Compositores Jogos Virtuais: Música Alem Do Virtual

VR Game Composer: Music Beyond the Virtual

Welcome to the third installment in our series on the fascinating possibilities created by virtual reality motion tracking, and how the immersive nature of VR may serve to inspire us as video game composers and afford us new and innovative tools for music creation.  As modern composers, we work with a lot of technological tools, as I can attest from the studio equipment that I rely on daily (pictured left). Many of these tools communicate with each other by virtue of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol, commonly known as MIDI - a technical standard that allows music devices and software to interact.

In order for a VR music application to control and manipulate external devices, the software must be able to communicate by way of the MIDI protocol - and that's an exciting development in the field of music creation in VR!

This series of articles focuses on what VR means for music composers and performers. In previous installments, we've had some fun exploring new ways to play air guitar and air drums, and we've looked at top VR applications that provide standalone virtual instruments and music creation tools.  Now we'll be talking about the most potentially useful application of VR for video game music composers - the ability to control our existing music production tools from within a VR environment.

We'll explore three applications that employ MIDI to connect music creation in VR to our existing music production tools. But first, let's take a look at another, much older gesture-controlled instrument that in ways is quite reminiscent of these motion-tracking music applications for VR:

The Theremin

Last year during the Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York City, I had the chance to play a bit with one of the newest incarnations of that venerable motion-tracking instrument, the Theremin.

Named for its Russian inventor, the Theremin has been around since 1928, entertaining us with the weird and awesome electronic sounds it makes.  The instrument I encountered at AES, the Theremini from Moog, features a wider variety of sounds than the classic version, and also offers options for a more forgiving motion-control scheme.  Otherwise, the Theremini is the popular device we know best from old sci-fi and horror movie soundtracks.  

To demonstrate the motion-control mechanism of this unique musical instrument, here is a skilled theremin player, Clara Venice, demonstrating the instrument with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner:

It's useful to remember the control scheme of the theremin, because it bears a striking resemblance to the ways in which we control and manipulate musical content within VR applications. In software such as Pensato, The Music Room, and AeroMIDI, we use sometimes one hand, sometimes two, and always with an eye towards the careful spatial positioning of the hand to control the corresponding musical content.  So let's now take a look at these three software applications:

Pensato

Since 2001, the famous Ableton Live application has enabled composers, songwriters and DJs to create music with a streamlined visual interface highly suitable for live performance applications.  As a Digital Audio Workstation, Ableton Live provides all the recording, sequencing and post-production tools we've come to expect from these powerful music applications.  However, the Ableton Live tools are all wrapped in a utilitarian GUI designed to get digital music creators out of the recording studio and in front of a live audience.  The creation, alignment and triggering of loops is designed to be intuitive in Ableton Live, making loop-based music in Ableton Live especially suitable for concert venues and clubs.  So, how is this relevant to the world of VR?

Enter Pensato - the virtual reality application designed by Byron Mallett of the Victoria University of Wellington.  Pensato allows a composer to control loops and sounds in Ableton Live by way of a virtual reality representation of those tools, rendered in detailed 3D on the Oculus Rift headset.

"In order to interact with Ableton Live, Pensato functions like a music hardware controller," said Byron Mallett (pictured left), during an interview with the Ableton Live Blog. "This allows me to capture the entire Session View of Live, including all the tracks, clips and device parameters that can be controlled as part of a performance, and turn them into virtual controls."

The composer controls the sounds in the VR space with hand motions, as pictured to the right. Special gloves worn by the performer deliver motion tracking data to a set of two sensors that relay this data to the Pensato application.  While this is going on, Pensato is also projecting the images from the VR headset to a set of three projectors for the audience to enjoy.  The result is a futuristic presentation that lends a new level of sci-fi slickness to the performances of any electronic artist or DJ.

