An independent musician in the music industry in 2025, based on data up to October 2023. Here are seven crucial devices that every DIY artist must incorporate into their workflow this year.

DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations)

Every music production setup has a foundation, and that foundation is a DAW. There are many DAWs available in 2025, and each of them may serve a different type of need:

Ableton Live 12: Famous for its easy-to-use Session View and Arrangement View, Ableton Live 12 has built-in live performance and studio recording integration. It brings improved MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) support and a new Clip View so songwriters will have more expressive potential.

FL Studio 25: With an interface designed for beatmakers and electronic music producers, FL Studio 25 features a user-friendly layout, a powerful piano roll, and lifetime free updates for a long-term software option.

Logic Pro 11: Logic Pro 11, available only on macOS and iPadOS, provides an extensive range of advanced tools for spatial audio, extensive virtual instruments, and a designed experience for novice and pro users.

Tools For Generating Music Using AI

AI has made great progress toward writing music:

YouTube’s Music Assistant: This AI-powered tool enables creators to create personalized, royalty-free background music based on descriptive prompts. It is especially helpful for content creators who need rapid and inspired soundtracks that won’t be flagged for copyright issues.

Guitar Amp Modeling Hardware

For guitarists who are looking to achieve vintage tones without the weight of most other gear:

Amp modelers and profilers: Things like Fractal Audio, Line 6, Neural DSP, and Kemper allow musicians to digitally replicate classic amplifier sounds. Now, you have affordable, high-end tones for your live performance and studio recordings without the expensive and heavy gear.

Music Distribution Platforms

To which I say this, getting your music on primary streaming services is crucial, so:

GYROstream: This Australian-based service helps indie musicians distribute their music to Spotify and Apple Music. In addition to distribution, GYROstream provides publicist, radio playlisting, and digital marketing services, making it a one-stop shop for artists looking to extend their reach.

Marketing and Promotion Tools

You are only as good as your marketing, promoting your tunes.

Mailchimp: An email marketing platform that allows artists to communicate directly with fans via newsletters and updates.

Content Studios: A social media management tool that allows scheduling and monitoring of posts across various platforms, ensuring a consistent online presence.

Linktree: One link to link them all consolidates multiple links into a common page that can be embedded directly into a social platform, making it easier for fans to access music, merchandise, and social profiles.

Collaboration and File Sharing Tools

Collaboration is also an essential part of making music:

Google Drive and Dropbox: These cloud storage services make it easy to share project files, stems, and mixes, aiding remote collaboration between artists, producers, and engineers.

Slack: A messaging app for teams that makes it easy to talk with colleagues and share files, essentially bringing a well-done text chat to the office.

Music Licensing Platforms

There are a few ways you could monetize your music through licensing:

Pond5, AudioJungle, Artlist. These websites provide marketplaces for artists to license their music for films, commercials, and other media projects. This generates revenue for musicians and exposure to new audiences by uploading tracks to these services.

By 2025, the DIY musicians’ toolkit will be overflowing with resources that can help them not only write and record music but also launch and promote it. As a result, artists have more options than ever to exercise creative freedom, engage with broader fan bases, and forge sustainable careers according to their wishes.

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The users of DeepSeek AI on March 4, 2025, found themselves with an unexplained and vexing message, “Server is temporarily unavailable.” The outage has sparked questions among many, if DeepSeek opposes only temporary server problems, or if the model hides a greater issue. Technical problems are part of the growing pains, or is DeepSeek tired of the fighting in the Ai field? Check out this article: Why Artists Should Submit Their Music Directly to Honk Magazine

DeepSeek AI has emerged as a challenger in the space, alongside heavyweights such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini. DeepSeek was introduced as an alternative to mainstream AI models, with an emphasis on deep-learning capabilities and the ability to operate across multiple languages.

But server outages can be a disastrous hindrance, especially in an industry where reliability is key. In the case where users face repeated downtime, they will gravitate towards a more stable alternative.

DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT — How Do They Stack Up?

Now that DeepSeek is down, we get to ask the age-old question, which is the better AI model, DeepSeek or ChatGPT?

Reliability

As of the time of writing for this article, OpenAI’s ChatGPT servers were all working and users could receive AI responses seamlessly. DeepSeek, however, was down, leaving ChatGPT in the lead in terms of server uptime and reliability.

Performance & Capabilities

Rich in ApplicationBut DeepSeek has garnered interest not just for beating Comet, but for its performance on general natural language processing — and especially Chinese-language tasks. But ChatGPT, particularly with its most recent variants, still dominates when it comes to English-language fluency, contextual understanding and general depth of knowledge.

User Base & Adoption

DeepSeek may have found its niche audience, but OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a notable user base across the globe, integrated into platforms like Microsoft Copilot and used by professionals and individuals alike. In terms of long-term viability, the scale of adoption and investment in ChatGPT is a plus.

AI Innovation

OpenAI keeps pushing the envelope of AI in general, frequently releasing great updates to their product. If DeepSeek is already facing outages, it suggests difficulties keeping infrastructure up or scaling operations, something that OpenAI has by and large figured out.

What’s Next for DeepSeek?

Server outages can occur on any platform, but recurring issues can be harmful to user trust. If DeepSeek plans to effectively compete with ChatGPT and give way to other AI models, it needs to guarantee that its service is unstinting and its operation is permanent.

For now, it’s unclear whether DeepSeek’s shutdown is just a temporary glitch, or a symptom of more entrenched problems. One thing we Americans can be sure of: in a rapidly evolving AI sector, uptime and reliability are as vital as intelligence.

Are you sticking with DeepSeek in spite of this downtime, or is ChatGPT still your AI of choice? Let us know your thoughts!