(upbeat music)
Hello, welcome to Music on I Focus.
With me, Music on is managing editor Joe Sparrow.
Now, at the moment, everybody's talking about
how generative AI can make music and how generative AI is
in fact, making lots of music.
But overwhelmingly, normal human people listen to music
that is made also by human beings.
And more human beings than ever are making music.
And to do it, they're using powerful production platforms
on their laptops or the devices.
So we wanted to have a chat with one of the companies
who've made this creator environment possible.
We're joined today by Konstantin Kuhnke.
Have I already got that wrong?
Did very well there.
Okay, I'll carry on.
We're joined today by Konstantin Kuhnke,
who is the CEO of Image Line,
the company behind digital audio workstation,
FL Studio and Robert Linker,
Chief Product and Technology Officer at the same place.
Hello to you both.
Hello.
Hey Joe, great to be here.
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thank you.
Now, this little bit of history originally created
in 1997 as fruity loops.
That's how I remember it.
And I'm old enough to remember that anyway.
The digital audio workstation
that it developed into FL Studio
has become a dominant production tool
across hip hop and electronic music.
And we wanted to take a look at the habits of music makers
and producers in 2026.
Now, today AI can spit out songs, loops and samples
and seconds.
Music consumption is fragmented into thousands
of tiny, but deep niches.
And now, perhaps the greatest skill of a producer
is to make music that sounds both new and human.
So not much to touch on here.
Just the all the important stuff.
First of all, let's have a quick look at where we're at
at at the moment in 2026.
You've got this product, which is really deeply embedded
in music making culture.
It is the sort of go-to.
It's the starting point for so many people.
And they trust it.
They trust how it works.
They trust what they can get out of it.
And they also sort of trust you to make decisions.
And that's where AI comes in.
Because in a sense, AI, when you talk to artists and producers,
has one of the things it's done is it's a raise the trust
layer.
It's about, from a listeners perspective,
is this real or is it not?
Whatever real means.
And from an artist's side, can I trust
the platforms to use my music well?
Can I trust that people will receive my music well
if I use AI elements?
Things like that.
So let's jump straight into the AI question, which is,
how do you make the decisions on how AI fits into FL Studio?
And where does it fit?
Yeah, getting straight to the meat off the discussion I
would assume.
I think, first of all, I think AI or not AI, it starts
with what are we actually here to do SFL studio?
And the mission that we have is to help people make music,
so create music.
And I think we put a lot of emphasis on that word
of making music, putting the producer and the musician
in the center of that.
So I think there's a lot of solutions out there today,
where maybe the starting point was AI is the answer,
what was the question?
And I think the question we like to ask from the get-go
is what can we actually do with the technology off AI
to enable more people to have that, like,
live that dream of making music and getting
their creative idea out of their heads?
So I think that's how we tend to approach it
from the starting point.
Thanks, Konstantin.
And Robert.
Yeah, I'm very much the same.
I think we treat AI mostly as one of the solutions,
the blocks we have available to ultimately
solve a problem for the end user.
We're actually using AI since a couple of years
inside of FL Studio, even though many people might not
perceive it as what they call AI today.
Give you some examples, like, as soon as you denoise
one of your recordings, for example,
usually the technology behind it will be AI-driven.
We more recently added a help system
into FL Studio called Gofer, which is basically
a small chat GPT trained on our knowledge base,
which you can ask and will point you
into the right direction that's strictly speaking, also AI-powered.
I think most of the controversy comes
around generate of audio, in particular.
So because that is what people perceive replaces
a lot of the process that they've learned for many years,
invested a lot of time, and it's also
at the core of the creative process.
And here I think we navigate along the line
of what helps the user to express themselves,
and if it does that, like we would edit.
And more importantly, how do you keep people in their flow?
How do you make music and joyful activity
and turns out that generator AI is a pretty good tool
to overcome things like a writer's block
or something, somebody being stuck in their process,
and then AI can help them to nudge one step further.
But mostly, and that's, I think, our paradigm,
we don't want to take the process out of the hands
of our users, because we have very much in the business
of having people spend a joyful time in the process.
I think that's much more the goal of most of our users
than making it to the number one off the Bilbo charts.
I think one analogy, let's say related our JSON industry,
we talk about is gaming quite a lot,
because I think the same passion that people have for
playing games, people have for making music
and expressing themselves creatively, even more so,
I would say, on the music side, because, of course,
there's so much more about your identity
and your personal expression of yourself
as you're making art.
But in gaming, you have oftentimes an easy mode
or a training mode that gets you going in a game.
