AI in Music Education and Production with John von Seggern | Duff Radio Interview

In this episode of the Duff Radio Podcast, host Ty McDuffey sits down with John von Seggern, an accomplished technologist and musician, to discuss the future of music education, the role of AI in music production, and his unique career journey.

John shares his experiences working with electronic music pioneer John Hassell, his role at ICON Collective in Burbank, CA, and the exciting developments in AI tools for music. Tune in for a look into how technology is shaping the music industry and get a glimpse into John's fascinating adventures from Japan to Hollywood.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Introduction to John Von Seggern

1:24 - Online education business models and upsurge during the pandemic

3:17 - What assignments are like in music school - (Music theory, keyboard, computer production, music business, branding)

4:22 - Favorite DAW; Early days of Ableton music production software

5:30 - Teaching about AI, designing a course around AI

6:23 - Using Suno AI, Udio, and other AI art engines

7:53 - How Suno & other music generators were made; Copyright & other legal controversy 

10:45 - Using samples in training for AI models

13:02 - GPT 5 predictions, competition with Claude & Llama; Gpt2 in Chatbot Arena; Sam Altman's tweets 

14:42 - Claude Opus seems better than GPT4 for writing and blogging; GPT4’s weird phrasing gives it away as AI 

15:15 - Different AI models have different personalities and styles; AI LA events and speakers

16:42 - Training AI models on artists' voices to release music faster, Drake's AI Tupac song

22:08 - How much practice it takes to become a master musician 

23:14 - Making a career, gaining a following, and monetizing music pre-internet vs. post-internet

29:45 - Living in Hong Kong, touring with Chinese pop stars, traveling the world

35:23 - Japanese food and Eastern vs. Western cultural differences 

40:00 - Spending a semester abroad in India, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy

41:18 - Thesis paper on digitization of music through computers

44:25 - Value of human writing, thoughts, words, athletics, comedy, & physical jobs in the age of AI 

47:15 - Stable Audio, how will the future of music sound with AI?

51:40 Using Midjourney, Runway, and DALLE-2 for visual art

52:40 - Working with Native Instruments; Kontakt and Guitar Rig 

54:46 - Working on the soundtrack for the Academy Award-winning movie WALL-E

59:09 - Dr. Dre’s studio

Links to John's work:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnvon/
Bandcamp: https://johnvon.bandcamp.com/album/a-thousand-miles-from-nowhere
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/johnvon
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4l1zr042HH4fKxZQfC3qUl
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-Von-Seggern/author/B001JPBZAY?
ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/john-von-seggern/135484459

Duff Radio:
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/duff-radio
X: https://twitter.com/DuffRadio
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WWf9Ssh6f16mvcjb7vdyn
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/duff-radio-podcast/id1719531442

Ty McDuffey (host, owner of Duff Radio):
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ty-m-205709581
X: https://twitter.com/TyMcDuffey
Website: www.tymcduffey.com

#musicproducer #musicproduction #podcast #technology #tech #ai #interview #online

Transcript

Duff Radio Interview with John von Seggern - Transcript

Attendees

John von Seggern, Ty McDuffey

Transcript

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. 

Ty McDuffey: It's a pleasure to meet you.

John von Seggern: Yep.

Ty McDuffey: Thank you for doing this.

John von Seggern: Yeah, you bet. It's fun to talk to people about this. 

Ty McDuffey: I guess to start I'd like to have you just introduce yourself. I read that you're from Nebraska. I'm a fellow Midwest Kid myself from Missouri.

John von Seggern: All right.

Ty McDuffey: Just What are you best known for and how did you get into music?

John von Seggern: Those are some good questions. I'm John Von seggern. n in technologist I am best known for having worked with the electronic musician John Hassell from 2014 to 2020. I produce two albums of his and performed with him in Europe and so on. And I also currently work in music education. I am the director of educational technology for a electronic music school in Burbank, California called icon Collective. And I administer a program where students learn how to produce music. And using computer tools and at the moment I am most engaged in.

00:05:00

John von Seggern: Implementing AI solutions to help my students. That's where my biggest focus is at work.

Ty McDuffey: Interesting and with the online school. I'm curious to get your take on this because I think there's a big rise in that type of industry but in your experience, how have you seen that sort of business model work the best? online education

John von Seggern: that's a good question because I've been working on online education since at various institutions and during the pandemic obviously there was a huge upsurge in online education, but the quality of online education, we all experience was quite variable and so personally it's a music production school, but it's really an art school and the in-person on campus school has always been built around personal mentorship with a working professional in the industry and so In creating and improving always the online programs. I've always tried to emphasize the human connections.

John von Seggern: I was one of the first schools to switch to zoom as soon as that became available and that was a big step up because just the quality of the connection made it More intimate, the conversations you would have and so my school has a lot of group Live sessions and one-on-one sessions.

John von Seggern: of course, we have courses and the students watch videos and they submit assignments like you would do in any online system, but we really try to emphasize the human connection and not just doing some things on a screen. I think that can be very alienating if that's the main part of your education. So that's kind of my take on online education.

Ty McDuffey: What would some of those assignments be just out of curiosity in a music school like that?

John von Seggern: in our school, we're trying to teach you to master all the basic skills. You need to be a modern musician which includes some keyboard playing the tools of computer production. Also knowing something about the music business and how to present yourself and brand yourself. You kind of have to know I mean kind of if you're a creator of anything these days you kind of have to know how to do all those things, and so we're teaching musicians how to do it. Basically, that's our focus to answer your question for the assignments. They have to master various skills to be able to produce music so Most of the assignments are some kind of challenge for example synthesis is part of the curriculum some of the assignments they have to recreate a certain type of sound to the best of their ability and then a teacher will tell them how close they came or what maybe they should have done to do a better.

Ty McDuffey: Nice with the computers used to make music Is there a particular Daw that you've aligned yourself with?