"Most of Pensato has been designed with my own “what ifs” in mind as the basis for how a VR musical interface can be designed," Mallett observes. "I'm hoping some of these ideas might be useful or encourage others in creating their own VR music interfaces in the future."

Here's Byron Mallett himself, performing the composition "Fissure" using Ableton Live and Pensato:

 

The Music Room

Last month, the National Association of Music Merchants staged its annual Summer NAMM 2016 convention in the Nashville Music City Center.  Over 1,500 product brands in the professional music equipment industry showcased their hottest products to a convention crowd of musicians, music retailers and audio industry experts.  The show floor teemed with the usual plethora of booths devoted to microphones, DSP racks, guitars, keyboards, DAWS, and other pro audio gear.

Those looking for a more unusual experience, however, could visit the Chroma Coda booth and experience their virtual reality music-making application, The Music Room.

According to the product description, The Music Room "will make you a multi-instrumentalist" by providing an assortment of virtual reality instruments hosted inside their VR environment. The software comes bundled with a selection of virtual instruments, which the developers at Chroma Coda describe as "drums, laser harp, pedal steel guitar and our unique chord harp."  According to Chroma Coda, these virtual instruments "encourage you to explore different ways of songwriting, that aren’t usually possible with electronic instruments. Strum chords or slide from note to note. Change drums kits on the fly with clear visual feedback." Here's the trailer for The Music Room that Chroma Coda produced for the Summer NAMM 2016 show:

 

In addition to these bundled instruments, The Music Room also comes with a simple, compact Digital Audio Workstation application called Bitwig 8-Track that enables some audio recording and processing, as well as access to some additional electronic percussion and synths.  What's interesting about this functionality is that it allows the VR music-making interface to reach out beyond the virtual environment and interact with traditional music software. The Music Room can function as a MIDI controller that sends musical performance data out to traditional DAWs hosting their own virtual instruments.

The Music Room will be initially available later this month for the HTC Vive VR headset, and the developers plan to make their VR application compatible with the Oculus Rift with Touch and the PlayStation VR when those VR systems release later this year.

AeroMIDI

The AeroMIDI software predates the emergence of consumer VR.  It was first introduced by Acoustica in 2013 as a way to use motion tracking to control MIDI devices, but it made the jump into the world of virtual reality by way of the Oculus Rift during a showing (pictured left) at the 2014 convention of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM).  As a software package designed to communicate with any existing MIDI applications or external hardware, AeroMIDIallows the user to trigger notes and control musical performance data using hand gestures that are tracked by the Leap Motion device.

The makers of the software, Acoustica Inc, describe AeroMIDI as "the virtual 3D glue between your music and your hands."  As seen in the picture to the right, the visual interface consists of an array of three dimensional blocks and cubes that can represent both note values and expression changes (such as vibrato, pitch bend, low pass filter, volume, or whatever other parameters the user wishes to manipulate).

Because the graphical user interface has always been a three-dimensional construct, AeroMIDI was well suited to make the transition to VR.  While there aren't yet any videos showing the VR experience offered by AeroMIDI, this video shows the software in action, allowing us to easily imagine what the experience must be like within a VR space:

 

Conclusion

So that concludes this article about the intersection between music composition and VR.  I hope you've enjoyed reading, and I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments below!

6 Razões Por Que Agora É O Melhor Momento Para Os Músicos

6 Reasons Why Now is the Best Time for Musicians

First of all thanks to  Meresha   for this article.

Today is probably the best and most exciting time to be a musician.

There’s a lot of negativity these days about the music industry. Music revenue is down, CD sales are disappearing, people are streaming instead of buying music, etc.

Compared to the past, though, there are at least 6 reasons why these times are better than any other in history for musicians.

1. Fans can find you

With Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube and other online sites, there are many channels for new fans to find your music. It used to be that almost the only way to be heard was for a record company to sign you and promote your song over the radio.

