As for the Songsmith itself, it doesn’t look like MS is marketing it toward anyone with even a little knowledge of modern music production anyhow–but maybe it’ll help a few people discover something in themselves and make them want to move into things bigger and better and more creatively demanding. Or maybe it’d be fun at parties as an alternative to old-fashioned karaoke? And who knows, maybe its ripe for abuse: what does it do when you feed it noise and distortion, and does it sound cool when you do? ha…

Look at algorithmically generated music, like the earlier Eno Koan experiments (and more recently, spore). Is it any less musical because a human made the program that allowed them to automate various parameters?

And by the way, automation isn’t cheating. It frees up human cycles so we can get on to frontiers which haven’t been sequenced yet. Korg Karma is a fantastic example of this.

What I care about in the end: do I like it? If so, then it’s music. Otherwise, some might call it… NOISE. :D

Do you at least make the distinction between using loops as part of your music and using loops exclusively?

I use loops, but I also create them myself (and then use them later) as part of my songs. That to me is like playing a riff on your guitar, and then later using that in another song.

Anyway, like I said we’re not going to agree on the matter. I’m sorry if I offended you, it was not my intention.

When you don’t play an instrument and rely on auto-magical ways to create it, for example like WHEN YOU USE LOOPS!!!

How dare you look down on others for the exact same thing you do yourself, you hypocrite.

Isn’t the guy using a macbook pro? In a Microsoft Ad? Maybe it’s a Vaio.