John von Seggern: Yeah, I mean our school primarily is Ableton and I have actually been using Ableton since version 1.0. Today, I produced my first Ableton course for Ableton four.

Ty McDuffey: Wow.

John von Seggern: Which we were on CD rounds at that point. And then I wrote a book about Ableton six. I used to write a column about Ableton for British magazine. for background that same time

John von Seggern: so yeah, I'm an Ableton fan, but I wouldn't mind using one of the other ones mostly you want to just with any of these computer tools. You want to get to the point well enough that it becomes your instrument and you don't have to think about it too much. I'm less interested in knowing all the latest features than just kind of being able to translate. What I'm trying to do is fast as possible without getting hung up on the little miniature

Ty McDuffey: Are you teaching your students about AI?

John von Seggern: we've started so I have one teacher who's really into AI also and we talk a lot about it. And so we're designing a course. right now he is doing a weekly session about AI for the students. He's been doing that for about six months. I was doing it with him for a while. But now he's taking it over and we're making the challenge of the course. we'll finish the course quite soon and roll it out. We're gonna make it a bonus course to the students because the real challenges the technology is changing so fast, we can't really make a curriculum where you learn specific tools. It's more going to be like types of things you can do with AI and we'll just change the contents as we need to as things change.

00:10:00

Ty McDuffey: Have you fooled around it all with some of those tools that are starting to come out like there's suno and udio. I believe is how it's pronounced.

John von Seggern: I have been fooling around with. for a long time Since long before those models came out. I was trying all the things I could get my hands on. I've kind of have gotten bored of it at the moment. I have to say. because

John von Seggern: I also have explored AI art and AI video quite extensively and I definitely appreciate what it gives me especially as a visual artist. I am not a visual artist, but I do have a pretty particular vision of what I like. In fact I made this image behind me.

Ty McDuffey: Nice.

John von Seggern: 

John von Seggern: So I do appreciate what AI can bring. But I also have found the process of typing into boxes and waiting for things to happen is not that fun I found. And so I've kind of got bored of it at the…

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: I don't really want to but in fact, it's led me back to just practicing my instruments for hours at the moment, so that's an interesting reaction.

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: I'll have to see how that goes. But I kind of have a dual perspective on it because I do use the art engines but the music ones that kind of lost interest in so

Ty McDuffey: Do you know how those types of things are trained? for example soon? how did they make that?

John von Seggern: That's an interesting question. I mean In the big picture, it works similarly to the art engines I believe. but They are purposely vague about the details because particularly I mean there's been all kinds of copyright issues with the art and…

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: text engines obviously with the music engines.

John von Seggern: I mean Nobody knows what they trained it on. But It's tricky to think

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: Most of the good music in the world is copyrighted right? It's not public domain. So if you wanted to make the best music engine you'd have to use copyrighted music to make it presumably and that's the tricky bit with music is that the music companies are more likely to Sue and have a lot of money and a long history of filing life whereas authors and writers are a giant dispersed mass of individuals with less bargaining power you get what I mean? But I do find it likely that. In the big picture, I think these tools in general have too many benefits that were not as a society. We're not going to decide that because of copyright law. We should forbid people to use gpt4 or something like this. I don't think that really makes sense to be honest. But for the music one I could see.

John von Seggern: some outcome where these model companies are paying the big labels or something some kind of fees, or maybe they work out them with Spotify. They're probably negotiating it now. in fact, I'm sure they are but

John von Seggern: As with a lot of things in technology. It is.

John von Seggern: It's much better for them and by them. I mean the technology folks to make the first move and bring this out rather than try to work out all the legal details in advance. I mean to be honest that wouldn't be possible. we probably wouldn't have GPT for if they had tried to negotiate all the things it's just like if you're a small time music producer and you want to use a sample by some huge artist, they're never gonna say, yes, right, but if you make a great song,…

Ty McDuffey: mmm

John von Seggern: then you might be able to work out with them on the back end, so that's kind of how I look at it, but I expected to be a very controversial topic for years to come. But in the big picture, I don't think technology goes backwards. So I think we're going to have these Better for worse, so we better try to turn them to our advantage. That's kind of looking at it.

Ty McDuffey: Is that something that you would care about if you found out for example, one of these models was trained on some of your guitar Melodies and there's the artists out there that they won't let you sample any of their stuff regardless no matter what are you somebody who's in favor of that or you more like that's my art. No AI on it.

00:15:00

John von Seggern: yeah, that's an interesting question too. I think that from what I've observed. That's very personal and people tend that very personal reactions to it. Personally. I don't really care. because

John von Seggern: I kind of look at it like this. I think the text models are a good way to think of it Gpt4 is. An amalgamation of all the human knowledge that's ever existed all put together. so what is the value of any one person's contribution out of that, even Albert Einstein like how much of a percentage of the total sum of human knowledge that Albert Einstein create a tiny degree percentage, right? So I don't see that some kind of system where artists or writers would get paid some mythical fee out of.

John von Seggern: A system that doesn't seem like it makes sense to me and I think that was actually something that was tried in some forms in the earlier internet like micro payments was a concept like decades ago that people thought would be really cool. Every time you read something you would pay a penny but I think it failed Mostly because of technical issues. Honestly it cost too much to run a system. That's just paying people out and fractions of a scent all the time. It costs more to run the system than with continent you would end up paying people And also it would be wildly impractical it could be using half the processing power of the internet just to keep it…

Ty McDuffey: right

John von Seggern: because these micropayments so personally I don't really care about that. But I know there's plenty of people that are bound and determined that it shouldn't be trained. I don't really understand that to be honest, but

John von Seggern: But I know that a lot of people feel that way for sure.

Ty McDuffey: You brought up GPT for a couple times. I've been seeing a lot of speculation online that we're gonna get GPT 4.5 or GPT five here pretty soon. If you had to pull it out of your hat. What's your prediction for what that kind of looks like. I know that's a really tough question, but I'm just curious to hear what you think.