2. You can communicate with Fans

With the continuing boom in social media, you have unfiltered access to most music buyers in the world. You can find folks in the smallest niches and communicate with them directly. In the past, independent artists didn’t have much access to what was a very limited number of media outlets.

3. You can be the record company

You can decide what music to put out when. If you want to bring back the Acid Bass, as I try to do on a recent song, you can. No longer are to subject to the filter of label executives trying to force you to be the next Ariana Grande or Beyoncé.

4. You can record with world class sound

With a software program, a computer and some limited equipment, you can record world-class music including the most sophisticated compositions. Yourself. In your bathroom. Gone are the days when you always had to have a huge budget for studio time, producers, engineers, managers, etc.

5. You can distribute internationally quickly

There are a range of distributors of music such as Tunecore, which I use, CD Baby and others that will get your music to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and dozens of other of digital stores within days. Now you don’t have to produce physical products, ship them internationally and worry about returns.

6. You control your destiny

The days when someone like Clive Davis would discover and develop you are gone. Almost all artists today can, and have to, control their own destiny. Even the most famous ones. It means connecting with fans on social media, at concerts, through regular email and a few thousand other things. While challenging, it can be done.

If you expect someone to hand you superstardom on a platter, dream on.

If you want to build a sustainable life as an artist, and have a bit of talent, it can be done. No one will say it is easy, but then what is?

Rock on!

What do you think?

TuneIn Teams Com Red Bull Music Academy Radio Para Descobrir Novas Músicas

TuneIn Teams With Red Bull Music Academy Radio To Push Music Discovery

Red Bull Music Academy Announces 2013 Event Series in New York. 34 NYC-inspired concerts, club nights and talks blend music, art and culture. 230 artists including Brian Eno, James Murphy, Erikah Badu, Kim Gordon and many more… (PRNewsFoto/Red Bull Music Academy) THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED BY PRNewsfoto and is for EDITORIAL USE ONLY**

TuneIn bills itself as, “The most popular way to listen to streaming audio from around the world,” with over 100,000 radio stations for its 60 million monthly users. In the increasingly competitive world of streaming radio, where iHeart, Pandora , Spotify and more all have strong audiences and name brands no one can rest on their laurels. So TuneIn is still adding to its massive portfolio of stations though with its latest partnership, Red Bull Music Academy’s RBMA Radio, available on TuneIn beginning today.

Both platforms pride themselves on music discovery and in statements given exclusively to Forbes that was the primary reason put forth by the two companies, who worked on the partnership for a year, for joining forces.

“TuneIn is where a passionate audience lives. An audience that cares so much about music discovery that they want a gateway to the world’s best stations everywhere they go,” Red Bull Music Academy co-founder Many Ameri said. “We want to be a part of these people’s everyday lives. There’s a world of sound at their fingertips, always there and only one search away. But where do they find the music they didn’t even know they were looking for? That’s the service that RBMA Radio provides, and partnering with TuneIn gets us one step closer to making music discovery easier for millions of listeners.”

As part of the launch RBMA Radio, which began airing in 2005, will be broadcasting live from their Red Bull Music Academy events in Atlanta August 15 to 20 and their eighteenth annual festival showcasing artists from around the world held this year in Montreal September 25 – October 28. Highlights from the Atlanta event include an interview with Sleepy Brown August 16 at 7 PM EST and the debut live performance of Sleepy’s Theme – The Vinyl Room, August 17 at 8 PM EST.

Red Bull Music Academy is very active on the live scene, hosting its signature festival every May in New York. Among the acts that appeared this year are Dizzee Rascal, Kamasi Washington and Diamond Galas.

For TuneIn, one of the most appealing aspects  of teaming with RBMA is the company’s dedication to live events and music. “TuneIn is a platform built for live content. From sports, to news coverage, to live concerts, our model is based on bringing these moments to listeners,” Charles Raggio, TuneIn’s Senior Director of Artist Partnerships and Branded Content says.