We think that's very relevant for FL Studio
and any other platform as well,
because we have a very young audience
that doesn't have maybe the deepest experience yet.
They might be teenagers somewhere,
they just want to get started with something.
But like gaming, you at some point want to get
to the God mode level, where I think a certain level
of, wouldn't maybe even call it friction,
but let's call it friction rate, a certain level of depth
and complexity can also be what you actually are looking for.
I want to get in, I think it's about,
how do you get from that first point to that last point?
And as Robert pointed out,
how do you design that journey in a way where you have,
at the centerpiece, like joy of the creative process
and not all the annoying parts that come with it?
If I speak to, I sound old saying this,
but young artists or emerging artists
is perhaps the best way to say it.
They're generally split two ways around AI,
we're talking generally to AI, usually here.
And one is, they don't like it.
It feels like it crosses a line in terms of taking
their creative ability away
and they don't want to be challenged by this,
what they see as kind of generic music.
And on the other side, there are ones who,
like you were saying Robert, have sort of enthusiastically brought
it into their creative flow.
They will use it to spin up samples
and then they will sample a bit of it, manipulate it.
And you know, and there's two very different ways
of thinking about it, right?
When you're thinking about this internally,
in terms of incorporating AI or sort of encouraging creators
to do this, where's the line between AI being an assistive tool?
That thing that enhances that creative process
and replacing creative decision-making,
which sort of feels like it could be a sort of chilling effect
on creativity.
Where, how do you draw that line?
- I can start, I mean, I think the approach we've taken
is that it should be up to the user, right?
And the creator to make that choice
because to your point of having very different opinions
or approaches to it, that might also change over time
as somebody's in their creative journey, right?
And somebody might find at a certain point
to think that using a generated sample
is not the way that they want to go,
but maybe later down the journey they find,
hey, that's actually an exciting playground for me
and I can remix that sample and edit it
and turn it to something different.
So we don't try to be prescriptive about,
where do you have to use AI?
It's very much an option that the user has.
Now, of course, how you design that
to make it show up in the right places
in the context of where you make music,
that it doesn't feel maybe for some
that don't like it, like an obstruction in the process,
but for those that would like it,
like a nice enhancement.
I think those are the kind of UX decisions
that we make, test and are in touch with our users
about to figure out what works best.
- Yeah, I think it's very much like Conjus said
about giving the user enough transparency
about what is AI and not and giving them the choice,
whether they want to use it or not.
As a digital audio workstation,
if it's studio, I think was always about giving users
as many options as much flexibility as possible.
And nowadays, generative AI is just one of those options.
So we feel like it's important to provide that option
to everybody who wants it,
but not obviously force it down people's throat
if they don't want it.
And we also, as a company,
we set ourselves a few guardrails of what we would
and wouldn't do around AI.
One thing that is really important to us
is that whatever model we tie into a field studio
that types of generative audio needs to be ethically trained.
So it can't be trained on data
where the rights holder of the data
hadn't been compensated for that.
That's really important.
It also needs to be better than a more traditional solution.
So just providing AI for AI sex doesn't make a lot of sense
in our view because it's very expensive.
It's a very heavy type of technology.
So it really needs to help to do something
and accomplish something that has been very difficult before.
That's the second one.
And the third one is that what I just said
is basically give it up.
giving the user always the option, whether they want to use it, or they want to use
FL Studio, like you can use it for the past 25 years. So you can basically pick your
favorite workflow, and I just want enrichment with that today.
One thing about FL Studio is it has this, it's sort of unusual, it has this very committed
fan base, it has this community around it, and you're saying you talk to them a lot.
Are you finding in that feedback, when they're talking about AI and what they feel about
it, and maybe how they use it? Is it as polarized as I described in my experience?
And what are they telling you in sort of those extremes?
Yeah, I can maybe start. I think it's definitely as polarized as you described. I think it's
definitely the hottest button topic of today for any musician. What you hear a lot is what
you described there, as well as that there's a very vocal crowd of people who say they
don't want this, like they're against any any form of AI and any form of shape. At the
same time, when we survey people, we know that almost half of all music producers already
use AI in some way of form. So there's a big dissonance there between what you would read
in a forum, or if you speak to somebody and what people actually do in the end, which
is quite interesting because ultimately, I think AI is just so powerful you won't be able
to avoid it. If you're a professional, you will be almost forced to use it in one way or
another. It's almost like, if you think back 30 years ago, we had a similar sentiment
against computers and music making. It was all about like machines and real instruments
and computers probably got a similar opinion from the established folks, like AI does today.
