- May 4, 2025
- 13 Posts
- 37 Thanked
I don’t want to start this thread in the “Upcoming Trance & Prog Release” section. It would be a desecration of everything else posted there.
Twenty years ago, Armind released Arksun’s “Arisen”. There’s a widely repeated story (though I’ve never found the original source) that Armin van Buuren once said: “This is exactly the reason Armada was founded — to put out records like this.”
Twenty years later, we now have a release like this: a track that’s almost entirely AI‑generated — not even convincingly human‑like AI, but something with utterly cheap presets, rough mixing and a dreadful arrangement. And it came out on Armind, part of Armada Music.
I want to talk about this “track” that was released on Armind a few days ago: Frank Spector – “Voulez Vous.”
It was played on ASOT, praised by Armin, even picked as the TOTW once. But once the full track was out, anyone with ears who has used Suno or similar AI music tools could instantly tell this is AI‑generated: piercing synths, nonsensical drops, and a six‑bar outro — all problems you constantly run into when trying to generate progressive or melodic techno with Suno. Many of my friends are furious.
Plus, we found another similar release on Suanda: Bigtopo & JARR Head – “Ten Minutes of Life”, though it sounds less awful.
Maybe we should have seen it coming. Over the last two decades, trance went from mainstream to marginalised, then got pulled back by the retro wave. Armind, and Armada itself, went from a golden‑standard trance label to just another international trance label, and then to just another big EDM label. As early as when the ASOT 2026 Anthem used AI vocals — or even before that, when Suno first appeared — I pessimistically thought FSOE would be the first major trance label to be replaced by AI, and that the formulaic uplifting and full‑on psy we knew would be the first trance styles to fall.
Twenty years ago, the only “flaw” people could find in Arisen was that it was so good it seemed impossible for a human to make. Now, the only “flaw” in a piece of garbage like Voulez Vous is that it’s so bad it clearly wasn’t made by a human.
To be fair, Frank Spector made decent tracks four years ago — “La Nuit (Frank Spector Mix)” was discussed on our forum. How ironic.
I acknowledge that AI will eventually replace humans on a large scale, and I’m happy to enjoy what AI can bring to entertainment. But the generated creations that replace human work cannot be AI productions of this quality. It’s just so terrible that I can’t imagine how bad his prompts have been. And what’s most disturbing isn’t just how bad the AI is, it’s that Armind’s A&R looked at this level of work and thought it was good enough.
Twenty years ago, Armind released Arksun’s “Arisen”. There’s a widely repeated story (though I’ve never found the original source) that Armin van Buuren once said: “This is exactly the reason Armada was founded — to put out records like this.”
Twenty years later, we now have a release like this: a track that’s almost entirely AI‑generated — not even convincingly human‑like AI, but something with utterly cheap presets, rough mixing and a dreadful arrangement. And it came out on Armind, part of Armada Music.
I want to talk about this “track” that was released on Armind a few days ago: Frank Spector – “Voulez Vous.”
It was played on ASOT, praised by Armin, even picked as the TOTW once. But once the full track was out, anyone with ears who has used Suno or similar AI music tools could instantly tell this is AI‑generated: piercing synths, nonsensical drops, and a six‑bar outro — all problems you constantly run into when trying to generate progressive or melodic techno with Suno. Many of my friends are furious.
Plus, we found another similar release on Suanda: Bigtopo & JARR Head – “Ten Minutes of Life”, though it sounds less awful.
Maybe we should have seen it coming. Over the last two decades, trance went from mainstream to marginalised, then got pulled back by the retro wave. Armind, and Armada itself, went from a golden‑standard trance label to just another international trance label, and then to just another big EDM label. As early as when the ASOT 2026 Anthem used AI vocals — or even before that, when Suno first appeared — I pessimistically thought FSOE would be the first major trance label to be replaced by AI, and that the formulaic uplifting and full‑on psy we knew would be the first trance styles to fall.
Twenty years ago, the only “flaw” people could find in Arisen was that it was so good it seemed impossible for a human to make. Now, the only “flaw” in a piece of garbage like Voulez Vous is that it’s so bad it clearly wasn’t made by a human.
To be fair, Frank Spector made decent tracks four years ago — “La Nuit (Frank Spector Mix)” was discussed on our forum. How ironic.
I acknowledge that AI will eventually replace humans on a large scale, and I’m happy to enjoy what AI can bring to entertainment. But the generated creations that replace human work cannot be AI productions of this quality. It’s just so terrible that I can’t imagine how bad his prompts have been. And what’s most disturbing isn’t just how bad the AI is, it’s that Armind’s A&R looked at this level of work and thought it was good enough.
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...which is how you endup with the likes of Trouse or Hardstyle.
