> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thedaringcreatives.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Reinier Zonneveld Plays Back-to-Back With an AI Trained Only on His Own Music - URL: https://www.thedaringcreatives.com/creator-stories/reinier-zonneveld-r2-ai-b2b/ - Published: 2026-11-13T14:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-13T13:59:59.000Z - Description: Reinier Zonneveld (@reinierzonneveld) trained an AI model he calls R² on 2,000+ hours of his own recordings, then started playing back-to-back with it live. Here's how a set with it runs, and why he'd only train it on his own music. - Author: William Smith - Tags: Creator Stories, artist profile, ai music, techno, live performance, music, r2, gaslab, ableton, #medium:Music, #method:Mixed, #handle:@reinierzonneveld, #tool:Ableton, #tool:Maschine, #tool:Moog Sub 37, #tool:Roland SH-101, #tool:Roland TR-909, #issue-2026-11 Reinier Zonneveld is a Dutch techno producer who plays live on hardware synths and drum machines. He also keeps every recording he makes, including the ideas that didn't work. That archive is why he could build R², an AI model trained only on his own music, and then share a stage with it. He's played back-to-back with R² at his own festival since 2024\. In October 2026 he launched a company, GasLab, built on the same idea he trained R² around: if an AI learns from an artist's music, that artist should be credited and paid. He's [@reinierzonneveld on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/reinierzonneveld/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com), and his R² clips and GasLab explainer are on [his YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@ReinierZonneveld%5FFilthOnAcid?ref=thedaringcreatives.com), which he shares with his label, Filth on Acid. ## Before R² Zonneveld trained as a classical pianist from the age of three, [per Tech.eu](https://tech.eu/2026/10/16/dj-reinier-zonneveld-launches-ai-music-startup-gaslab-with-1m-pre-seed-funding/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com), then taught himself electronic production. He got into techno at parties and illegal raves as a student. He started Filth on Acid in 2017. His live sets are part planned, part improvised. "I always prepare for my sets, but I also like leaving some room for improvisation, as I like modifying my set based on the crowd's vibe at the moment," he told [LadyGunn in a 2024 Q&A](https://www.ladygunn.com/music/from-illegal-raves-to-ai-integration-reinier-zonneveld-becomes-a-pioneer-for-the-future-of-electronic-music?ref=thedaringcreatives.com). He also likes them long. In 2023 he set a Guinness World Record for the longest live electronic music performance, 11 hours and 11 minutes, [MusicTech reported](https://musictech.com/news/music/techno-dj-reinier-zonneveld-ai-clone-of-his-brain/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com). ## How R² got built He started experimenting with machine learning in 2019 with his programmer and longtime friend Cas Luuring. "At the time AI was a blank space, it did not exist in the same way it does now," he told [MusicRadar in October 2025](https://www.musicradar.com/artists/to-my-knowledge-no-one-else-has-tried-a-project-like-this-reinier-zonneveld-is-playing-b2b-with-an-ai-powered-clone-of-his-musical-brain?ref=thedaringcreatives.com). "So we started experimenting with inputting music, just playing with the software." The training data was his own archive. The project's description, [quoted by SPIN](https://spinmagazine.com/2024/09/snapped-reinier-zonnevelds-r%c2%b2-ai-live-music-project-a-photo-essay/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com), puts it at "over 2000 hours of Reinier Zonneveld's original music and recordings from more than 1000 live shows." MusicRadar counts it as more than 80 days of recordings. He had that much because of a habit. "I'm such a music nerd, I have all of my recordings, even if an idea or track is not great, I always finish something and capture it," he said. The team built three models. One makes random sounds. One can be prompted for a style or a tempo. The third listens to what he's playing and carries on from there, and that's the one he uses on stage. ## How a set with R² runs He plays as usual: Ableton on a MacBook, sequencing mostly through Native Instruments Maschine, sending MIDI to a Moog Sub 37, a Roland SH-101 and a TR-909\. When he wants R² in, he tells it from his laptop. "This has an audio input so, as soon as I input a command or prompt on my laptop, it records the audio I'm playing, then when I stop, the audio goes into the AI model that then continues from this point," he told MusicRadar. "I'm not 100 percent sure where it will go, but the starting point is the music I make in the moment." R² answers in MIDI, the note data that tells instruments what to play. That goes back out to the same synths and drum machines he's using. It runs on a computer at the back of the stage. He can ask for small changes too, like a short build-up or a key change. "With the continuation model, it will stay in the same key, tempo but it might introduce a new melody or build-up. It's like playing with someone B2B and you're not quite sure what they're going to do." Reinier Zonneveld — R² and him playing together live (2025), on YouTube ([Reinier Zonneveld](https://www.youtube.com/@ReinierZonneveld%5FFilthOnAcid?ref=thedaringcreatives.com)) By 2025 his laptop ran a dashboard