Ultimately, very few people could could avoid it because it's just such a great productivity
tool. If you're into music making just for the joy of it, and you really just do music
because you want to spend your weekend tweaking around, I think there will be a lot of people
who might not need AI because it just automates too much of what is really fun for many
people away. Again, it's all about giving people the option. But, and being, I would say,
very, very honest and open about what form and shape of AI you're integrating into the workflow.
It's funny, isn't it? It's a little bit like when people vote, they don't want to say
they voted for this political party, but they did go and vote for that political party.
It just feels inevitable, doesn't it? And again, there's so many shades of AI. It'll be
involved in the creative process at some point. I think it also has to do with generally
how we are having public debates on social media about anything. So I think it's also a reflection
of society at large, how we're discussing AI, where you lose a lot of the nuance of that
discussion that if you would sit down with somebody in the room and talk about some
of the benefits and some of the downsides, you probably get to a pretty wide spectrum of even
the weekend warrior persona that Robert just mentioned, even that person might find some
joy in generating something and then stem separating it and making a remix out of that
as a starting point because it's not so different to, let's say, sample-based workflow.
But if they ask, kind of, publicly am I pro or anti-AI, then I think you fall probably
more into the con of the anti-AI.
Yeah. And finally, on this point about sort of AI, we can move on to everything else.
But there is this thing, isn't it, about making music where we're hearing these polarized
things all the way to the top. I don't want to point fingers, but one of the CEOs of one
of the major generative music platforms famously said, "People don't actually like making
music," you know, and that sort of enraged musicians. And of course, musicians have responded
by saying the joy of making music are all the mistakes in the long journey and the pain.
Like that is art, right? And that must be very difficult line for you to tread when you're
talking about technologies which seem to, on the whole, be sort of efficiency tools in
that sense, to get you to a point faster. And almost you don't want to do it too much.
I think that's one of the, I think, maybe misconceptions in that whole debate, right?
But I think it's a bit of a false binary in my mind because most of the reason why people
at least stick with making music with FL Studio or any other digital tool is because they
like the process of making music. That might not be the starting point, but the starting
point might be, you know, I want to be like Martin Garrix or I want to sound like this
producer, this artist. But ultimately, I think the reason why you stick with it because
you find this like personal expression and joy, identity from it, also community like
minded people. So that whole kind of process is, is I think so much intertwined with like
what you do as a human being that it's not about like replacing that and making it more
efficient.
I think one, one additional aspect here to mention as well is that I think the, the benefit
of AI outside of the professional setting is definitely that what we observe, it gets
a lot more people around the planet in touch with interacting with music in a more creative
way. Something that being a little bit self critical in the past always meant you had
to learn complicated tools, you had to have a relatively expensive setup to just get
into it. Nowadays, you basically just can prompt your idea, which might not be the most creative
thing you've ever done, but it might be the very first time you actually create a piece
of music. And that then, and we can measure that that basically leads a lot of people to
go further downstream and basically once they saw success here, but they also see like
are there's only so much I can do here. I can only interact with a generative platform
so much. They would go the next step and then download a file studio for example and try
to get into music making generally speaking, which is I think generally a net benefit of
generative AI that is just enables so many more people to think about their relationship
to music as one they can participate in a creative way with great. Yeah, okay, that's
supposed to be the gateway drug to music. Because FL Studio does, you know, it does have this,
it's reputation of having the community of makers and because it was so it's that it's
positioned as or seen as that platform that people start with. And it must be something
you're thinking about in terms of, well, well, tell me that then. Do you, how do you see
the role of you as a platform? Is it, okay, you're enabling people to make songs that
become huge hits, but you've also got this kind of, what is it? Educational nourishing
role of bringing people through? So how do you, how do you sort of focus your attention
and see that in your user base? I would say the QAFF at Studio in particular because
it's such a beginner and friendly platform and always was and was always like many people's
very first tool that they ever got like that back to the Fouley Loop Stays. I think we've
very much prioritized getting as many people to stick, stick around with music making in
general. So I think that's really at the heart of our mission. We believe that music making
is a very valuable activity, something that we feel if you're, if you're a teenager or
a kid today, you're probably better off with compared to many other things that you could
do. So we love the idea that Efflet Studio offers like a real starting point and something
that makes people stick around for as many people as possible. Everything that follows
further downstream, like the many Billboard charts hits that have been created with Efflet
Studios, ultimately just a function of so many people starting out at one, one point. And
obviously we need to provide them the professional professionality of toolkit that can get them
all the way to the number one. But our main priority is really to make them not drift off
to something else, which we feel is maybe a little less valuable to do. And I think music
making in general is just so attractive because the entry level as an art form is so low these
days that you can really do it and you can basically with a tool like Efflet Studio, you can start
in your bedroom when you're 13, you can dabble around and there's hundreds, if not thousands,
of stories where exactly that landed you in the top 10 of the Billboard charts. And I think that's
such a nice ambition, such a nice story that we see so many people just buying into it because
they see like I don't need more than that to really make it. So when you look at that huge group
of users then and they've got the ambition, they've got these stories of, you know, they've got
the dream to follow and it feels achievable. But they're also completely aware that I talk to
young musicians about this and they often feel kind of under, they feel crushed by the number of
other songs out there that they're competing with. And whether that's true or not, well the numbers
sort of say it is true. So what are you, what are you sort of seeing in that user behavior and how
they're reacting to this volume? I'm sort of talking in a creative sense, but maybe in other
senses as well. Are they, I don't know, are they trying to make more unusual music? Are they
downloading sample packs and blending them in weird ways through the noise? What are they doing?
