We are the music makers https://wearethemusicmakers.co/latest Music tech and AI in music: the news that matters, what we think about it, and a directory of the tools. en-us Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:30:00 GMT https://wearethemusicmakers.co/news/2026/11/musicxml-tokenisation-symbolic-music-generation Does notation matter? A new paper says AI music models learn more from scores than from MIDI https://wearethemusicmakers.co/news/2026/11/musicxml-tokenisation-symbolic-music-generation A 25 Oct 2026 arXiv paper trains 26 language models on MusicXML, MIDI and ABC and reports that the MusicXML models do better at both understanding and generating music. For producers who work in MIDI, here is what that means and what it doesn't. Mon, 02 Nov 2026 03:30:00 GMT We are the music makers aiai-musicmidiresearchai-midi https://wearethemusicmakers.co/learn/piano-roll-explained The piano roll: write music without playing an instrument https://wearethemusicmakers.co/learn/piano-roll-explained A piano roll is the grid in a DAW where you write and edit MIDI notes: pitch runs bottom to top, time runs left to right, and each note is a bar you can draw, move, stretch or delete. It means you can write music without playing an instrument. AI now writes into the same grid, so a part an AI composes is notes you can still edit by hand. Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:30:00 GMT We are the music makers daw-101dawpiano-rollai-midibeginners https://wearethemusicmakers.co/news/2026/10/mi-midi-2-sparse-autoencoders-text-to-midi MI-MIDI 2 paper tests whether sparse autoencoders can steer text-to-MIDI models https://wearethemusicmakers.co/news/2026/10/mi-midi-2-sparse-autoencoders-text-to-midi A new arXiv paper from Jakub Poćwiardowski and Mateusz Modrzejewski looks inside two text-to-MIDI models, finds internal features linked to musical traits, and tests whether nudging them changes the MIDI that comes out. One synth-lead feature held up; most effects were small. Fri, 30 Oct 2026 05:30:00 GMT We are the music makers aimidiresearchai-midi