John von Seggern: I mean they're not the only game in town at this point. I just mentioned them because everybody knows them and they're the best example to use of the kind of state of the art, but there's also Claude and llama and mixedrol and all of those are very good. I use Clawd most of the time it's a little smarter than gp4 at the moment.

Ty McDuffey: yeah, me too.

John von Seggern: But the latest news in the AI Rome. I don't know if you've been reading there is this thing called? Chatbot Arena. Have you heard of this? You've been keeping up with that.

Ty McDuffey: Usually yeah, I've been keeping up with that. It's very interesting.

John von Seggern: Yeah, so there are those Secret gpt2 models that are testing and I did see that Sam Altman tweeted something about GPT too. So it seems pretty certain that those are their models but From what I read. I don't know if that's smart enough to be GPT 5. I think there's a lot of pressure on them to make a whole generational leap when they call something gpt5 so their next thing might not be YouTube T5. But I don't know I do feel like they're a little bit behind. I don't use GPT for that much anymore to be honest because the other one's a little better.

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, I found Claude Opus to be better than gpt4 and…

John von Seggern: Yeah.

Ty McDuffey: my career outside of doing this is a lot of legal blogging for attorneys websites and whatnot. And if you want to blog Claude is far superior. Just I've noticed chat GPT has these kind of patterns that it uses certain phrases that are just a dead giveaway that this was written by Ai and it's not really A way that any human rights. So I think Club is a little bit smarter in that way for sure.

John von Seggern: that actually brings up an interesting topic which is that it's different tools and engines do have their different characters and Personalities you can say but with the different art engines. They do have very different models and very different styles that they'll produce. And they also get updated all the time. I went to Was that maybe three or four months ago? There's an organization here in La called AI la and they've been having events around different topics and different types of speakers kind of just because things are moving so fast and they just want to kind of stimulate discussion. So I went to one that was all artists. and there was this one woman who is a digital artist that uses a lot of AI and she was talking about how

00:20:00

John von Seggern: A of art, mean this is how I would look at it too. A lot of artists find the most interesting results by trying to find the ways that the tools don't quite do what they're supposed to do. You try to kind of break them and work around the edges. And so that's what she does a lot but the models get changed a lot so she might find something one day that makes very interesting images. And then she'll make a lot of them because tomorrow it might be updated in the minute work anymore. so these things are kind of transient in a way in a weird way.

Ty McDuffey: As far as this stuff goes with music. Could you see a world essentially where? Maybe you train an AI model on your voice. And then you just like type the lyrics or something and you can already get a really good instrumental from suno. And then this kind of Gap where artists are releasing one album a year. It turns into an album a week maybe.

John von Seggern: Yeah, I mean that could happen. When you get into the weeds of it, it's a little more complicated than that because I mean, for example, I have a band with a female singer and Honduras. And she is also for commercial voiceover work and She has played around with Aaron voice models herself to try to do some of her work.

Ty McDuffey: 

John von Seggern: So she could do more work. but

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: for voice we were talking about this one day for voiceover work. and this is analogous to music I think for voiceover work like

John von Seggern: She said what people pay for is often they want to do a session with her where she says the things and then they kind of coach her or they tell her how they imagine it or how they want it to be or whatever. That's why They're not paying her to just have a regular thing that anybody and so she said it took longer for her to put it in the computer and try to make it so the accent of the words would come out like they wanted and so much easier just to say it or so. if you do singing with the singing models, what you can do is

John von Seggern: you do sing it yourself instead of typing it But then you can have it sound like somebody else saying it not you that's kind of the technique but that way you can kind of guide it with your voice. So I could sing a song and make it sound like she's saying it if I wanted to I was thinking of doing that.

Ty McDuffey: right part of the reason I ask is I don't know…

John von Seggern: But I'm not really interested in doing that.

Ty McDuffey: how closely you follow mainstream music…

John von Seggern: To be honest. I want her input.

Ty McDuffey: but there's a track that Drake released…

John von Seggern: That's why I'm working with her. so

Ty McDuffey: where he used an AI model of Tupac and…

John von Seggern: I don't know to me it would be pointless to do that.

Ty McDuffey: to me that is awesome and…

John von Seggern: I'm not interested in having my version of her.

Ty McDuffey: super creative and now it's like these artists can never truly die…

John von Seggern: It's kind of interesting idea, but that's not…

Ty McDuffey: if these models 11 Labs continue to get better all this other stuff is getting better and…

John von Seggern: what I'm working with her. So.

Ty McDuffey: Who's to say we don't end up with a Tupac album? That's better than what Tupac put out when he was alive.

John von Seggern: I've heard that. Yes.

Ty McDuffey: I just think it's very cool.

Ty McDuffey: No, what's that?

Ty McDuffey: mmm

John von Seggern: Did you read about the Randy Travis thing? That just came out? Randy Travis just released a new song but Randy Travis had a stroke before years before so he can't actually sing anymore. So he made a song with a model of his own voice from yours before basically,…

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, it's

John von Seggern: that's what it is. And when it was released I saw somebody post before they even said that somebody posts wait a minute Randy Perez had a stroke. How can he sing that must be an AI model of him? And then I saw they actually said the story that that's actually true. but I guess I mean to get back to your question about that though, I mean I do see I mean people are going to use these Technologies to make songs that people are gonna like and…

Ty McDuffey: mmm

00:25:00

John von Seggern: bye. There's no doubt about that. On the other hand, I think there will be a lot of unpredictable effects from the technology. I try to look at how the art is pulling out because the art things came out a little bit earlier. and it's still early days honestly, but one thing I keep thinking about is that whatever is easy to do. Than anybody can do it and then it doesn't really mean anything anybody or nobody cares about that. So if it becomes like you can just type in a box make me dance pop track. That's five minutes long. It's gonna take more than that to get people's attention then you know what? I mean? And I'm not sure what that's gonna be. Although I do have some ideas. I mean, I think

John von Seggern: I think are your artist identity is going to become more and more important. And doing things live and in person and authentically is going to become more important because that I mean we've already seen those trends for years honestly, but I think it could get a lot more because there's gonna be so much fake everything everywhere. And the people are just going to be craving reality. I'd feel like so it's kind of led me back to practicing my instruments all the time actually and…

Ty McDuffey: What does that look like for you?