I think one of the things we've been seeing with Efflet Studio over the many years is lots of
sonic innovation on the platform, right? So every bigger electronic or hip-hop genre that was
or sub-john where that was started in the last 15 to 20 years or at least a lot of them originated
in the Efflet Studio because somebody wanted to do something completely different than what was
considered.
the kind of popular mainstream at the time, you know, things like dubstep or trap, this kind of platform,
these kind of genres that are very connected to the FL Studio platform. So I'm pretty certain that
there is quite a lot of sonical innovation happening at the ground level of the many FL Studio
users today that are thinking how can I do something different that like it's my own personal
expression of music to also cut through the noise. And then the other thing that you are seeing
maybe more outside of FL Studio is producers doing more to promote the music that they have created
because simply creating it and putting it on a platform is in many cases, unless, you know,
you have, I think, also a bit of luck, I think, which also belongs to that, maybe harder to do,
to break through. I think the dream is very much alive. There's many, many stories of that,
but you maybe need to do a little bit more. So you see producers also out there doing a lot more
around connecting with other producers, building community, promoting creatively. I think the
stuff that they are creating. And that's an interesting insight for us because we think can we
maybe help on that front down the line? We provide the tools. We provide a lot of like the ecosystem
around the door with sounds and plugins and all the rest of it. Could we do something that also
helps producers to maybe share their first ideas on a platform with other people, get that feedback,
build their first audience, definitely something we're thinking actively about because it feels that
that becomes much more part of the whole music making experience these days outside of the pure
creative process. I'm going to give you an opportunity to give us the hard sell to an extent.
You've mentioned a few times here about how new entrance to music making find FL Studio to be
easy to start with. Why is that? As you said, I know you're very biased here, but what do they tell
you? What is it that they find about it that helps them get in? Yeah, you'd probably get quite a
few different answers from our users. The way I put it is that FL Studio, even back in the days,
never really started as like a professional tool, productivity tool in the first place. It was always
something that had a notion to be fun to be used like the developer who created Footy Loops in
New early days was actually at a gaming background. He didn't have a music production background and
a lot of that vibe still remains in the product today that when you open it, it's a lot less
intimidating. It's a lot less like just a blank canvas of nothing than many other solutions in
the space. So in a way, it helps people to just overcome the first shock of like the general complexity
that you're faced with. We have a very iconic, I would say element in FL Studio, the channel
rack, which is basically the step sequence or the very first thing that you see, which is preloaded
with a bunch of sounds. And the only thing you essentially need to do is click around a little bit
and you have your first loop going and having these small bits and pieces across the application
plus giving it an appeal that is maybe closer to a video game at first than it is to a super professional
working tool. I think that created a lot of the the gender overall appeal of folks getting into
it, wanting to use it. There's a whole other dimension of FL Studio being super accessible,
also from a pure commercial perspective, like we have a fairly unique business model.
