Sony CSL Paris develops technology for AI-assisted music production. The goal is not to replace musicians, but to provide them with better tools to be more efficient in realizing their creative ideas. DrumNet is based on an artificial neural network which learns rhythmic relationships between different instruments and encodes these relationships in a 16-dimensional style space. A similar example is the Logic Pro X Drummer, allowing the user to specify the playing style by navigating a two-dimensional space. The difference of DrumNet to the Logic Pro X Drummer, however, is that it dynamically adapts to the existing music.

We already knew AIs could write jazz and death metal tracks on their own, and even create infinite remixes of others' songs. Now, Sony has created an AI that can collaborate with other musicians, producing drum beats for songs in a variety of genres that you can listen to here -- making it the latest example of AI's ability to tap into its musical side. The Sony researchers calls the AI DrumNet, and according to a paper published on the preprint server arXiv, they trained it using 665 pop, rock, and electro songs, each featuring bass, kick drum, and snare drum tracks. After this training, the AI drummer could produce its own "musically plausible" kick drum beat for a song based on the other instruments in the track. The tracks DrumNet produces aren't anywhere near as creative as Keith Moon's or Questlove's, but they don't seem wildly out of place either, based on the examples shared by Sony.