John von Seggern: I just started having Jam sessions with real musicians again,…

Ty McDuffey: Obviously are a professional musician at a very high level…

John von Seggern: don't think computer music all the…

Ty McDuffey: but I'm curious as far as what it took for you to become a master like that and…

John von Seggern: But at this point nobody knows …

Ty McDuffey: even in your day-to-day life practicing Keeping your skills sharp.

John von Seggern: but I think the effects will be Possibly surprising not…

Ty McDuffey: What does that look like for you?

John von Seggern: what everyone thinks. We'll see what happens.

Ty McDuffey: And I kind of want to Pivot a little bit into your career as a touring musician, but you mentioned a lot about branding and…

John von Seggern: I mean if you want to be an instrumentalist at a very high level you have to practice for thousands of hours.

Ty McDuffey: authenticity just from your experience touring around with musicians…

John von Seggern: There's kind of no way around it and…

Ty McDuffey: who have made it at a high level.

John von Seggern: you have to continually practice for hours.

Ty McDuffey: What have you seen work best as far as monetization and…

John von Seggern: I practice for an hour or two a day at least now, but lately I've been practicing a lot more…

Ty McDuffey: gaining a following things of that nature?

John von Seggern: because I'm trying to get better.

Ty McDuffey: It seems like music is one of the harder things to monetize.

John von Seggern: As long as you feel like you're getting better than it's worth the investment if you're instrumentalist for a really long time you're skills will go and cycles and you'll hit plateaus at different points. And sometimes you got to take a step back and somehow it's percolating in your subconscious or something. I think. And then you can come back to it and we're progress that's kind of I think about it.

John von Seggern: I mean That's for sure. I mean my career has been very strange and unique and I've probably not a good example for other people but

John von Seggern: I do run a school where we're training Young Musicians to become professionals and I talk to them every day and I understand their struggles. and at this point like music itself, you don't make money from selling music online. Unless you're Taylor Swift I suppose. But you have to be having millions and millions of streams to make any kind of money.

John von Seggern: people do make money from sink licensing for films and things of that nature. advertising if your song is known then it has some value that somebody might license it and something. touring it seems like people are not making that much money from touring anymore. To be honest. People make most of their money from merch that's what people make money. Yeah, that's pretty much how people make money you could see that your whole existence is a musician is As a front end for a t-shirt selling operation, basically. it's sad to say but it is what it is. I mean I'm not one to complain about how things are though. I have to say because I don't know. I like to think about economics you have to think about supply and demand and the bigger picture of Economics. and so

00:30:00

John von Seggern: when I was a young man, and we bought vinyl records. It was really hard to make Vital Records because it was really hard to record a record in the first place if you were a band. You had to raise money to do it. So you either had to raise tens of thousands of dollars or selfish must bands couldn't possibly do because they didn't have that money or you had to get a record contract with somebody which most people never did. so only very few percentage of artists back then of bands would make records. and so there weren't as many And then you had to spend 10 15 20 dollars to buy one. So You're only going to buy a few you were gonna be really careful about what you bought. And that's why there was so many magazines and reviews and stuff because you had to decide how to spend your money. and then

John von Seggern: if you did spend that money the band would get some of it usually usually not very much but some bands who got through that system and became big made a lot of money. No doubt Led Zeppelin. Let's say, a pops the big bands until the 90s there were still big bands that made a lot of money that way then when the internet started It flipped and then the thing to understand also is that that is when computer music production really started. And so it wasn't only that you could put music on the internet it became a lot easier to record music. And that happened about the same time. I was around 2000. so then what happened was way more people started recording albums. Of course, most of them weren't any good.

John von Seggern: But a lot more of them out there were good than in the old days because more of them. There were many people who were talented artists who then were able to record albums who in the old days. You just never would have heard Through no fault of their own maybe this weren't organized enough or whatever, Rich enough. So because of all that now there's just so much music, there's thousands of new songs every day. I actually have few new songs in fact, but in that kind of environment, all these people complaining that Spotify doesn't pay them. but if music cost if it was still like the old days most of these artists wouldn't be making albums at all. and people wouldn't be buying their albums at all either because

Ty McDuffey: interesting

John von Seggern: When albums cost…

Ty McDuffey: 

John von Seggern: you're only going to mostly buy albums by famous people or people that had a lot of reviews. So some indie artists that you never heard of you're not gonna buy it, but right so I just see the whole situation in a much kind of bigger context than a lot of people these days.

Ty McDuffey: Sure.

John von Seggern: I don't see how you get The only way that you can get more money from streaming is of Congress said that every music stream needs to pay a certain minimum amount of money and that might be a good idea. Honestly. In fact, there is some legislation pending that would do exactly that I'd probably won't pass I doubt…

Ty McDuffey: It seems like you might have gotten in the early days.

John von Seggern: But you can't just blame.

Ty McDuffey: You mentioned 2000 pre-internet and…

John von Seggern: That companies I think because it's just kind of the economics of the situation as it's evolved.

Ty McDuffey: we're touring the world at that time. So I can't imagine…

Ty McDuffey: how big some of those artists overseas and even worldwide had to have been to really gain a following before the internet was even a thing.

John von Seggern: So any way we're selling T-shirts now,…

John von Seggern: that's how it works. But to say it in a better way if you make great enough art that you attract a following of people who are passionate about what you have to say. Then they will buy things from you. And you will get money from it and you have to figure out what to sell to them. It's not music all people do make some money from selling music products. It depends on the genre actually some fans of some genres are more willing to buy physical copies of things. and not so much an electronic music I feel like but

Ty McDuffey: Wow.

