Audio Hacking

How AI Was Used to Reconstruct a Lost Music Project From an MP3

Written by: CDTXYN

Access Denied.

That was my first MacBook Pro.

Despite the password, it was still the wrong one. I probably changed it at the last minute before my current machine showed up.

Yeah, I know. Dummy.

The only reason I went after it was because of an old GarageBand file. Surprisingly, I could not find it on any backup drive I had. Eventually, I was looking at the ugly conclusion that the track I created six years ago only existed as an MP3. That track was called Signal.

Since I had the finished recording, I could listen to it and try to recall all the pieces of how I made it. But the GarageBand session included effects, automation, MIDI data, and a complex arrangement that I couldn’t fully render by ear alone.

Normally, at this point, I would have called it quits and dealt with the inevitable.

Then I had a funny idea: what if a large language model could analyze the track and figure out what was done.

Therefore, it was no longer a case of recovering a track. Instead, it was a matter of reverse-engineering an audio file.