Hello, greetings! Well, I consider myself a composer, but I fail miserably when it comes to working with DAWs. Mainly because I don't have instruments with digital compatibility, only acoustic ones. However, I also don't have an excellent and expensive microphone, lol. I would like to kindly ask if it would be a problem if I recorded the parts with my microphone and then improved them by removing noise and adjusting the equalization with AI. Especially because DAWs already use AI to perform this process without 'making it obvious' to the user. After that, I would just organize them in Audacity and export. I would like to know if this is allowed. Thank you!

“***Do not use AI to produce your submission.***” is in the description, which doesn’t necessarily apply to mixing (?) So possibly? I’m genuinely curious because the daw I use (fl) has ai tools, and there is not a lot of ways to prove it used ai mastering/ chord gen

So, I'd really like to not set the precedent of allowing AI postprocessing. There is still a lot of time for us to help you troubleshoot ways to improve your mix, which will help develop your skills, and our skills as a community since one of the best ways to learn is to teach, even if you're getting noise from a lousy mic.

Think of this less as a competition of "who can make the best final product," and more of a place for you to maximize your skill development. Most people taking part don't have particularly expensive equipment, if any. Often, when you think something was made with high end tools, it's actually skill, knowledge, and resourcefulness. Many people who've made some very "expensive sounding" tracks turned out to use tools that were far less expensive than I thought when I actually asked them what they used.

I do want to make this jam as accessible as possible, but I also want to preserve the spirit of the jam about being developing skills.  Definitely drop into the discord server (or post here) with your setup. We're here to help you. Reaper is an excellent DAW .that can be used for free indefinitely, even though it costs $60 technically.

Also, I use Shure SM57s and an AT2020, and I started with the AT2020. Both are around $100. The SM57 is a mic that still gets used in professional studios. Albeit, you need a DAC to plug into, like a Scarlett Solo or 2i2. A DAC is a great thing to have for general music listening as well, so it's not purely a production purchase. Sometimes you can help spread the costs of some equipment with interest free payment plans.