This entire story arc (I’m implying that there are more than two, which right now I don’t think will actually happen) was in fact inspired by a blog post that Celeste wrote back in July. It got me thinking about the Vocaloid technology and where it’s heading, but I figured a fictional portrayal worked into the main storyline was the most effective way of getting my thoughts on the subject across. Just for the record, the old SF story called ‘The Ultimate Melody’ does actually exist: it was by Arthur C Clarke. Again, credit where credit’s due and all that.
*
Back downstairs, we got another round of coffee in while Stu powered up his portable terminal and set about e-mailing the client. Our position at this point was precarious: torn between needing the work and being genuinely worried about biting off more than he could chew, he wanted them to clarify a few things before allowing me – or any of my colleagues – to restart our respective tasks on the project.
“As far as I’m concerned, our job’s on ice until I can be sure everything’s watertight,” he explained. “Time’s money, but it’s their money as well as ours. I’ll arrange extra firewalls and bring the data in from the Cloud and onto our own server.”
The Cloud was, of course, on a server as well but the idea of having it literally under our roof offered us, and our client, some measure of psychological security at least; the server could handle it, and we would work from the office. From my point of view, a source of food and refreshments was only downstairs, and I could hardly use my own flat in any case.
Indigo Blue was a coffee shop by day and bar/restaurant by night. It made sense since we could run our business as we felt necessary and hold meetings downstairs. It was a public establishment of course, but various areas could be reserved for conferences so we could, when necessary, have face-to-face meetings without needing to make our own offices tidier and more presentable.
The owner of our company – technically mine and Stu’s boss – was some middle-aged friend of his mother who specialised in security, especially of the electronic and commercial varieties. She had the foresight to buy up the space above Indigo Blue before the drift of businesses back into city centres had gained momentum, so avoided the later rise in property prices; not only was she ahead of the curve in terms of establishing the business, she also saw the potential in this young graduate who had a way with firewalls and number-crunching. Stu didn’t look like a security guard in the physical sense, but he had a quiet and deceptive sort of way of keeping promises with various sorts of people, and shrewd business acumen into the bargain. Before she’d retreated to the background and placed him in charge on the ‘shop floor’ he had severed all ties with his father’s corporate world and didn’t rely on his mother’s connections either. She figured him to be adaptable and reliable, and turned out to be absolutely right.
“You know, if you really do want my spare room we’re going to need to help Andrea move her stuff out first.”
I was so wrapped up in worrying about what I would be working on that week I’d almost forgotten what the other task for the day was.
“I’m afraid, sis, that I’ll have to sit this one out,” Stu declared miserably. “There’s nothing to stop either of you though. You’re going to need a van too, aren’t you?” He went back to checking over his equipment.
“There isn’t enough of my stuff still in my flat for that,” I countered. “Still, I don’t expect Andrea will have a great deal either. Have either of you heard from her?”
Both shook their heads and went back to their respective screens. He on his portable, her on her handheld. “I’ll give her a shout and see where she’s at,” she said. “Especially since we were all supposed meet here this morning.”
A few seconds later a reply buzzed in to say that Andrea had moved her belongings out already and was well and truly vacated. Don’t worry guys, I got my own van. Thanks anyway, see you all later. It seemed a bit abrupt and strange that she hadn’t waited, but I was all for sorting that out later. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for some of us.
“She lived in my place for six months but shifted her stuff without a word?”
“I wouldn’t dwell on it,” I replied, again trying to keep things calm. “She doesn’t need any help, so don’t get bent out of shape about it. Makes things easier for me, right?”
She gave a resigned sigh, flicked off her handheld and dropped it into an inside pocket with one smooth movement. “Let’s get your shit on the road then, eh?”
We walked out of Indigo Blue, leaving Stu sitting in the same window seat, still working on his portable terminal and staring thoughtfully at the screen. It could’ve been a message to the client, a rethink of security procedures or simple one of those maths puzzles he was so fond of. My part in the project was pretty much on hold for now so as much as it pained me to leave my best friend agonising over all our wages for the foreseeable future, he was my supervisor so ultimately it was his responsibility now and his alone.
Fortunately the rain had stopped for a while and the walk back was a more pleasant one.
“What’s the job entail, exactly?” she asked. “Beyond the programming jargon, that is.” Her way of never mincing words was actually beneficial in her current line of work, since that branch of journalism actually rewarded acidic wit and sarcasm. Talk about landing on your feet.