As to how the two will utilize their partnership to reach new listeners, Raggio offers a little preview. “We’re going to lean on our ability to target listeners of specific music genres through push notifications, in-app features and emails, to turn them on to the artists, genres and scenes that RBMA is uncovering worldwide. Working directly with RBMA Radio programming teams allows us to serve up their world class content to fans in the moment, wherever they are.”

Estes São Os Melhores Streaming De Música No Mundo

These are the 7 best music streaming apps in the world

When it comes to the best music streaming apps, the conversation usually revolves around the battle between Spotify and Apple Music. But there are a lot of other apps out there.

Which music streaming app is best suited for your needs? Here are the best options.

Spotify

Spotify/App Store

Best features: There's a reason Spotify consistently comes out on top of its music app competitors: It makes 30 million tracks available to listen to or add to playlists for free. But where Spotify really shines is its ability to allow users to find new music. Its wildly successful Discover Weekly feature delivers users with a playlist specifically curated for them every Monday. And Spotify has a library of other pre-made playlists perfect for every life event imaginable, like a pregame, morning commute, or bad break-up.

Flaws: Some big musicians have criticized Spotify, alleging the streaming giant doesn't pay artists enough for making their work available for free. As a result, some artists have pulled some or all of their music from the service. So, if you're looking to listen to Taylor Swift's entire discography or Beyoncé's powerhouse "Lemonade" album, you're out of luck. 

Available on: iOS and Android.

Price: There's a free version (with ads and a mobile app where your music is perpetually on shuffle); the premium version app costs $9.99 (or $12.99 if purchased on the App Store).

Best for: People who want to discover and access the most music without paying a penny.

Apple Music

Lisa Eadicicco/Business Insider

Key features: Apple's much-anticipated streaming service underwhelmed when it was released last summer. But the big changes coming this fall to the app, including a more easy-to-navigate design, could rise Apple Music's stock in the streaming wars. Apple Music's current version does have some great features, including playlists made by people instead of algorithms and a knack for attracting anti-streaming artists to the platform (Apple Music ad star Taylor Swift's entire catalogue is only on Apple Music, and Gwen Stefani and Pharrell gave Apple Music exclusives on their latest releases before they put them on other streaming platforms.) 

Flaws: Apple Music has a lot of frills (namely, the Connect feature) and its platform isn't the easiest to navigate. Let's see if the update this fall lives up to its promises. 

Available on: iOS and Android

Price: $9.99 per month

Best for: Devotees of Apple or Taylor Swift.

Pandora

Pandora/App Store

Key features: Pandora, once a giant of the streaming world, has struggled in recent years and recently faced pressure to find a buyer. But Pandora does have its strengths: It's super simple to use and it's a good tool for discovering new music based on other artists or songs you like. And, to keep up with Apple and Spotify, Pandora has rolled out some new features that aren't half bad. The chief example is Thumbprint Radio, a personalized radio station that plays songs based on what songs you've liked on Pandora in the past à la Spotify's Discover Weekly.

Flaws: Pandora really is a just-the-basics service, and its wholly randomized stations don't always make for the best listening experience. And it only has 1 million songs compared to Apple Music's 43 million or Spotify's 30 million. 

Available on: iOS and Android

Price: Free, or $4.99 a month without ads. 

Best for: Users nostalgic for radio. 

Tidal

Tidal/App Store

Key features: Tidal has had its fair share of publicized problems, including shuffling execs and site crashes worthy of SNL parodies, but Jay Z's streaming service has two big things going for it: sound quality, and star power. Beyoncé debuted "Lemonade" exclusively on Tidal, causing Tidal to rocket to the top of the App Store. ("Lemonade" has since been made available on iTunes and Pandora.) Kanye West's "The Life of Pablo" and Rihanna's "ANTI" were released on Tidal before they landed anywhere else. And Tidal is the only service that has Prince's catalogue. 