John von Seggern: yeah, I mean I had a very strange career as I said so in the mid late 90s, I lived in Hong Kong. And I played with Chinese pop stars. And I played with the biggest Chinese pop stars. Literally, so I played with the two biggest so

00:35:00

John von Seggern: It was before the internet but those guys were on every media channel 24 hours a day. So that's how they're falling. One of them Andy Lau was a movie star…

Ty McDuffey: How did you get overseas in the first place?

John von Seggern: who became a singer.

Ty McDuffey: And how does that call happen?

John von Seggern: And he was a very good actor and…

Ty McDuffey: You said it's a complicated story.

John von Seggern: then okay singer.

Ty McDuffey: You don't have to get into all the details if you don't want to…

John von Seggern: The other one Jackie Chung was quite famous saying he's probably the most famous artist ever from Hong Kong actually Jackie Chan,…

Ty McDuffey: but it's just interesting to talk to World Travelers.

John von Seggern: Jackie Chan. Hokia. And when I got the gig with him, I lived in Japan and I didn't know any of them or who he was or anything about that. It's complicated story how I got that call but they asked me to go play with them for a year. And I was like, Even though is this a scam? so I went to Tower Records in Tokyo and they had a big International music section. I was like, who is this guy? I went there and he had 50 albums and I was like, All right, he's got 50 albums then I guess he's a real guy.

John von Seggern: but

John von Seggern: Sure, We got to dial back to when that was happening. So I went to Jazz School in New York City in 1991.

John von Seggern: back then that was kind of at the peak of the Japan is the rich upcoming country days. It's actually a little bit after the peak actually, but we still got that in New York. We got a lot of Japanese people would come visit the city and they love jazz and music and they would come to the jazz clubs all the time. So we were always going to these jazz clubs and they're always half full droppings people. And I also had probably eight or ten Japanese friends in school. that the Jazz school or musicians and so among my American friends and I we kind of got idea maybe a good idea live in Japan. It seemed to like music they're mostly a lot of opportunities there. And so

John von Seggern: To make a long story short. I had a girlfriend who became an interpreter. She actually was not Japanese, but she's very good at languages. And so she learned Japanese and became an interpreter. I ended up moving to Japan and marrying her so I could stay there.

John von Seggern: and then I worked as a musician in Japan for several years, but I was mostly playing jazz then so I played a lot of Japanese jazz clubs. And then at a certain point I was playing almost every night and every night. I would make equivalent of a hundred dollars. And so I was very young then but at some point I realized can only Save so much money if you're only making $100 a day, so I get some bigger gigs or something. And then while I was thinking that

John von Seggern: I had got to know this is how you get gigs as a musician. You just get more and more people and they know who you are and what you can do and then one day they need you for something and somebody calls you. So in this case it was this Chinese band leader. Who said we don't have very many good. Studio level musicians in Hong Kong. We need a new person and he was trying to find a Japanese person actually because he figured to be easier for a Japanese person to fit into their whole kind of scene and there are a lot of good musicians in Japan, but just because of kind of random chance. He got somebody in my network who then called me.

John von Seggern: so then I went over there and then it turned out to be this huge gig. So then I moved there for about five years and then I did that for about five years. I played with all these pop stars and I did Studio recordings. For them played a bunch of records for them. And then I went on five world tours. And then at that point that was a turning point of my career because

John von Seggern: I just kind of realized I didn't really become a musician because I wanted to play Chinese pop music that wasn't really cool. And so I really wanted to travel about was one of my goals. And so I traveled for five years pretty much non-stop. So after that it was is enough with the traveling. I need to do meaningful something more substantial, so since then I've done a lot of different things but I didn't want to just go on and be Obsession bass player. Just wasn't that fun after all.

00:40:00

John von Seggern: Sure, Japanese food is very good. Although when I lived in Japan I was a jazz musician, so I didn't have a lot of money and Japan is also very expensive. So I didn't eat out all that much to be honest. Although when I had gigs, I would get really good. Yeah, so that is true. but as far as fitting in with the culture, I mean Japan in particular. Is I would say one of the more difficult entries to fit in as a foreigner. If you're a visitor there, they're extremely nice. Two visitors in general probably one of the best countries to visit as a visitor. But I mean, it's an island their psychology is affected by having been an island for their entire history. So they didn't have people from different countries passing through all the time, so they're cold. That's just how their culture is. So

John von Seggern: that was difficult for me at first but I would say as a midwesterner. I found my Midwestern culture was actually. very helpful in putting it over there because I was always raised to Care about if I was irritating other people and to take them into account and not bug other people that was always a value. I was taught which I still have and you shouldn't be annoying the crap out of everybody around your location should be considerate and so if you just take that as a value, you just think okay these people don't do things like I'm used to but I should be considered of how they do things because I'm a guest here and there this is their culture. I'm trying to fit in with so that's only logical to…

Ty McDuffey: me

John von Seggern: I don't understand people that don't see it that way but I would say also though beyond that. There's also a level. for westerners in Asia, which is that

John von Seggern: there was a long history of colonialism and of white people taking themselves to be Over Asians and so it's not like that now, but I found that.

John von Seggern: Many of the Asian people that I knew might have encountered that attitude before and…

Ty McDuffey: Bring that up.

John von Seggern: were a little suspect of me and…

Ty McDuffey: I always make the point that I think being from the Midwest is its own form of a superpower…

John von Seggern: so I always had the attitude like I'm gonna show you I'm not like that. I'm not one of those people I'm just a person and…

Ty McDuffey: because like you said it kind of gives you a little bit of relatability and…

John von Seggern: I'm gonna insist that you treat me just like another person.

Ty McDuffey: humility to people from everywhere.

