Who Are You At Neutone?

Hello, I’m Nao Tokui, the CEO and one of the founders of Neutone. I earned my Ph.D. in computer science in the early 2000s and founded an AI and Creativity Lab called Qosmo in 2009. Neutone began as an internal project of Qosmo in 2022. In addition to this, I’m a DJ and electronic music producer who loves surfing, beer, and coffee!

 

What Do You Work On?

Like any other CEO, I do everything to lead the team and projects. Additionally, I personally use Neutone products for my own music production to understand their ideal use cases. I’m also the go-to person for organizing company parties and trips🍺 🏄 🥳

 

 

 

Why Are You Doing This?

My first conference paper, published in 2000, focused on a music-making tool based on evolutionary computation and neural networks. Around the same time, I began DJing and creating music. Using my own AI music tools, I released a few vinyl records and one album. It was long before the deep learning revolution. Since then, my passion and mission have been to create AI-powered tools for musicians and artists.

 

 

What do you hope Neutone Morpho offers artists/musicians?

Neutone Morpho is not designed to imitate or reproduce existing music, nor to replace musicians. It’s a versatile tool you can use, or even “misuse”, to create something new. This plugin may pleasantly surprise you with the unique sound textures that can only be created with this plugin.

I brought together my visions and ideas and published a book in Japanese in 2021. An updated English version was recently released in December 2023, titled “Surfing human creativity with AI — A user’s guide.”

 

 

What’s next in store?!

Since beginning my research, I’ve assisted and collaborated with talented artists using my AI tools. Nujabes, the late renowned hip-hop producer, was the first artist I collaborated with. Currently, I’m working with artists such as BIGYUKI. I am eager to engage in more collaborations like these to help artists bring new music to the world with Neutone products.

 

What are you listening to these days? 🎧

I’ve been a dedicated Spotify user due to my diverse music taste, which ranges from jazz and hip-hop to ambient. But, I noticed that I couldn’t recall the songs I’d listened to because the process was too effortless. So, I quit using Spotify and restarted buying and collecting CDs for home listening, as well as vinyl records for my DJ set. My wife is not happy about it, but I truly enjoy the inconvenience of physical media.