Flaws: Tidal's interface can be pretty buggy, and it lacks a lot of options to discover music.

Available on: iOS or Android

Price: $9.99 a month, or $19.99 a month for higher quality sounds. 

Best for: Fans of Jay Z and Jay Z-adjacent artists. 

SoundCloud Go

SoundCloud Go/App Store

Key features: SoundCloud has enjoyed success as the place for users to release their own music or remixes with the hopes of becoming the next big thing. That means SoundCloud has a huge variety of music you can't find anywhere else—and some of the user-generated music is great. 

Flaws: SoundCloud's discovery options are limited to "popular," "related tracks," or "suggested tracks," which means it's a bit hard to find some of the great user-generated music unless you know what you're looking for. 

Available on: iOS or Android

Price: Free, or $9.99 a month for an ad-free, premium version called SoundCloud Go.

Best for: Musicians who want to share their music or users who want to listen to songs off the mainstream. 

YouTube Music

YouTube Music/App Store

Key features: YouTube realized that a good chunk of its users use the video service for just music, so it unveiled its own YouTube Music app last October to appeal to those people. The app lets you turn on an "audio" only setting, so users can listen to music and explore other apps (previously, users had to have the YouTube video constantly open or the music would stop playing.) And once the song you've selected stops playing, YouTube Music will select another song that it thinks you might like.

Flaws: The app isn't the best choice for people who are dependent on their playlists. Additionally, YouTube Music's songs are limited to the songs available on YouTube (read: singles with music videos or artists' songs uploaded by other users that haven't been taken down by the big studios.)

Available on: iOS or Android

Price: Free, or $9.99 for Android or $12.99 for iOS for an ad-free version called YouTube Red. 

Best for: Users who primarily use YouTube to listen to music on their phones.

Google Play Music

Google Play Music/App Store

Key features: Google Play Music doesn't tend to factor into the conversation about the best music streaming services, but it's quietly become a great app. The app uses technology from the late popular music curation service Songza, which Google acquired and subsequently shut down, to give you excellent song and playlist recommendations curated specifically for your mood or activities. The premium version of the app comes with the ability to store 50,000 songs on the Cloud and a free subscription of YouTube Red. 

Flaws: The app isn't the cleanest to navigate, and the sound quality isn't as great as Tidal's. 

Available on: iOS and Android

Price: Free for a shuffle version, and $9.99 per month for an on-demand version.

Best for: People who never got over the death of Songza, or Spotify users who are consistently unhappy with their Discover Weekly selections. 

A Banda Dos Muppets Tocam Pela Primeira Vez Em Um Festival - Video

Muppet band plays first music festival

Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem perform during the 2016 Outside Lands Music And Arts Festival on August 7 in San Francisco.

(CNN)Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem have been together for more than 40 years, but they just played their first music festival. 

The Muppets' house band were one of the acts Sunday at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, where they opened for Third Eye Blind, Chance the Rapper and Lionel Richie.

Their 25-minute set included their signature song, "Can You Picture That?" plus covers of Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, "San Francisco" by The Mowgli's, "Ophelia" by The Band and the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends," done Joe Cocker style.

OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder Fala De Marcas, Tecnologia E Música Nova em 2016

OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder Talks Brands, Technology, And New Music In 2016

Apple CEO Tim Cook, right, looks at the new iPhone 6s with OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder, in the demo room after Apple event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Eric Rosberg)

As a band, OneRepublic has found massive, international success with several of their singles, and many of the more memorable ones—“Apologize,” “All The Right Moves,” “Good Life,” and “Counting Stars,” to name just a few—have gone several times platinum, and have earned them a place in the top 40 world. The group is lead by Ryan Tedder, who is by far one of the most prolific and creative hit songwriters and producers of our time, with much of his most famous material having gone to other artists. Tedder has worked with Adele, Taylor Swift, Rob Thomas, Ellie Goulding, One Direction, Demi Lovato, and countless others. 

