs, they had strong, dynamical voices and used them dramaturgically togheter with the lyrics. The lyrics that was prompted here was meant to be more emotional to give better push opportunities for the song dynamics. This song collection contains a lot of good voice takes, as this gener is very demanding on delivery power & dynamic vocals to be true worthy.
Melodic Variation: In this collection I can say that it took like 500 songs to find good enough material. Udio feels a little weak on this part compared to others. But they “rule” on all other parts when it comes to this music gener.
Arrangement Complexity: Some structural elements still fels repetitive, with limited experimentation in rhythm and transitions, resulting in tracks that could feel predictable over time. But when it comes to variations on a song, then Udio is the best tool so far. Sometimes you get result that you really expected at all. “Idiocracy” had strong elements of Eurovision influences in choruses as the bridge parts mixed with Whitesnake-like verse riffs. “As we all keep falling” strongly reminds me of a Nickelback sound and the use of stereo-widening vocals.
Expressive Nuance: It feels like Udio has a better understanding on what’s important. They favor the importance of vocals as it is louder than other compatitors. This probably increases dynamics and balances the mixes better so the limiter/clipper doesn’t cracks up the output. But one big issue that I can see on the current Udio model version is that it has problems with the timing on vocals. Sometimes it feels that coming late between verses and chorus parts and it in general unsynchronized. Something you could fixed with stems afterwards. I think this is the biggest challenge for Udio just now.
Summary
The exploration of DeepState Empire has really giving me a glimpse into how well AI can emulate the core elements of genre and style. Worth mention is that the aim of this music album was to have conceptual approach. The creation of lyrics, logotype, together with expressive images that took some time to complete. This because I wanted to show how powerful ALL PARTS ARE for the whole experience as it makes the package complete. This work was for pure fun & pleasure, as I learned a lot doing it!
Listen to the tracks & decide for yourself: How close is AI to capturing the essence of sound?
Other Sonic Landscapes...
ArtPopies – Beyond the cosmic veil
FunQmatic – All Access Denied
Derailed Ingrid – Humpty Bumbty
LoWibe – In the echo chamber
SinSister – Beneath the surface
FeVer – Through the fire
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