What Role is Music Playing in Advancing AR/VR
2016 witnessed the release of Pokemon Go, the Augmented Reality game that took the world by a storm but besides providing people with sheer entertainment (and also exercise), during its short-lived period of stardom, it introduced every living soul on this planet to the concept of Augmented Reality and along with that, Virtual Reality. It was then that the terms VR and AR broke the threshold of only being mentioned by Silicon Valley "geeks" and entered the vocabulary of every other teenager meeting at the most popular "Poke Stop". Just like that, the VR industry boomed, these words suddenly embodied the newfound power of grabbing the attention of every other VC in town.
However, now let's talk about music. Throughout the history of gaming, whether it's VR or not, the soundtrack has played a massive role in shaping and fashioning the music taste of people. With games like NBA always including the most crowd-pleasing hip hop tracks, to the Asphalt franchise grabbing all the hottest electronic records. With Virtual Reality being considered the future of gaming and other general applications as well, it's safe to say that it's a technology that is here to stay. PUBG, the most famous battle royale game in India that made the whole nation sing along to the song 'Faded' by Alan Walker also has a VR version. On YouTube you can watch, professional gamer, Michael Grzesiek, who goes by the name SHROUD has garnered over 21 Million views on a video where he plays the VR version of the said game. Talking about YouTube, the video company happens to be dabbling both in VR and the Music world. YouTube launched it's VR service back in 2014 at the Google I/O 2014 developers conference with the rollout of Google Cardboard app and the Cardboard VR headset. With the incorporation of the cardboard feature in the YouTube app, users can experience all the same music videos that they love and enjoy in VR.
Taking it one step even further than music videos, in 2018, we saw the introduction of an intriguing concept called 'VR Concerts' which is a spin on the idea of live online concerts. Oculus, the tech giant, leading the VR space, in collaboration with the tech startup, Next VR gave the people a chance not just to experience an Imagine Dragons concert in VR but also provided backstage access. A similar experience was created by the startup, TheWaveVr with the help of Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, Imogen Heap. However, before anything labelled as 'VR Concerts' existed, Hulu created an immersive VR series called 'On Stage' in 2017 which combined Virtual Reality with Music and Story Telling. The show revolved around the lives of musicians, and its three episodes featured Lil Wayne, Major Lazer & Phoenix.
What's next?
Music-based VR Applications, just like other VR Apps are ever-evolving and here are some of the most exciting startups that have left people awestruck.
Tessellate Studios, a Mumbai based company specializing in augmented reality, motion design & animation in 2016 collaborated with Mumbai based DJ/Producer, Spryk, real name Tejas Nair, to create an out of the world experience (literally) by simulating outer space at the Magnetic Fields Festival using the Oculus Rift headsets. Labelled as ‘Beyond Within’, the two collaborators created an exceptional audio-visual experience for the Magnetic Fields attendees. In an exclusive statement to Loudest.in,
Sound and music play a huge role in successfully delivering a truly immersive experience. AR and VR are the stepping stones for newer technologies that are entering our lives. Computer Vision, Spatial Audio, real-time rendering are all technologies that are quickly entering most forms of end-user experiences. A lot of these have come from breakthroughs in Gaming, VR & AR. In Virtual Reality, for example, the sound is the ultimate directorial tool. It is what guides the user in the direction of the action. There are now music-making tools driven by AR and even Machine Learning to an extent. Developers of Music creation software are also now adopting these forms of technology.” - Tejas Nair, SprykMerakiVR, an Indian venture based out of Mumbai excels in putting together spectacular VR experiences, and along with many other exciting projects they have done, this was the company behind the 360-degree concert movies of Goa Sunburn 2015 and Hardwell's performance in Mumbai. Stage (Stage.co), which according to their website provides "a venue in Virtual Reality where friends and fans can meet up, hang out, chat and enjoy live concert experiences together, live and on-demand." Along with that, they also plan on providing 360-degree video and audio experience and a director's cut. Electronauts offers a platform that is already available for Oculus, Steam and PlayStation VR but at the same time sounds impossible. Exploiting the limitless potential of Virtual Reality, Electronauts can convert a song into a virtual environment where the user can interact with various song components and even mix or remix them. Using their proprietary Music Reality Engine, they promise that no matter how you rearrange and edit the elements, the mix will always sound epic. The Music Room by ChromaCoda offers a more realistic approach to the process of music-making through VR. With their unique collection of instruments, the application allows you to create, play and record using synths, drums, keys, harps, and many more components. To wrap things up, the intersection of Music and Virtual Reality is an exciting affair. However, to paraphrase what Cherie Hu, a music industry analyst, said on the Music Business Podcast, "Music will never lead the AR/VR industry. The most common use-cases will always be gaming and training & education apps, but since music has such a significant influence on culture, it will always be a part of the VR space through elements like sound design which are a part of almost every application."