He has won the highly coveted Album of the Year Grammy twice as a producer, with both Adele (for 21) and Taylor Swift (for 1989, the current reigning champion), and he is in high demand by almost every star out there. That doesn’t stop him from making his own band a priority, and just recently, the group released its first single in years as the beginning of a new promotional cycle.

Last week, the band took time out of its busy schedule to team up with Motorola to launch two new products specifically designed for smartphones at a free concert: a magnetic speaker that connects to the back of certain phones, and a device that projects the screen’s image onto the wall, cutting down the size of typical projectors many times over.

 I spoke with the OneRepublic frontman about the group’s process for how they decide to work with certain brands, why Motorola makes sense for them, and what’s coming up for the rest of the year (hint: lots of new music).

So tell me, what’s going on with Motorola? What is this?

We did an event with Motorola a couple of years ago. It was in a different country. Austria? I remember the whole time I was bugging the president to give me his phone. It was a prototype of some new phone. Anyway, he never gave it to me.

We did something with them in the past, and then this was kind of a last-minute deal, just in the last two weeks. Full disclosure, we kind of look for any opportunity to come to New York City. We love New York, and we’re here every six weeks or so. This is kind of a no-brainer for us. Motorola is a company we like and we use. We’ve all owned things from Motorola in the past. Without sounding brand-whorish, we actually genuinely like the company and have used their products. 

We like technology, we’re kind of geeks. Anything that’s new or shiny. I’m the guy that’s buying things on Kickstarter waiting for them to actually come to market. Half the time it’s terrible, like a floating speaker I bought, which sucked. The other half of the time it’s stuff like these products, which are actually functional. We’re techno-dorks. We’re into any type of technology that’s disruptive and that’s going to make things easier and better.

So it’s not just the actual products themselves, it’s the qualities of the company?

It’s that it’s disruptive. Anything that’s disruptive. There’s a lot of stuff that goes to market all the time. I’m constantly reading Wiredand FORBES—I read this month’s issue cover to cover. I’ll find something in one of those articles, and immediately I’m online, tracking it down and looking at the company behind it, to see if it’s a company worth investing in, or if it’s on Kickstarter. Is it something I’m going to actually use?

I love technology. I’m the guy that buys the new phone the moment it’s released. I’ve already purchased two. We’re into that because we travel so much. Technology is our friend. It’s how we record, it’s how we get ideas across, it’s how we communicate. Every new device that comes out that’s disruptive and that’s not just a clone of something else is something that I’ll likely purchase.

Other than if you like a product, how do you guys decide what brands you want to put your name with?

It would have to be very specific. We have a longstanding relationship with Apple. We’ve played at their launch events before. We’re friends with Tim Cook. We go way back with him. We have to be very cognizant of who we’ve done things with in the past, and what is the depth of our involvement in those things. There’s not a laptop company in the world that we’re going to align ourselves with that’s not a Macbook Pro. That’s honestly how we make all of our music and do everything we do. There are microphone companies that I’ll align with and others that I won’t. 

There are car companies that we’ll align with. We work with Mercedes-Benz, and we did a two-year campaign with them. When the Mercedes deal came through, it made sense. My wife and I have a G Wagon. Another member of the band has vintage diesel Mercedes. 

The brand partnerships that we’ve had have been as natural as can be. There’s always going to be a level of questioning the authenticity of any partnership with a creative entity, To me, both parties have to be serviced. It’s scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. It has to be natural. 

Someone asked us recently on Twitter what it would take for us to play at a Trump rally, and my answer was, “There’s not enough money in the world, including his entire net worth.” There are certain things where it doesn’t matter what someone does or how much they pay you. It’s whatever feels authentic and natural.

This kickoff concert with Motorola, is this the beginning of a long-term campaign, or is it just a one-off?

This is a… We’re rounding first base. Hands are on the hips. Maybe going up the back… We’re leading off.