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Dec 11, 2025
classicremixai

Pure Simulation

A re-imagination of the 1971 classic, "Pure Imagination"

I love the “Pure Imagination" song from the 1971 Willy Wonka movie.

The lyrics, the whimsy, the warm vocals (even though Gene Wilder was originally reluctant to sing it, since he's not a singer), and the optimistic messaging.

It's inspired countless beautiful remixes and re-imaginations, notably Jacob Collier’s version, Kathleen, and Natalie Taylor’s cover.

I was reading the lyrics and wondered how they'd sound re-imagined in a science fiction story. Probably because I was recently thinking about "The Intraterrestrial Hypothesis".

This is a theory written by Greg Fodor, which talks about a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox where civilizations virtualize themselves. And perhaps a civilization that evolved on Earth before humans arrived had already virtualized themselves, which could also explain all the recent UFO chatter.

I asked Claude, ChatGPT and Grok to take a stab at a “Pure Simulation” lyrics rewrite. ChatGPT created the best version.

Then I asked ChatGPT for a Suno song description to capture the ethereal, floaty mood I wanted, and then I asked Suno’s new v5 model to create it.

After creating about 44 different song versions with 12 different song descriptions, I finally got a result that was about 70% perfect, but the drums were too thin, it wasn't connected enough to the original Pure Imagination track, and the lyrics - while very impressive for AI vocals - were a bit repetitive and lifeless.

I fired up Ableton, and

  • Created a glockenspiel to play the 3 note melody at the start

  • Added my favourite reverb, Valhalla Shimmer for atmosphere

  • Added some OTT to the drums for a bit of digital grit as a nice contrast to the surprisingly organic vocals

  • Duplicated some parts of the vocals, and shifted them up 7 semitones to evolve them and make them more interesting as the song progressed

  • Added various risers, ear candy and subtle sound effects, and did some addition by subtraction

The resulting song is v1 in the music player. The original v2 is also available for comparison.

I hope you like it. Please feel free to use it anywhere, as per the cc0 license.

pure simulation song art
0:000:00
Visualizer
MP3WAV

I love the “Pure Imagination" song from the 1971 Willy Wonka movie.

The lyrics, the whimsy, the warm vocals (even though Gene Wilder was originally reluctant to sing it, since he's not a singer), and the optimistic messaging.

It's inspired countless beautiful remixes and re-imaginations, notably Jacob Collier’s version, Kathleen, and Natalie Taylor’s cover.

I was reading the lyrics and wondered how they'd sound re-imagined in a science fiction story. Probably because I was recently thinking about "The Intraterrestrial Hypothesis".

This is a theory written by Greg Fodor, which talks about a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox where civilizations virtualize themselves. And perhaps a civilization that evolved on Earth before humans arrived had already virtualized themselves, which could also explain all the recent UFO chatter.

I asked Claude, ChatGPT and Grok to take a stab at a “Pure Simulation” lyrics rewrite. ChatGPT created the best version.

Then I asked ChatGPT for a Suno song description to capture the ethereal, floaty mood I wanted, and then I asked Suno’s new v5 model to create it.

After creating about 44 different song versions with 12 different song descriptions, I finally got a result that was about 70% perfect, but the drums were too thin, it wasn't connected enough to the original Pure Imagination track, and the lyrics - while very impressive for AI vocals - were a bit repetitive and lifeless.

I fired up Ableton, and

  • Created a glockenspiel to play the 3 note melody at the start

  • Added my favourite reverb, Valhalla Shimmer for atmosphere

  • Added some OTT to the drums for a bit of digital grit as a nice contrast to the surprisingly organic vocals

  • Duplicated some parts of the vocals, and shifted them up 7 semitones to evolve them and make them more interesting as the song progressed

  • Added various risers, ear candy and subtle sound effects, and did some addition by subtraction

The resulting song is v1 in the music player. The original v2 is also available for comparison.

I hope you like it. Please feel free to use it anywhere, as per the cc0 license.