alt Hacker NewsShow HN: Reviving my 2001 college band with AI
25 years ago, I joined a band called Fading Maize at Ripon College in Wisconsin. We did what we could with what we had. We recorded 3 albums over the next 3 years and played at as many bars and coffee shops as we could. We built a website with Microsoft Frontpage. Then we went our separate ways, got married, had kids, focused on other things.
Earlier this year I had the idea to approach the lead singer who wrote all of the lyrics and melodies to the stuff we played back then, and wanted to "reimagine" everything in 2026 using AI. That's the project I want to share here!
The site has a before/after player where you can flip between the original dorm-room recording and the 2026 version mid-song without losing your place, so you can hear exactly what changed. The original 2001 website is preserved and browsable at https://www.fadingmaize.com/2001, rough edges intact.
Working on this, the thing that sparked in my own mind is that it was an experiment in a certain way to use AI. The songs, lyrics, and arrangements are the original human work (in this case from 2001-2003). We wrote the lyrics, we created the melodies, we played the parts, it just didn't sound as good as we heard it in our own heads.
The stuff AI creates is awesome, but it means less if it's just the AI cranking everything out from the ground up. In our case, the AI was only there to help us get the results we originally wanted back in 2001 when we were cooking ramen in our dorm rooms and couldn't afford anything fancy
Being fully transparent about our use of AI, sticking tightly to our original lyrics and melodies, but making full use of AI to give us the studio, session players, and production budget we never had seemed like the right balance of concerns.
I'm super proud of how it turned out and the transparency we've used along the way. Happy to discuss the audio pipeline, the site (Next.js), or what it's like to A/B your 20-year-old self!
p.s. Oh and check this out! I remember this day. Our site was getting absolutely hammered! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPJWlnN9tSE&t=43
Comments
As a first reaction, I loved the idea, since I have had a handful of bands in my life and really loved how you revived (or aimed to revive) the old days with modern tools. I really liked the web design and nostalgia of the old photos combined with the possibilities of new technology. Then I hit play. AI sucked the soul out of your music. I am happy for you if you liked the results. But for me, each of the comparisons proved me right to loathe AI music.
Interesting idea, and it sounds like you like the results, so kudos.
My musical taste tends toward less produced, rougher/lo-fi recordings, e.g. Guided By Voices. So, it follows that I prefer the original recordings.
There is one aspect that I find slightly dehumanizing -- the AI changed the singer's voice so drastically that I don't recognize the original singer anymore. The uniqueness of the voice has been smoothed out to be much more generic. For me, music (and art in general) is in part an expression of one's identity, so I'd consider this a negative outcome. I'm sure similar things could be said of the instrument performances as well.
But again, this is all just my two cents, and it's a matter of taste. Ultimately if you're happy with the results, that's what matters!
Nice - I've done similar things with some of my music [1].
I have a classical piece I wrote over a decade ago for piano [2] (it’s the instrument I play), but it was always intended to be an orchestral work. Using AI allowed me to sonically experiment with a stringed score which was pretty cool.
It’s basically the equivalent of taking a piece you’ve written and running it through an arranger keyboard or Band-in-a-Box on steroids.
The revived (AI) versions have this...thin and hollow sound to it. It is difficult to explain, most AI-generated songs have this when they're modelling acoustic drums, stringed instruments, etc.
FWIW, I'm (now a hobby) musician and have done studio work. Even the latest and best models have this unmistakable sound.
I’m not really a fan here.
I want to be able to rap like Twista. If I use AI to change my voice and speed it up, it’s kinda fake.
Where’s the originality in that. I’ll never be *that good*, but I have fun doing it.
Now I guess using AI strictly for mastering is OK , but even then the results haven’t been good for me.
I'm sorry to say, but in the both examples on the page I liked the original version more.
In the first example guitars sound very lively, like I'm actually listening to someone playing live. Very warm and cosy feeling. 2026 version is just some standard over-produced pop-music, that I would have completely ignored if I heard it "in the wild".
In the second example, 2003 vocal performance might be not perfect from a technique perspective, but I can hear real emotion in his voice. 2026 version sounds very bland, just like every other song that I might here on a pop-radio.