You only need to pay for FL Studio once and then you get all the updates for the rest of your
life for free. And that was introduced like two decades ago and massive appeal of the product. So
you essentially only have to buy one license. There's no subscription, a tech touch to it. And
many, many people are really many people just love the fact that you only have to pay once and
get all the updates for free later, which also contributes to, for example, the massive
global distribution of FL Studio. So, FL Studio is very popular in the Western, the typical Western
markets, completely dominant if you look at Africa, South America, India. FL Studio has a huge market
share because of its accessibility also on the commercial side. One thing I would just add,
I think it's very well summarized, but I think one aspect to the appeal is also the stories
of producers making it with FL Studio because you have many people that don't have professional
music background that are just getting started where FL Studio is the first platform they use,
and they make it like to absolute fame levels, right? Both on the electronic music side but also
on the hip-hop side. There's so many stories and I think people love to tell those stories as well
and I think that kind of perpetuates new people coming in and being not as intimidated by this
product that then also fulfills their purpose by being easier to use. Yeah. You mentioned
the Robert about the free lifetime updates, pay once, get everything model, which you're very well
known for. A lot of the industry in that space has moved to subscriptions as has so much technology
in our lives and people either often resent it and continue to do it. And obviously the pay
once model works great for you, you're saying. But you're also the person who is in charge of
moving the product and the technology along. In a very simple sense, when you have to fund
big long-term evolutions and R&D and especially with all the challenges, all this new technology,
how does that work? I'm asking this question really on behalf of the listeners who might have
a subscription model and say, "Well, I know this much money comes in every month." I'm not really
asking you about the budget, but how does that work for you? Are the restrictions? Does it make you
think differently? Does it make you plan differently? I think it definitely makes you plan differently
than if you're on a company that maybe makes most of the money selling updates or subscriptions because
you're obviously much more dependent on new people coming in every day. So it keeps you very
honest in prioritizing problems that new users might have. So somebody failing with music and
effort studio today is not very likely to purchase the product at one point. So we put a high
emphasis obviously on taking the friction out of the very first steps. The other part to it is that
we have a fairly small company, like ImageLine is less than 100 people at the core, which means we,
for example, also don't have a massive marketing machine. And most of the heavy lifting for
marketing, the product is done by the communities. So basically the strongest muscle we have is
experienced users recommending the product to new users. So it also makes you very honest in
that sense that you need to prioritize really what your users are asking from you all day every
day because you're so dependent on the product creating that momentum each and every day.
And so far sometimes surprisingly for people like that has put us on like an amazing
growth trajectory as well. So it's a bit counter-intuitive if you look at like software licensing
models generally speaking, but turns out that being so upfront about the lifetime cost of your
product and what people can expect can create an amazing business as well. And it forces, I guess,
this, it's that trusting again isn't it, that you can't, like you lose, you gain trust slowly and
you lose it in buckets, you know, you've got to keep them on board. Yeah, I mean I think lifetime
free updates has been around for as Robert mentioned for over two decades. So there is no
gone record here where we would take that away, right? Because of course that is I think as you say,
the the moment that you would lose a lot of that trust immediately. Now obviously we think from
a business perspective also are there other things that our users might need, right? That
lend themselves more and maybe can't actually be sold in a lifetime free update model.
So, you know, we have FL Cloud, which is kind of our subscription service that offers users
loops and samples over two million by now and online mastering service, distribution, plug-ins,
etc. And that's a model that just lends itself very well to subscription because they're constantly
getting new content on a monthly basis. And there again, though, we try to apply our general
philosophy of generosity because that spreads very well and we try to price it in such a way that it's
something that people can actually afford. And it's not trying to squeeze out every last
send of the users there. So I think the general philosophy is generosity pays off in the long run
because I think the community pays it back three times. Which is the kind of philosophy which I
guess aligns with artists, isn't it? I think that is the sort of mindset of the creative community,
I think. Let's talk about then. You mentioned Robert, the sort of game of the intentional
gamification of the system or just the inherent gamification of how it feels that sort of fun to play.
As music making becomes so much more accessible, there are competitors who are sort of looking at
FL Studio and going, oh, well, maybe we can do that, but make it more gamified and on an app
on an iPhone or whatever. How do you view people who are entering into this sort of similar space?
I'm not asking for specific, I'm not asking for beef to be started with any of them.
is out there unless you really want to. But where do you think that that's going to go in terms of
evolution of the interface and how people are going to use music making software, whether it's
a complex one or a simple one over the next decade? That's a good question. I think, I mean on the one
hand we obviously look at like whoever's entering the market. I think usually we have a lot of respect
for everybody who's trying to also bring the boundary down because as I said that's also part of
our core missions make it make music making more accessible in the grand scheme. I think one change
we're definitely seeing is that making music directly in your web browser is something that has
been very popular over the past few years in particular because it just plays very well with that
accessibility theme which is why we are also working on a web browser based version of FL Studio
which is right now in a public beta state so you can already check it out on a FL.Studio if you
want to. Good luck. Yep, fun. It's also fully free right now so no strings attached and that is
definitely one of the paradigm shifts that we are seeing and that we also have to adhere to like
that's something that we believe we also need and want to go because this is where people will
start making music tomorrow. They already do today and that's where we want FL Studio to be present.
