Part II: Thoughts on reality and creativity or Less Light Reading for those who like deep dives
if you missed Part I, you can read it here.
I’m a huge fan of Nikola Tesla (the real Tesla) His concepts on vibrational frequency have always intrigued me. A true innovator and Maverick in the realms of Science and engineering. A person for whom the word genius is an accurate assertion. His contributions are too numerous to site here, but you can click on his name for the Wiki entry. It’s his ideas that inform a lot of what I do in the arena of music/sound.
We are all beings of light vibrating in the universe with our own unique frequencies as is sound. When you start to think of it in those terms it changes ones perspective on music, sound creation and life in general.
Head in the clouds feet on the ground… the nitty gritty of working in VR
It’s been an amazing and sometimes frustrating experience at our residency at Jump Into The Light. Learning to use the programs in STEAM, navigating a PC when I am usually a MAC user not to mention working with the limitations of the programs themselves. A lot of patience and help from the staff at JITL is necessary. Thankfully everyone there is gracious and very generous with their time as well as their knowledge.
She’s Excited is combining Ableton Live and Sound Stage you can check out her blog posts on it here. While I have been creating in Logic Pro, Main Stage and EXA. All of these programs have their pros and cons. The Fun part is making a Hybrid performance of it all combining the virtual reality instruments with our real world instruments.
Sometimes limitations can be good… utilizing EXA for example which was developed by Zach Kinstner Has been an incredible experience. While it has it’s limitations it does have many fun features. There are decent range of sounds to choose from and working inside the EXA studio is pretty cool. I’ve enjoyed the overall look and interaction with it. It is very colorful and while you play instruments with controller sticks instead of your hands I find it to be pretty responsive. One feature that is fun to work with is the draw tool, you draw a shape in the air which then becomes what is termed a “ringer” in EXA. Basically it’s a surface you can strike to activate a sound which you assign to it. You can create many different instruments. There are Sequencers and Loop recorders, so you can build a cohesive track. The down side? No faders, mute or pan knobs that you normally see in a DAW and no effects like reverb, delay or EQ to mix with. Still, a fun VR environment to create in despite the limitations. Perhaps it's the colorful trippy visuals that activate when you hit a "ringer". Working in VR is a process but a very rewarding one. I’m looking forward to working more with VR/AR and new tech in sound/music I can see so much potential.
The Future is NOW!