John von Seggern: That pretty very successful and…

John von Seggern: I was able to didn't know it was people over there.

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, it's not super glamorous.

John von Seggern: That the first year was more difficult,…

Ty McDuffey: I understand. You're a Nebraska born and…

John von Seggern: but When I moved to Hong Kong their culture is very different than Japan Hong Kong was an open trading port for it's all history and…

Ty McDuffey: raised I'm Missouri. So it's like there's not a ton of Super fancy industry. There's not that much to do not as many huge cities,…

John von Seggern: so it's much more International.

Ty McDuffey: so You kind of got to get by being polite and…

John von Seggern: And it's also there I know I kind of like in Hong Kong to New York there.

Ty McDuffey: friendly to everybody.

John von Seggern: It's kind of more loud and aggressive and competitive. like that But still, I mean the same thing applies if you're just considered of how other people take things that goes a long way. I feel like

Ty McDuffey: And speaking of other cultures, I guess to go even further back in the timeline. I read that you spent a semester in India and I'm curious what that was like and…

John von Seggern: yes. I would agree with that. Yeah.

Ty McDuffey: if you came across any Buddhist or Hindu philosophies things like that that kind of stuck with you over time.

John von Seggern: For whatever reason it definitely is a cultural value and I…

Ty McDuffey: That's interesting.

John von Seggern: what the Japanese share that value Japanese. care about being nice people also so

00:45:00

John von Seggern: Not a very culture values it as much as we do I'd say.

John von Seggern: I did.

John von Seggern: yeah, I mean I went on a study abroad program for semester in India.

Ty McDuffey: Nice, and then from there as I understand it in your timeline,…

John von Seggern: To study Buddhism specifically,…

Ty McDuffey: you wrote a thesis paper,…

John von Seggern: that's what I was the topic. So I studied Buddhist philosophy and…

Ty McDuffey: which I thought sounded very interesting. What was that about?

John von Seggern: meditation and Hindi language and also some music During the time.

Ty McDuffey: I have my notes here that you focused on…

John von Seggern: Yeah, and…

Ty McDuffey: how the digitization and…

John von Seggern: it did it definitely stuck with me.

Ty McDuffey: etherealization of music through computer networks.

John von Seggern: Until now, I would say.

John von Seggern: there's several. I wouldn't say that I'm a Buddhist but there's several points about it that I've always stuck with me for example the idea of impermanence that everything is changing. And so you shouldn't base your happiness around something that could prove to not exist tomorrow so I would say that kind of fundamental frame of thinking of Buddhism is something that stick with me ever since then.

John von Seggern: Which one are you referring to?

John von Seggern: Yes. I did so I just was saying that I

John von Seggern: in about 2,000 a year 2000 and I kind of came to the end of the road with being a session bass player because it was just driving me crazy because it was just so bored. That's what we're doing. So I wasn't quite sure what to do then. And I was in Hong Kong. And I was bait would have it. I met a girl who was a Chinese graduate student. at Hong Kong University

John von Seggern: come to find out she got a pretty good stipend from the University for being a graduate student. And then I thought I'd like to be smarter study more and I don't really know what to do right now. So I ended up going to Hong Kong University As a graduate student. And I was in the music department, but I was studying ethna musicology. the anthropology of music and at first my study topic was around dance music and then I kind of moved into internet music because I was more interested in that. And eventually I decided to move back to the States and I found a professor at University of California Riverside who was working in that area and I ended up finishing my studies there and that's where I wrote that thesis that you're talking about.

John von Seggern: And yeah, and that thesis is very relevant to what's happening now because my thesis was about how it was the immediate post Napster era when music was first being traded online and it was changing to Online files and stuff. CDs and tapes

John von Seggern: The changes that I was talking about earlier, we're all happening you can produce music on a computer and you can distribute it to the internet all from the computer. So just a lot easier and also you could come this is the kind of stuff I studied. So if you're making music like that,…

Ty McDuffey: I think so too is even like human writing I think will be more valuable human thoughts and…

John von Seggern: it's a lot easier to combine things because you can just grab a sample of you want to use Indian music just get a sample of some Indian music,…

Ty McDuffey: words and even further than that athletes…

John von Seggern: before that if you wanted to use Indian music you had to find Indian musician.

Ty McDuffey: if you're a good boxer if you can actually do something in the Physical Realm,…

John von Seggern: And depending on where you are there might not be…

Ty McDuffey: I think that will be extremely valuable going forward because

John von Seggern: and the same thing for any musical element you could imagine you'd have to find somebody that was good at doing that…

Ty McDuffey: It seems like we're headed towards the Matrix literally like either a chip in your brain or…

John von Seggern: if you wanted in your music, but now you just splice them all together.

Ty McDuffey: we're all somehow merging with this technology.

John von Seggern: So I thought at the time that's gonna lead to people combining things and…

Ty McDuffey: And I think we'll lose a certain subject of the population to just total zombie mode with this stuff like you think social media is addictive scrolling on your Phone just give it 15 years.

John von Seggern: making new style of music that we don't have now which has but that's what I was studying. So now I'm thinking about that in terms of AI and what that's gonna lead to although to be honest. I'm not sure. My intuition is that it's going to lead people to Value things that weren't made with AR actually. but

Ty McDuffey: but I think there will be some people that kind of resist it and stay one foot in one foot out and The people who can build houses and do your plumbing and all that stuff are going to just continue to be very valuable.

John von Seggern: yeah.

John von Seggern: Yeah. stand up comedy.