with as many as 20 models, each trained on a different part of his music. One was trained on the intros of his extended mixes, so it's good at percussion. He uses it a lot. R² also gets its own volume channel. "The AI model did have its own channel for the synth, so if I didn't like it, I could reduce the volume," he said. ## What it does that he can't do alone The groove model is the clearest example. "This model is great at layering extra grooves on top and something I use a lot," he told MusicRadar. "It feels like you went into the studio for an hour to finish what you were improvising, so really adding to the quality of what you've done - and something that I could not just do with my normal live set." The models don't always do what he expects, and he can't always get a good one back. "With one of the first models we had, it was super good at melodic house and techno with brilliant melodies," he said. "But we never got to recreate this - we put in more data as we thought it would be a better combo but it didn't work." ## Making the AI visible on stage The first R² set was at his R² Festival in Spaarnwoude, near Amsterdam, in August 2024\. The audience couldn't tell what was happening on stage. "We had this incredible system where it wasn't possible to work out where I ended and the AI began," he told MusicRadar. So in 2025 they gave R² a body. During his 10-hour headline set, in front of about 20,000 people, a hologram came on above the stage when R² came in. They also built robots with hammers that strike the synth keys, so R² was physically playing the instruments. "You have to use these hammers and they need to be within ten milliseconds to go up and down to press the right notes at the right point on the synthesisers," he said. The computer had nearly overheated the year before, so this time it got an air-conditioning unit. In July 2026 he posted a trailer for a new R² audio-visual show built for that summer's festival. Reinier Zonneveld — "R2 – holographic A/V" trailer (2026), on YouTube ([Reinier Zonneveld](https://www.youtube.com/@ReinierZonneveld%5FFilthOnAcid?ref=thedaringcreatives.com)) His note on [the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1nJGsHuIk0&ref=thedaringcreatives.com) says: "All the visuals in this video are real and no CGI / AI used to enhance the images." ## Why he trained it only on his own music Training R² on his own catalogue was a deliberate choice. "The first time I did a show was in 2024\. Back then there were all these emerging AI platforms and models that were being trained on copyrighted material without paying the artist," he told MusicRadar. "This was my way of stating that this is copyright infringement. You can't just take people's work and not pay them for it if you're training a piece of software or machine on it." He also thinks producers shouldn't stop learning their craft because of it. "AI is trained on humans - the AI cannot train itself on itself," he said. ## GasLab That argument became a company. GasLab, short for Generative AI Solutions Lab, launched in October 2026 with $1 million in pre-seed funding, [Tech.eu reported](https://tech.eu/2026/10/16/dj-reinier-zonneveld-launches-ai-music-startup-gaslab-with-1m-pre-seed-funding/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com). Luuring is part of the core team. It generates music, but only from songs that artists and labels have agreed to put in. Each generated track gets an attribution record listing whose music shaped it, plus a watermark. Those artists get a share of its rights, so they can be paid if the track earns money. He walks through it in [his launch video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2BxwztEwMI&ref=thedaringcreatives.com), filmed in his studio, and admits he'd rather be making music than talking about AI: "what I really want to do is just make music." Reinier Zonneveld — "Reinier Zonneveld launches GasLab.ai" (2026), on YouTube ([Reinier Zonneveld](https://www.youtube.com/@ReinierZonneveld%5FFilthOnAcid?ref=thedaringcreatives.com)) "My message for all artists and labels out there is to take back what's ours," he says near the end. As of November 2026, [the GasLab site](https://gaslab.ai/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) is a guest list, and it says the platform "opens in waves." His live rig with R² R² (his own models, built with Cas Luuring) · [Ableton](https://www.ableton.com/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) · [Native Instruments](https://www.native-instruments.com/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) Maschine · [Moog](https://www.moogmusic.com/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) Sub 37 · [Roland](https://www.roland.com/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) SH-101 and TR-909 · [Prism Sound](https://www.prismsound.com/?ref=thedaringcreatives.com) Titan interface From his October 2025 MusicRadar interview. We've also profiled [YACHT, who trained a model](https://www.thedaringcreatives.com/creator-stories/yacht-chain-tripping-machine-learning-album/) on their own back catalogue, [SONAMB, who trains on sounds](https://www.thedaringcreatives.com/creator-stories/sonamb-cotton-mill-neural-synthesis/) she recorded herself, and Harry Yeff's AI vocal twin. ## What's next for R² He told MusicRadar where he wants to take the live set next. "The next step is sound design live on stage with the synths, then it's really a mirror of what I'm doing."