Mobily Case Study: Bespoke Music Composition vs AI Music Production in Dubai

How to get the best out of an Audio Production Studio in Dubai. Or the ‘Juan Carlos Effect’

Creating a piece of music for your commercial can be affected in one of two ways. You could brief a composer at an audio production house in Dubai, give the composer a water-tight brief, a few references as well and let the magic happen. Or,you can use an AI platform like Suno and hope for something interesting to be generated, sooner rather than later.

Besides the client having an outright preference for either direction, the choice of approach would almost certainly depend on the amount of time you have for the project and also the financial resources that are available to execute it. Less time, less money and AI is looking like the right way to go. A little bit more time and money and getting a bespoke composition is definitely on the table. Provided you have the right audio post production house in Dubai as a partner.

The Challenge: A Story That Jumps Genres

So, what if you had a more complicated project. One that had snippets of different genres of music that needed to be woven together in a sixty second story? One that jumps from ‘Mexican Fiesta’ to a Latin Love ballad to a spy thriller soundtrack!!! With a few transitions thrown in for good measure. What does one do? And not to mention, the clock is ticking.

This is exactly the conundrum that we at Mango Jam Studios, an audio post production company in Dubai, faced while working on the ‘Juan Carlos’ film for Mobily. DejaVu, the production house, sent us a fun story with many acts that moved quickly before arriving at the brand resolution.

Thanks to a client who knew what they wanted, the brief we received was super detailed with a lot of references. All that was left was for the Mango Jammers to execute things, quickly and efficiently. Cause the deadline was like the proverbial – ‘need it yesterday!!’

Breaking Down the Brief: Human vs. AI

Our first reaction was to panic. Quite the norm given the task at hand. I mean there’s quite a bit of composition to do!! And all in one day!!! But that lasted for just about 2 minutes. Then the years of experience kicked in. You start breaking down the story into individual segments. This allows you to understand the flow of the film. And to figure out what areas would need a 100% human intervention and what we could leave to the AI Gods to help us with. Given the time constraint.

The theme – definitely something we want to compose. Getting the right musical melody and flow. That’s a human instinct and would be something the composer would tackle 100%. Then the variations of the main theme could do with a little AI help. Depending on the results we could generate, we would decide whether all ofthe AI track was to be used or maybe just some instruments or vocalizations. AI for us at Mango Jam Studio, is more a tool to inspire and help with the production process.

Crafting the Main Theme

So, getting the main theme figured out took the most time. It had too. Everything else would spring-board of this. So we had to get it just right. And as it had to have a Mexican flavour, a little research into Mexican fiesta music was also needed. But once we had the bare bones in the hands of our skilled music composer, the fully fleshed out theme took just a few moments. And we had the first and most important piece of the puzzle.

Now it was on to the musical variations. The challenge was to ensure that the music pieces though different, felt like parts of the same jig-saw puzzle. There was a storyline that the audio had to follow. And though the scenes moved rapidly, the audio-scape had to jolt the listener at the right moment and blend seamlessly at others. And we were rapidly running out of time. A one-day turnaround for a job of this magnitude, seems impossible. Well, challenge accepted!

Where AI Stepped In

And this is where, AI becomes the perfect tool, to try out and find interesting solutions, quickly. All it needs is a skilled audio professional who knows how to get the best out of the platform. And at Mango Jam Studios we have just the right personnel for this kind of a job.

A few prompts, some key details and the theme we had created as a reference, that’s all it took for starters. Suno did the rest. Quite frankly, not everything generated was interesting at first. But gradually with a bit of massaging we got some excellent results.

A few of the transition tracks were good to go as is. The other musical variations, needed rearrangements and some additional music production. AI helped to speed up the process for sure. Which was a huge plus given the paucity of time. It inspired musical directions, even generated certain instrumental arrangements that could be used to flesh out the tracks. But we still needed the human touch to make everything shine and come together like it should.

The Result

Bottomline, the deadline was met. The client was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Sure, there was feedback and some revisions requested. But given the enormity of the challenge, a one day turn-around with minimal feedback, in our books – that was a win.

And it required creative genius, adaptability and knowledge in the process of an AI tool. All of which, having the right audio production collaborator in Dubai, can offer you. From understating the brief, accepting the client’s vision, to finding effective solutions within the cost and time factor, it’s what makes for a grand collaboration and an effective communication piece.

So in essence what Juan Carlos taught us, is that it doesn’t have to be bespoke only or just AI when it comes to music composition for a commercial. It depends totally on the task at hand. And as in the case of Juan Carlos, sometimes, a bit of both can help deliver the goods. As long as you have the smarts to figure out the pieces of the puzzle and bring them together using your skill sets and the right tools.