00:50:00

John von Seggern: Yeah, I agree with most of that. I do think it's really hard to predict. with the AI music there's pop music. I think there's a lot of pop music where People don't really care how it was made, and if you told them that I don't want to pick on anybody. But let's just say one of the biggest pop singers today. If you told him that her new song was made in the AI version of her voice like that most people might not care about that, but then again, there's other kinds of music like More Niche music where if you told people that it was made where they are, they would hate you forever and never listen to you again, As it becomes easier to create things because of Technology. happens and One of the things that's harder they are artists. To create a lot of things that are kind of consistent that have kind of an artistic identity. if you're gonna make a bunch of songs with a singer you want singer the the same guitar style, whatever you don't want every song to just be some random thing like that but I mean that's not an artistic statement. That's just a little bit of music and We'll see how that plays out. there's other factors too though,…

John von Seggern: 

John von Seggern: For AI If you want to be an artist today. That's not enough. you have to make the greatest thing of all time 10 times in a row or something to get people's attention. just making one song and putting on Spotify. You'll throw it in the trash it has to be a lot bigger effort than that to get through these days.

John von Seggern: 

Ty McDuffey: I think it'll be interesting to hear how this stuff plays out as far as In your ear drums. How does it actually sound because you go listen to a song from the 60s and the way that it's recorded. It sounds different than the mainstream stuff you hear now, which is recorded on different types of technology. So I wonder with AI going forward what that's going to sound like.

John von Seggern: I mean, it's true what you say, but there's a huge industry of things that emulate the sound of how things used to sound. And I've even done I did some really weird things with yeah,…

Ty McDuffey: Yes.

John von Seggern: before so no suno and udio. There's another open source engine called or it's not open source actually, but it's cold stable audio. It's made by the same table stability AR that made stable diffusion and…

Ty McDuffey: mmm

John von Seggern: That was the most advanced one before sooner came out and you could make anything with that one because they're not trying to make a

John von Seggern: let's just say they're less concern of a copyright than even the other ones are so you can literally I think they just threw everything that but I was trying to make drum tracks with it.

John von Seggern: Just as an experiment one day. I started to see if I could make jazz drum tracks. It sound like they're played something.

John von Seggern: It kept giving me the whole recording because presumably that's what's trained on so then I started telling it was trying to isolate the drums and stuff. And finally I was getting these things that it what it would sound like if you were in the booth with the drummer. you hear tiny bit of the piano it's in the next room or the next boost so crazy. wow, It's not

Ty McDuffey: 

John von Seggern: The moment of being there when he was playing them which that kind of freaked me out. that was weird. but I think that simulating live things is also going to become so good that it's going to become a challenge to prove that. You're actually a real person or Alive. It already is becoming a challenge honestly, but

John von Seggern: but then it'll be presumably if you make a YouTube video every day. talking to the camera probably really

John von Seggern: because it would be just easier to that way. I don't know. It's gonna get weird. I can't predict all the things are gonna happen either. I've seen some really strange things. So,

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, I've had a similar experience with suno as what you're talking about where I was asking it to make a particular type of instrumental. And at the very beginning it sounded like it was somebody's muffled hip-hop beat tag, have you heard? things like that that is super weird.

John von Seggern: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's funny. He couldn't quite hear…

00:55:00

John von Seggern: what it said.

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, but it was definitely there.

Ty McDuffey: It's like okay,…

John von Seggern: Yeah, because it just stimulating that.

Ty McDuffey: so it must have gotten that from somebody.

John von Seggern: I mean, I will tell you another important thing. I think that I've been thinking about a lot is just that I think the process of making art.

John von Seggern: Is what determines the content ultimately?

John von Seggern: my process since I started we're going to add music. I'd much more gone back to where my process is. Just picking up my instrument and playing it because it's the most fun and meaningful for me and I get the most feeling out of it. Sitting and typing into boxes just isn't that fun honestly and I realized I've made a lot of AI imagery for my band.

John von Seggern: And last year I was really into it. I was doing it a lot but I kind of slowed down after a while and I realized it's because it's kind of a mentally exhausting process I'd sit for a few hours because especially when you're doing video, it takes a long time to render. So I usually end up with multiple windows open and I'm typing into one and hitting it and doing ten of these, and you're just going in after a few hours. I'm just like man, I'm tired now. I want to stop doing this. It's not really that fun where I was if I get together by friends and play music then that's super fun. And I think that that will come true in the heart. But don't know. at the same time. I'm sure that some people are gonna make great stuff but music generators. And it's going to go a lot farther than it has. I don't know. So we'll see what happens.

Ty McDuffey: When you're making the art, are you using mid Journey?

John von Seggern: I go back and forth. Yeah, have you been Journey quite a bit although Mid journey in particular 95% of what I see in there looks so cliche and stereotyped that I would be embarrassed to show it to anyone and claim it as my own. but Just with anything like if you do crazy things with it, what I like about mid journey is putting in an image and then making variations of that image shaping it. I find that to be quite interesting And mid Journey seems to be the best at doing that I have also used as a video engine called Runway. And it has a lot of image processing things too that are kind of interesting, but it's not really as good as my journey. my favorite one was Dolly to which is what I used to make this image, because It was less Advanced. So it was in my opinion better at making kind of abstract things.

John von Seggern: When they released Dolly three, it's terrible because it's only good for making commercial logos and stuff like that. It's really good for that. But for making more Arty things I don't like it. So I stopped using that.

Ty McDuffey: I know you've got a family obligation coming up. Can I rapid fire a couple questions here at you before we wrap up? Native Instruments,…

John von Seggern: Yeah.

Ty McDuffey: how did you end up with them?

John von Seggern: I was try to figure out how to pay my rent in Los Angeles.

John von Seggern: I ended up working in music technology. So at first I worked for Audio for a little while and I was like the Ableton expert. but that was only for about a year and then I moved to Native Instruments for how long I worked at six years. The end of instruments is very interesting company, especially then they were The Cutting Edge of software synthesis I don't know if they still are really but Yeah, that was interesting time. I was a support manager for North America. So I would try to listen to what our American customer said and try to relay that to the design team in Berlin. often unsuccessfully

John von Seggern: On the other hand, I still use a lot of management stuff myself. I've always used mostly Native Instruments because I have it and it's good so

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, yeah, like contact the Guitar Rig that they have. Those are awesome.