“A marketing company that’s basically mass-producing music wholesale. You remember the voice synth software and the mascots that came out in the mid 2000s?”
“Yeah. The second- and third-gen stuff wasn’t so bad. We used one of them in college for a live music project.”
“Seriously?” I hadn’t heard about this one.
“It was a bubblegum electropop-stroke-industrial outfit,” she explained. “We were absolutely awful, looking back on it. Like some mixture of Nine Inch Nails and Kate Bush, without the talent. Anyway. The vocalist got laryngitis a couple of days before the gig – she was out on the piss or something – and we didn’t have any way of doing the vocals. I hit on the idea of using the sound engineer’s laptop to make up lyric samples and loop them in on the fly. He set up a screen for the drummer to watch so he could keep time and she e-mailed the lyrics to us while she sat at home ill.”
“Did you get it to work?”
“Pretty much. We only had forty-eight hours or so to get the vocal samples working and looped a lot of them to save time, but we just about pulled it off. I was doing electric violin, some of the keyboards and had to get the timing of those sodding vocal loops right while we were on stage. Actually, I’m amazed it worked at all.”
I was genuinely impressed. “So you know how this software is sold now, I assume?”
“No idea. I’ve run into some of those music marketing people in recent months, but our scene is so wrapped up in trying to be a scene, there’s no room for anything that has even a whiff of commercialism to it. They never get very far so eventually stopped trying.”
“I’m not surprised that music that’s so obviously manufactured isn’t a hit with the indie kids,” I agreed. “Mainstream stuff moves just as fast though, so the principle’s the same even if the products are different. What’s in fashion now could change in a few months and they have something falling out of the charts and failing to sell. ‘Alternative’ music fans have a bit more discretion…or a different kind of gullibility…”
“Voice synths and virtual idols are waaay more artificial than even the most pretentious bands I’ve worked with!”
“You sure about that?” I grinned. “Anyway. Our job was to help create an artificial pre-packaged product for the mainstream, but make multiple versions at the same time to cover all the bases then run scenarios to simulate how they’d do in a real-life situation. I worked on character profiles, someone else kept an eye on celebrity news; another did social network trends to keep the results in line with what’s popular, and so on. We were supposed to filter those through another program and whittle them down to what was supposed to do well commercially.”
“So, they’re doing some sort of A.I. thing? A fully fledged virtual idol? It sounds like pure science fiction to me.”
“It’s nowhere near there yet, no. What they want to create is a brand or style that’s fluid enough to mould itself to whatever the market demands at the time and ‘simulate’ potential failures before they get to the customers. Kinda like evolution sped up to save time and money. Chart wars that happen inside computers, or even virtual artists growing up and arriving in shops fully formed.”
“Automating the success or failure of music before it’s reached the fans, and tailoring it to what they want?”
“Yeah. The programme I had running was creating dozens of potential fictitious ‘artists’ simultaneously, and the client would sell the handful that made it through to the end. The programme would simulate the early life and personality of the artist too, altering the sound of their voice and their songs, and give spin-off books and whatnot.”
“Sounds kinda…dishonest to sell something so calculated and processed. I know marketing has been around since forever, but it feels like they’re cheating somehow. It’s blurring fiction with reality.”
“I know what you mean. I’m a bit worried about where it could lead…what about the uncertainty and unpredictability that makes music special?”
“What if it’s what people want? Do they care where a product comes from, or how it’s made, as long as they like it? They seem to think that if they tell people often enough that we want what they’re selling, we’ll believe it eventually. Or is marketing less of a blunt instrument now?”
I should’ve expected her to take such a dim view on the subject, and to be honest she was only echoing the doubts I myself had. “It’s what people think they want, I guess. Which isn’t the same thing, in my opinion. At best, all we’re doing is some mathematical experiment that has no hope of working properly in the real world. It might be as dumb as trying to predict earthquakes or the stock market. At worst…yeah, I’d be more worried if it DID work as the client intends it to.”
“It reminds me of an old sci-fi story about a scientist who used a computer to compose the ‘perfect’ piece of music,” she mused. “It was called ‘The Ultimate Melody’ or something. Apparently the inventor actually found what he was looking for but when he finally heard the song, it made him a blissed-out vegetable.”
“You mean we shouldn’t be playing God with artistic expression?”
She gave one of her rare smiles. “Maybe that’s why the Devil has all the best tunes?”