Same goes for mobile which is why we have a mobile version of FL Studio since a couple of years
as well which is very very successful. It's in particular successful in countries where people
for example don't have access to a computer so India is for example the largest country in regards
to FL Studio mobile users where people usually only have a budget Android phone and the only
thing they can make music on is using FL Studio mobile on that phone. The other side we already
obviously discussed at the beginning here is how generative AI will shape the expectations and
the behaviors of people coming into music making and I believe it will massively because like like
we already said like there's so many more people streaming into making music through generative AI
tools today and even though they are open to learn the tools and all the things that you have to
to make music than a mobile hand there's a general expectation that some shape or form of
generativeness or smartness in the background is also always available before they get stuck so
that is something that we are also investing into to basically respond to that expectation accordingly
so if somebody really gets stuck that they don't have to get unstuck necessarily by themselves
but that there's something in the background there that assists them to take the next step. So I
think web and generative AI I think the two things that will shape how people get into music making
very much in the next few years. Yeah I think it's building a bridge for the new type of users that
are coming in. I think fruity loops many years ago was also responsible for bringing in a lot of
new kits into music making that probably then struggle to use platform like Pro Tools at the time
perhaps so we see it also back to our mission as our kind of duty to help those people not come in
and say this is vastly different to what I just experienced when I prompted a track but there's a
way to get what I've created into the software go from there and kind of keep going.
It's interesting you mentioned it like one of the famous the famous starting point or if you've
used FL Studio is that you're presented with the sequencer and you can sort of hit play and
randomize it and all of a sudden you've got a beat and it's yours and it's new and you can keep
doing it until you get it is that I presume there's been discussions about whether there is a
version of that which is like a prompt like you open it the first thing is tell me what kind of
thing you want to listen to with words and or hum it in and we'll spin that up and you can go
from there is that something is that they're kind of easy entry workflow you see happening
in the future. Frankly speaking I mean we are debating about this a lot of course I think
ultimately we believe that text is probably not the ideal way to start getting into making music
because frankly many people are just missing the the right vocabulary to describe what they're
listening to they can maybe hum it and they can think about it and they can talk about the emotion
that maybe creates but really describing to a system what they want to hear is actually very
hard I think what we believe in as a more effective way is to allow people to for example put
given audio input as as a starting point so basically start like many people start making music
because of the music they like to listen to in the first place so if you allow people to go
from that as a starting point to get into figuring out who they want to be as a music producer we
believe it's maybe slightly more effective way and for that I think starting with audio rather
than describing exactly what you want to hear seems to be more effective and more fun nobody
likes to type in like into an empty text field at the end of the day. I think that's why music
journalism is still around because I think people people describing music I think is a real craft
right I think like it's it's not the perfect entry entry method because it's also flawed but
we're a feature in this step sequencer since about a year now called loop starter which basically
pulls loops from our loop library and creates like eight to 16 bar loop based on those samples that
give you a real starting point where you can then like take away those those loops or run like
a randomizer to pull in new loops and they are organized by genre so by now we have I don't know
12 different genres in there and that's a good starting point if you say I want to create like
trap or I want to create Amapiano I have a starting point in that specific genre that I can go
from there and you can see that you could refine that kind of further down from that starting point
so it's a good point isn't it which which is if you start with the generative point it you are
this is going to be one of those things that people will fall on one side of the argument or the
other but you can say it's kind of is it create I'm not asking you to answer this is it creative or not
because it's if you're starting with pushing buttons and moving things around you are creating music
in a very light way you are moving that you are making these non verbal non uh these decisions
to make stuff but if you start a step removed from that by typing it's it doesn't feel the same
and perhaps you're not learning anything you're learning how to become a better prompt or and
that's perhaps not making music um I'll leave the listness to fight that one out on their own um
speaking of anti establishment opinions um you've you F.O. Studio does have this kind of this
big community we spoke about it's grassroots it is a little bit anti establishment in the sense of
it's not you it's it's it's it's I'm sure you get on very well with all the people who work at
all these other uh doors but um it's it's sort of it's position is a different product
and at the same time it's huge it's successful the charts around the world of full of songs that are
made in F.O. Studio how do you maintain that balance like you said it was good early to have the
ambition like you can start at the bottom of this and have a huge hit up here how do you not
become the thing that you don't want to be if you see what I mean I think those two things are not
usually exclusive right because I think as you said it yourself right now I think it's um it's
the kind of started from the bottom now we're here kind of mentality that I think is very much
embedded also um within the community I think the kind of anti um establishment that you describe I
think is also maybe fostered by the by the different appeal of F.O. Studio I mean if you look at our
brand for example right it doesn't take itself too seriously right our um brand logo for many years
is a fruit um of unknown origin um people debate about what it what it is exactly and it's just a more