I want to say that I am not an anti-AI fanatic, I am generally curious about new ways to use technology (including gen-AI, but not limited to it) to create art. So I am not coming from "it's AI, therefore it's bad" perspective. I genuinely tried to listen with open mind and hear the music without thinking too much about how exactly it was created.
That video from 2004 is so refreshing. It’s just two people talking without asking me to “please subscribe” every 30-seconds.
The web stuff is well done. Now, with this newly created momentum, you should re-record the songs now, without AI. Hell, you could probably afford an awesome studio and equipment too. You could easily blow the AI out of the water.
This is awesome, though I have to agree with some other commenters. I like the originals more. Don't really know why, but they just sound more "refreshing" and "original".
Hi! Thx for sharing :).
I've read the "how revival works" section, but still have no idea "how the revival works".
("We've used ai" is all I got from both this intro on HN and the we pages I read, though possible I missed some section.)
Can you share?
I.e. Did you take original audio recordings and run it though some audio chain that optimizes the mix and volumes? Did you put the sheets and lyrics into ableton and recreate the music? Did you feed audio files into chatgpt and prompt "make it better"? Something else?
In the interest of transparency, understanding what happened here will significantly guide my own emotional response :). I appreciate the details of 5 core principles, but spending so much time on principles without actual detail on what got done makes me skeptical and even cynical, which may not be the intent. For example, I personally distinguish between a raw photo, edited photo, composite image, and AI regenerated image, and one of the things I'm trying to understand is the path / traceability from human to final audio file.
Thx!
I think this is a super intriguing project! I’ve been experimenting with some similar work on my old unfinished songs from eons past. It’s been really fulfilling to take that old work and see the original vision spring to life through modern tools.
Good idea! Both versions sound great, in their own way.
I might have to revisit some of my old songs...
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
If you want to know the truth, the AI versions are not good. Every decibel of authenticity has been processed out of it; sacrificed in the quest for CHR style production. The mismatch is almost discordant.
This is great! I disagree with some of the commenters here that the originals sound better.
The originals sound very much like demos, and from a producer's perspective are very low quality (no offense). They're definitely more raw, but objectively not as good - i.e harmonies aren't tight, the levels are not well balanced, etc.
It's funny that people hate that AI can improve this, because even without AI, modern music uses a ton of digital tools to mix and master - and true musicians don't care whether it's digital or not.
These commenters would be the same people who boo-ed bob dylan when he went electric.
Look at John Mayer - he uses AI to model amps, instead of lugging around giant heavy tube amps.
Question for you - what was the workflow exactly? I've been wanting to test out some AI tools to do similar things with my music.
We're about the same age, I was even in a band at a small liberal arts college in the great lakes area in 2003. AI can't bring it back, and the stuff the music AI has created here sounds terrible to me.
Have you considered processing the original recordings using AI? I've witnessed some truly amazing results. I've had twenty year old Skype call recordings sound like we were sitting in a recording studio.
"Hello, I have no soul, nice to meet you!"
A and B examples are convincingly "human". It is complete nonsense to say otherwise. The AI versions are simply giving the music a kind of commercial streamline production treatment; treatment that many listeners need to accept the music as viable. Some will fight brutally to hide this need here. No offense, but both a and b are thoroughly cliché. The AI is not sucking away some grand uniqueness of expression here. I have heard both raw and produced countless times. Humans are generative AIs already -- fighting machines that do it is ironic and dishonest. Sure the AI process may be robbing some of the "honesty" of the performance. But you guys aren't unique like Daniel Johnston when you are unfiltered so I don't see a problem with either version. The studio is a place of magic and sonic makeup. If you want to wear makeup, go for it.
I'll also use AI to revive your 2001 college band, no you needed!
The original recordings sound much better and more interesting to me. Way better. The AI generated versions sound slicker in some sense but... like the re-recorded versions of old hit songs from the 60s you hear at the grocery store sometimes. Technically the song is still there, but it blends in with the rest of the muzak.
I'm sorry to be so negative, it's great you're returning to the material after all these years, but the AI versions I've listened to all have the same smoothed-over quality that loses everything interesting and relatable to my ears in the original versions.