Google's MusicLM makes you a producer right now

Last edition was offbeat. Took a different approach from the rest, and the feedback was incredible. We never wanted to be another AI newsletter. We’re keen on focusing on the journey of creator-preneurs, whether that’s being a youtuber or an indiehacker. If you have thoughts or comments, feel free to reach out. If you’re finding this useful, great. It’s not free. We have an unspoken agreement which is to share this newsletter with your friends. Your colleagues. Your kids. Sharing is caring and is what keeps it going from week to week.

• 🎹 Google’s MusicLM. You’re the producer now.

• 📊 ChatGPT vs Google, where we at?

• 🪨 Creator Economy, by Rolling Stones

• 🌉 DragGAN - click and drag your photos and AI does the rest

• 🛠️ Founders Toolbox: 2 tools to help you rule the world

• 📷 A destination you should probably travel to once you leave your screen brought to you by an image that is not AI

Estimated read time: 8 minutes

Have you heard of Google’s MusicLM yet? If not head over to their AI Test kitchen where you get to play with new toys. This week I became a music producer by launching my first beat. Check it here and press play. The prompt was “winter afternoon, cup of tea, smooth vibes, slow tempo”.

You know what? It’s on the house, feel free to take the hook and roll with it royalty free.

You can be as specific or as generic as you want in the prompt and it will do the rest. What you can’t do is name artists or specify vocals - that’s where it gets dicey in terms of copyright.

Apple TV has a new-ish show called Silo. In order to get people hyped about the show, Apple TV did something that no big production house has done before: they uploaded the entire first episode to Twitter.

This is a bold move for a few reasons. First, Twitter is not a traditional video platform. It's not designed for watching long-form content like TV shows. Second, you can't cast from Twitter. This means that if you want to watch the episode on your TV, you have to watch it on your phone or computer and then mirror it to your TV.

But Apple TV doesn't seem to care about these limitations. They know that Twitter is a popular platform with a large audience, and they're willing to experiment with new ways to reach that audience. This is a refreshing approach in a world where most big companies are content to play it safe.

I'm curious to see how this experiment plays out. Will people be willing to watch an entire TV episode on Twitter? Or will they be turned off by the inconvenience of not being able to cast? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: Apple TV is not afraid to break the rules, and that's something I can appreciate.

Many of you have used ChatGPT by now, to the point of where I actually don’t enjoy talking about ChatGPT specifically anymore. But I do love myself a good comparison. Below are statistics from SimilarWeb for ChatGPT vs Googe’s Bard. Surprise: ChatGPT has more usage than Bard.
It’s important to know that Google removed the waitlist as of May 10th but it’s still not available in Canada and a few other countries whom are more protective of their privacy laws. While I do believe ChatGPT is overall superior due to their introduction of plug-ins, I do think Bard still has its own use cases as its directly connected to the web. If you’re in a country that has it blocked (i.e, Canada), you can use a VPN.

Last edition was a special one. We solely focused on the creator economy as there was a lot of built up buzz happening and I’ve been saving those snippets for some time. This week, the rolling stone has made an incredible prediction which I whole-heartedly believe (you would do if you saw the numbers from the last edition).

The article covers some of our all time favourites growing up (or just mine), such as Jessica Alba. When she took her company (Honest) public, she had a $130m stake. 

The Nelk boys were demonetized at one point by Youtube for breaking advertising guidelines and in response, they launched a series of brands leading them to bringing in $70M in revenue in 2020 alone.

Now, I don’t entirely love every youtuber who’s turned into a businessman (even though I respect the hustle) but I especially was surprised when my team of all team’s dumped Gatorade and signed with a new Sports drink. The very sports drink that I covered in the last edition.

As of next season, Prime will be the “official hydration drink” of FC Barcelona. Love FC Barcelona, don’t entirely love Prime but it is what it is. Congrats to Logan and KSI.

DragGAN has just hit the world. DragGAN is an “Interactive Point-based Manipulation on the Generative Image Manifold”. What that means is that you can click and drag points of your image and generatively manipulate them with AI. Sounds really difficult but boy is it easy. Check it out below! Link for the tool is in the toolbox further below.

The research team wrote: "Imagine being able to just "drag" any point of an image to exactly where you want it to be. That's what we're aiming to achieve with our new method, which we call DragGAN."

Founders’ Toolbox: A Spotlight

Every week, I play with dozens and dozens of new tools and I’ll derive a few that are worthy of your experimentation.

• Google’s Music LM - Describe a beat and watch it come to life.

• DragGAN - click and drag your and AI does the rest

The Renegade Explorer

I did 2.2 million steps around the globe over the last year with a backpack full of camera gear, exploring some amazing off-the-beaten-path locations along the way. As we all know, life can be overwhelming at times, and it's important to take a break and nurture our sense of curiosity. Each week I feature a breathtaking destination alongside some beautiful photography that will inspire your next adventure.

This was a 5 day motorcycle trip along the Border of China.

The winding road unveils a vista of verdant mountains and undulating rice fields, terraced into the hills like patches of jade against emerald slopes. From the precipitous curves, a panoramic scene reveals - valley bottoms dotted with tiny villages beside rivers that glitter in the afternoon sun.

The pathway wends through lush forests, alongside rushing streams that cascade over ancient boulders. On each bend, another valley opens up, patrolled by water buffalo and inhabited by the murmur of village life.

The fragrant smoke of cooking fires drifts up from modest houses, a tableau of rural simplicity and harmony with the land. The track becomes a ribbon of asphalt, racing beside rivers coursing white over rounded stones.

Now through tunnels hewn from the mountainside, the road cuts a swath through primordially ancient rock. Emerging onto a summit, the vista finally reveals itself - a dizzying landscape of plunging valleys, terraced rice paddies clustered around ribbon-like settlements over by the timeless gaze of snow-capped peaks.