kind of I think fun way to approach your creative tool because at the end of the day it is not
accounting software right it is software to make music and have fun with and that's really
what it should express so I think there's a lot of kind of tongue in cheekness also within the
community in a certain sense of humor that we probably share very much so because the community
and the developers were and still are one of the same thing right it's the same kind of group of
people if you will and um I don't think it's um it's a problem with somebody from the community
quote unquote makes it right it's more celebrated as well one of us right has has gone all the way
and has got to build what number one hit does that mean you have a lot of people working you know
who are at F.O. Studio who are sort of logged into the F.O. Studio Reddit the subreddit and
interactive and reading is it is it really that sort of are you connected to that level yeah I think
I think the the F.O. Studio forum is certainly the place where like everybody in the company especially
the developers hang out where um especially you know new features feedback um gets debated very um
hotly I would say since 2020 years um but yeah certainly like Robert and myself and many others in
the company are hanging out also in and all the other places in the subreddit um in the discord
groups that exist because it's I mean it's the best kind of feedback you can get directly from
the community and understand what's going on here's a good use case of AI one of our team members
has built like a Reddit bot where every day in our google chat you get a kind of reddit daily
summary of the subreddit so you kind of see what's what's going on and what's bubbling up in
the community so yeah we try to stay very very close um to that and how do you maintain that balance
this is a a more there's life's big questions right but how do you maintain the balance between
giving them what they want and also showing leadership and giving them what they do
don't know they want. Everybody wants to answer the question all at once. I think it's a balance,
right? I think if you just listen to the core user base and the community, I think we are small
team. We can't make everybody happy at all times, right? We can't. The backlog of feature requests
that we get from the community and the ones that we have put up on ourselves also on top of that,
that's a very long list of feature ideas and improvements and quality of life improvements and
workflow improvements in the software. So we have to buy choice and by definition of having a
limited resource, which is our team, and we have to kind of make some choices. And I think we generally
try to do is to strike a really good balance here on the one side, as we talked about with our
business model of lifetime free updates. We want to and have to make sure that all the new 15-year
kits that are starting to make music with FL Studio that we ease their journey into that product.
And we spend quite some effort on features that help them, especially now where you have a new
generation of people coming, maybe from generative tools to ease their way into the product. While on
the other side, making sure that the folks that have been with us for a long time that have many
more specific requests, maybe that are less useful to a beginner that we also work through those.
Oftentimes, what you find though is if you really develop a feature in a way that it's just
helpful for your music process, it actually helps both sides. The more professional user that is
maybe looking more for speed or inspiration when they hit writer's block versus the beginner that
does not yet know exactly what they want. I think we've got a couple of those very kind of positive
examples, but obviously you can't achieve that with everything you do. Yeah, I would also say you
usually try to just follow where the community guides us for many of the priorities that we set
ourselves. The one thing we always are keeping in mind is that the community itself has a
survivorship bias, right? So only the ones who actually made it are in the community like the ones
who failed because it's too complicated or wasn't for them, they will never show up in that
community. So we basically are rather trying to balance figuring out how to reach the voice of
those who maybe failed making music and try to understand why that is and how we can make sure that
they ultimately can become part of the community. So I think it's more about trying to represent
like the broad user base that we have in a fair way than prioritizing like our own little agenda
versus what the people tell us we should do. Usually we try to do what the people tell us we
should do. It's just making sure that we hear everybody's voice. Yeah, okay. Final couple of
questions then. You've both been at FO Studio for about the same time, but four five years I think.
So with that in mind, and if you look forward five years and excluding, I'm going to say boring
things like numbers and download metrics and things like that. And what are the milestones that
you're going to judge the success of what of the platform by? So look what in five years would you
say, oh yeah, that I've moved forward in the right way and I'm measuring it against this.
Yeah, I can start. I think there's obviously more specific product milestones that maybe not
all we want to discuss here openly today, but I think if it's like it's 2030 or 2031,
right? And we look at FO Studio and kind of where does it sit? I think to me, I think a lot about,
is it the most relevant platform for music makers to come and get started? You know, wherever they
might come from, I mean, the very positive thing right now is that it seems that the new technology
is helping to bring in a lot of more people into gaining the confidence to make music. So we want to
make sure that those people find a home with FO Studio. That's I think number one for us. And
that might have very different manifestations from a kind of product perspective, right? We talked
for example about the web version of of FL Studio. That might be more the place where people start
to make music in a more, let's say, casual way before they go further into their journey to go
to the FL Studio desktop version, for example. But ultimately, I think, you know, I would judge it by
both the relevance of our platform and the success that people have, however they define it for
themselves on that platform, which might have to do with I make it to the billboard charts and the
top 10. Or I have a fantastic community of like many people that I can interact with that I get
feedback and encouragement on my music with. And I can express myself creatively.
