Midnatt | How HYBE utilizes artificial intelligence

A few days ago, HYBE unveiled a new project called 'midnatt'. It's a fusion of music and technology that's part of Project L, which Chairman Sihyuk Bang revealed during an interview with Billboard Magazine. Midnatt debuted with the song "Masquerade". 

Midnat is the 'other self' of Eight's Lee hyun, who has been active as a 'ballad singer,' but Shin Young-jae, CEO of Big Hit Music, said, “'Project L' is a project that uses technology to newly expand the colors of the artist named Hyunhyun, and will show a different course from the existing Lee hyun. He will express his musical message in the form of actively utilizing technology while making trendy music outside of the existing framework.”

Music and choreography: Hitchhiker and Cha Jin-Yup

The song was produced by Hitchhiker. Hitchhiker (real name: Choi Jin-woo) was a member of the band Rollercoaster under the name "Zinoo" with Lee Sang-soon and Cho Won-sun, and has worked as a K-pop composer for Brown Eyed Girls' "Abracadabra," f(x)'s "Ice Cream" and "Pinocchio," and as a co-producer on Mongoose's "Cosmic Dancer".

His 2014 solo song "eleven" garnered over 1 million YouTube views in less than a month, reaching #3 in the US and #4 worldwide on Spotify. He is also known for producing his own music video for the song, which was nominated for Best Music Video at the Vienna Independent Film Festival. He served as an executive producer for SM Entertainment's EDM label ScreaM Records and is currently a member of HYBE IM.

The choreography is by contemporary dancer Cha Jin-yup. Cha choreographed the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and made a strong impression with "Axis of Time," among other performances. He is the head of the artist group Collective A, which he founded in 2012 and continues to collaborate in various fields. 

AI Techniques: Supertons and Giantsteps

Midnatt's "Masquerade" utilized four technologies. SuperTone, an A.I. voice technology startup acquired by HYBE, is used for multilingual pronunciation correction and voice designing, and you can select Vietnamese, English, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese languages in the YouTube music video's settings. The female vocalist in the middle of the video was created using Voice Design, which is a female voice based on Hyun's voice.

The music video was created in collaboration with Giantstep, which used Chroma and LED-based extended reality (XR) systems and previsual technology to create the music video in virtual space and real-time rendering. The texture of the video looks like a video created with artificial intelligence tools from the internet community. It actively embraces the internet meme of the moving subject being crushed and turns it into its own aesthetic. Personally, I find this fascinating.

Giantstep is a VFX company that works with NAVER, Kakao, Line Friends, Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Meta, Netflix, Disney, and more. Their work includes BTS's TinyTan content, AESPA's storytelling content, and woo!ah!'s "Danger" XR music video. 

HYBE Solutions: HYBE IM and Supertone

The 'Midnatt' project is a collaboration between Big Hit Records, HYBE IM, AI startup Superton, and VFX company Giantstep. Of these, HYBE IM and Superton are part of Hive's business structure, called HYBE Solutions. 

Here's a description of HYBE I.M. and Supertone from the HYBE website. Emphasis is my own.  

• HYBE IM is expanding the boundaries of HYBE's entertainment area by developing games that can colorfully enjoy entertainment life and publishing businesses that can interact with game users around the world. By combining HYBE IM's advanced interactive media technology with the music, artists, and entertainment elements that are the essence of HYBE, we create synergy and create a variety of content and services that expand new perspectives and experiences.

• Supertone is an AI audio technology company that empowers creators to create more immersive content in innovative ways. Supertone's AI-based audio solutions aim to change the paradigm of the creative process by generating hyper-realistic voices that can sing and act, and we want to be part of the journey from the moment a sound is born to reaching fans. We are expanding the application of AI technology from music to various contents such as movies, animation, and metaverse, and we are exploring a future where creators and artists can get closer to their fans by breaking down communication boundaries such as age, gender, language, and borders.
   

HYBE's business areas are defined by labels, solutions, and platforms. This structure, revealed in our March 2021 rebranding presentation, defines Hive's business, and while the details of each division have changed, the overall direction hasn't. Here's a redefinition of each section based on its "business role 

This structure is possible when we define music as content. The existing music industry creates a value chain through the management of artists, the rights to sound recordings, and the sale of music. However, HYBE I.M. seems to be aiming to break out of this flat structure. It manages the value derived from content production and develops services to create a value chain for the content business. When these three are organically connected, it creates what HYBE thinks is a "business model for music. 

How technology is solving the music industry's problems

The problem with the music industry right now is that music has become mundane and too common. What does this mean? Like any other business, the music industry used to be very simple. Successful songs made successful artists, who then capitalized on their fame. Record sales, performance revenue, and merchandise sales created a value chain. The lifespan of a hit song was a matter of months at best, decades at worst. That's not the case today. The lifespan of a hit song has become too short. Too many artists are making their debut. And the distribution channels for music have become more complex. 

Increasing complexity makes the music business increasingly unlikely to succeed. The entertainment industry has never been predictable, but it is expected to become increasingly so in the future. This is where fan communities come into play, and K-pop has evolved to incorporate them into its business structure. In the process, K-pop's fan community is often ambivalent or contradictory to the promoters and artists, and this imbalance is one of the unique characteristics of K-pop.

However, at its core, the K-pop industry attempts to channel this growing creative uncertainty into fandom and services. But the core of music is the artist, not the fan. This is where I think a lot of opinions will diverge, but let's save that for another time. If you pay attention to Hive, it seems that from the agency's point of view, it's as much about how to develop the creative as it is about finding the artist, and they seem to believe that technology can solve this problem.

Will K-Pop Revolutionize the Music Industry? (feat. Toa Dunn)

I saw this on Toa Dunne's LinkedIn when the video was released. Toa Dunne is the Executive Director of Music at Riot Games, where he produced music for K/DA and Arcane. He had this to say about Midnatt.

"Will K-pop revolutionize the music industry?"

I think this question is more important than things like K-pop's sustainability or global success. How can technology help artists, and what can we expect when it works as an internal department rather than a way for music companies to collaborate with outside tech companies? How can artificial intelligence help artists?

We don't know the answer right now, but at least HYBE seems to be thinking about handling new technologies like AI with more sensitivity. Trying to solve the problem of "scaling the business" facing the music industry through the tools of technology, without compromising the essence of the music industry - artists and creatives.

This is why I think Midnatt's debut is so important.