John von Seggern: Yeah, I use all those still today. I use battery and contact and Guitar Rig and Massive X actually wrote the manual for massive the first one. I was one of my jobs you look in the front page. but lately I mostly been playing. The bass guitar in the Chapman Stick those are my instruments and I've been making music with another electronic producer who now is doing all the beats and I kind of just playing guitar licks now at the moment, but I'm using a lot of software to experiment with the guitar sounds just a lot you can do.

01:00:00

Ty McDuffey: Okay, next question I got for And if we run out of time here, I'd love to do a part two with you because we didn't quite touch on everything but Wally.

John von Seggern: We can Wally. While I was working at Native Instruments, I kind of had a side hustle where I Doing sort of computer tech work for film composers. and most phone composers use Apple Logic and contact and then they use a little bit sound libraries and contact and so they would have quite complex setups sometimes so I would go out to somebody's house and help them at that so through that I get to know number of people and I got to know kind of a circle of musicians. In LA and one of those guys played with composer Thomas Newman a lot and so he got me on the wall again.

John von Seggern: Yeah, Thomas Newman the composer. If you're not familiar with him, he's written the soundtrack for literally Major Motion Pictures. No less 30 years and the way he works he writes. That orchestral parts and a lot of the score in his home studio using contact. and then I mean most composers do that, but he will then come to the studio and now they do it all remote, I think but when we did Wally we were still doing it in the studio. he had the film. cut and the score that he made and he would play these different scenes and then he had this crew of half a dozen guys that he works with and then he would be like

John von Seggern: Okay this scene I have this score that swells in this and we need some kind of dive bombing guitar sound, George the guitar, but can you give me that? George has played at 5,000 movies. So George can get in that I'm one second, and so then that's how Thomas Newman works and he goes around two of the guys that work with Thomas Newman or sound electronic sound designer guys who are both friends of mine actually and so they got me on that gig and I did some electronic effects. But I wish I could have had that gig for the rest of my life, unfortunately. my two friends already have that gig

John von Seggern: during the three days that we were in the studio working on Wally. I figured out that Thomas Newman didn't really need a third sound designer as part of his crew. So I feel like I did a good job on that but I didn't do such an amazing job that he was Kinder hire me over his long term friends. I guess what I observed from that also.

John von Seggern: What I've seen in Hollywood is the best way to be successful is to start working with a famous director before they get famous.

Ty McDuffey: mmm

John von Seggern: but because I don't know this is just what I see the people that have creative freedom or the people like I was your friend before, so I'm just gonna let you do whatever because I know you're good, but once you're working on big budget projects and you're just hired on then it's much more like who can do this job that is gonna deliver the result we need and…

Ty McDuffey: right

John von Seggern: that's probably Hans Zimmer. in most cases it seems but

John von Seggern: I wish I could have done more of that. Honestly. I don't know I'm a little too slow. Also. Yeah, you have to do stuff like that. You have to be really quick. Because time is money.

John von Seggern: I tend to spend many hours listening to things and teaching them I know a lot of producers like me but It helps if you want to work in Hollywood and Studios, you'll do it on the spot because they're gonna have time to waste some.

Ty McDuffey: It seems like a good lesson to take away from a bunch of stories is just meet a ton of people travel a bunch and things happen for you that way but last but not least before.

John von Seggern: Absolutely true.

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, yeah. Sorry to cut you off there. last but not least before I let you go. I'm a huge fan of hip-hop music and production. So I understand you have had some interaction with his team.

John von Seggern: not That was fun.

Ty McDuffey: What was that like?

John von Seggern: I didn't actually get to meet Dre unfortunately, but Yeah, I was doing some work now and then for Native Instruments where I would go do celebrity software training for people that were endorsing us usually. And so I worked with weasel Zappa Steve by Dre's team and Herbie Hancock one time and that was fun Obviously good meet some of these people that was a job that I wanted to do. Eventually, they got a dedicated person to do that. So I've been doing any more but I did go to his Studio that's in Sherman Oaks, California.

01:05:00

John von Seggern: I demoed our new products for his team and showed him. It's really interesting seeing how they worked actually because it was quite different than anything I was used to so they had do you know what an MPC sampler is?

Ty McDuffey: Yeah.

John von Seggern: So for those who are listening, they don't know it's the old school sampler that has the drum pads on the top and it has examples inside so you don't need a computer to use it. So that's what a lot of classic hip-hop has been made with they would cut the samples into there and then play them on the pads or the drums or whatever and so their studio is set up so that they explained to me how they would do sessions they had room for three or four people in there maybe doing it and they would adult sink them together and they would have their little stations and then they would try things together and…

Ty McDuffey: That's sweet. You got some awesome stories. I…

John von Seggern: kind of experiment and…

Ty McDuffey: I'd love to have you back on to keep following up,…

John von Seggern: jam and…

Ty McDuffey: but that's all I've got for you for now.

John von Seggern: then when Dre was in their producing he would be kind…

Ty McDuffey: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.

John von Seggern: listening and being like no more of this.

Ty McDuffey: I think the audience will absolutely love it.

John von Seggern: No you stop doing that. that's kind of…

Ty McDuffey: So really it's been a pleasure and…

John von Seggern: how they described it to me anyway, and…

Ty McDuffey: very nice to meet you.

John von Seggern: they also had gigantic based stickers in that studio that were like These bins that were for live concerts,…

Ty McDuffey: Yeah, for enjoy your evening. Thanks again. Very nice to meet you John and I'll follow up with you.

John von Seggern: they told me so we didn't Crank that up while I was there,…

Ty McDuffey: all right, but

John von Seggern: but they said that the base was pretty substantial. If they could crank out.

John von Seggern: No, sir.

John von Seggern: Okay Okay, good talking to Thomas. It's been fun.

John von Seggern: All Nice to meet you.

Meeting ended after 01:07:39 👋