Yeah, just just to add here, I think to boil it down, what is really important for us. And for
me is that in a couple of years from now, we basically have even more people that are young,
that want to get into making music start with FL Studio and just find a lot of joy in the process
of making music. I think everything else, like the number one hits and the success and all that,
I think that that follows from that. But making sure that music production being involved creatively
with music is even more popular than it is today. I think that's our item.
Okay. And well, actual final question. We've talked a lot about the business of music and all
the stuff around it. But I'm interested in your actual musical interests yourself. So the same
question for both of you. It's another one of those impossible questions. If you could only play one
song for the rest of your life, what would it be? Which is a roundabout way of saying what is your
favorite song? But often people approach this by trying to find value for money. This is a very
long song. I'm willing to open this out into an album, a favorite album as well.
I can start. Okay. So I think my forever song would be Amor Bishop Rodin by Boards of Canada.
Ah, okay. Now, I'm a big Boards of Canada fan, as well. Why? Why? I mean, it's a great song,
but why? Yeah, I think it just scratches in itch that never stops itching. Yes.
So, yeah, no, it's just something that can bring me into a mental state that I really like being in.
Yeah, I think you put your finger on the Boards of Canada music. What it brings?
A side question. What did you think of the recent new album, The Boards of Canada album?
I really enjoyed it, but I think maybe I would have wished they went a little bit more experimental,
and it sounds very much like Boards of Canada, which is nice, but could have done the same
album maybe 15 years ago. Yes. You wouldn't have sung differently. But you enjoyed it all the
same. It was still a good album. Yeah, sometimes the cooking the same meal is the right thing to do.
Hey, although it was quite doomy as well. I found it was a bit dark, reflect the world maybe.
Okay, I've got more time to think about this. I'm going to go with Radiohead, everything in
its right place. Okay. A bit more of a mainstream choice. Why, though, because it reminds me of
discovering Radiohead as kind of the perfect blend of my interest in like indie rock music and
electronic music in a formative time of my life. Right. And playing the remix of that song as a
DJ many times over and being very well received on that course. Yes. Okay, so this was about what,
you're 2000? Yeah, two thousand. And can you tell us about your DJing briefly about your
sort of experience of that? Of that song, particularly. Well, yes, it's that I've dropping that
song into your set. It was a sound cloud download at the time. It uses the intro, the very famous
intro of that song after very long kind of rise in that song. And it's just such a relief of
joy. So it always worked on a dancewear, a particular particular hour. What was the particular
hour? Was it we're talking 4 a.m.? I'm talking about the Berlin club scene and like the 2000s.
So it's probably even a little bit lighter than that. Well, maybe maybe five, maybe five a.m.
It's about the right time. Okay, excellent. Great. Well, thank you that I'll put links to both
of these songs beneath the podcast and people can plug into your vibe immediately afterwards.
Thanks a lot to both of you for arranging this great studio that we're in today. As you can hear,
folks, we all sound very resonant and delightful. And that's because we're in this fabulous studio,
do you want to just explain where we are? We are at Bunman's Productions, which is a podcast
company from Germany, which no nepotism here, but my wife works here as a head of production,
Shala Tohanna. And she so graciously organized for us to be here today. Yes, thank you.
Thank you very much. It's a fabulous studio and it's been very nice to do an interview for a
change over a table. So thanks everyone. And if people listening and they should visit one place
online to connect to the FL studio, what should they go? I think they should go because it's also
easy to remember. FL.Studio is the public beta version of our web version of FL studio,
which yeah, still in beta. We're still working on it. But we are very much looking for feedback
of users on that platform that just sign up. It's free for now. And we'd love to kind of hear what
what you think. Great. I have tried it and it is good fun. I can confirm. That's my very short
and thank you. By the way, both Robert and Konstantin, if you
that useful to listen to, please do share the podcast on with someone else who you think will
get something out of it. And if you want to get in touch with me, I would love to hear from you.
You can email me on
[email protected]. We also have a free weekly email called The Knowledge,
which runs up bits and pieces of all the various analysis news and insight from across marked
music allies array of services. So sign up and impress your boss links are in the description to
the podcast, as always, to the music, to Apple Studio and to that email, as ever. Okay, thanks for
listening. They have been Robert and Constantin. Thank you again. I've been Joe Sparrow and until
next time farewell.
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