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Startup Digest

Virtual & Augmented Reality

July 08, 2016

Music videos in VR have me more excited than any other form of content. Stepping into a song is the fullest realization of what music has always allowed us to do - immerse, feel, and, crucially, dance. VR has the potential to revolutionize not just music videos, but the way music is made, shared, visualized, and experienced. So this week we're taking a spin through the monstrously exciting playground that is music and VR. Necessary mentions: on the creation front, The Wave lets you become a virtual DJ. Insanely fun. Enough said. SubPac lets you FEEL bass frequencies and proving physical audio to be indispensable for VR. With VR music videos, it's still imperative to ask, why must this experience be in VR? Run the Jewel's "Crown" video does something compelling with its stark, conversational architecture. Honda's 2016 Civic 360 video feat. Moses Sumney is rad. Reggie Watts' "Waves" is a trip, in the best possible way. But "Old Friend" by Tyler Hurd is my favorite video to date. Flinging my suddenly elongated, floppy arms around to the beat of a Future Islands song inside a colorful revolving universe was pretty unique. The video is not commercially available but you can dip your toe in here.  

Virtual & Augmented Reality Startup Digest is curated by:
Kelly Vicars

Kelly Vicars - Co-Founder at VR Weekend

Contact Kelly Vicars at kelly.vicars@startupdigestmail.com

Martin Ahe

Martin Ahe - VR Editor at Startup Digest

Contact Martin Ahe at martin.ahe@startupdigestmail.com

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How Paul McCartney and Jaunt Are Using VR to Bring Storytelling Back to Music

Alex Kane - Upload

This excellent piece by Alex Kane beckons an age of VR music experiences that recapture the intimacy of albums and liner notes all but lost in our age of super-convenient streaming. Jaunt's Pure McCartney VR is a prototype not just for music videos but for great VR storytelling: the six-part documentary series takes listeners behind the scenes and into the untold stories that span McCartney’s five-decade solo career. Stories like this may prove one of the dominant applications for VR in music.

Virtual Reality Aimed At The Elderly Finds New Fans

Kara Platoni - NPR

If you've seen the breathtaking documentary "Alive Inside," you know that music can profoundly effect and inspire people suffering from dementia. Author Kara Platoni (one of my favorite writers - check out her new biohacking book!) introduces us to Dr. Sonya Kim, whose foundation One Caring Team uses VR music experiences to help elderly people relax and escape from chronic pain and loneliness. While headsets are expensive, VR has wonderful potential to help older people "travel" to places of sublime beauty. 

VR Game Composer: Music Inside the Machine

Winifred Phillips - Gamasutra

An interesting look at how the motion tracking capabilities of VR will allow composers to create music using musical instruments that exist entirely within the VR 'machine.'

SoundStage For HTC Vive Lets Musicians Build A Dream Music Studio For Ten Bucks

Jason Evangelho - Forbes

SoundStage is a virtual reality music sandbox built specifically for room-scale VR. The just-released toolkit, whose visual style is inspired by the airbrush paintings and computer graphics of the 80s, is suitable for everyone from professional DJ’s to people who want to relive (or realize) their high school garage band dreams. 

Virtual Reality is Going to Change our Music Experience, Forever

Bas Grasmayer - Medium

This is a good overview of how VR will change four key domains: music videos, dynamic music, concerts, and virtual parties.

At Last: A VR Music Video That Brings Slow Jams to Space

Peter Rubin - Wired

Peter Rubin describes this just-released video by Dawn Richard (aka D∆wn) as a concoction blended by a "2035-era Vitamix and poured out an intergalactic smoothie." This is an interesting look behind the curtain at VR Playhouse's making of the video.

Podcast: #285: Travel Inside Reggie Watts’ Imagination with ‘Waves’

Kent Bye - Voices of VR

A great Voices of VR interview with Reggie Watts about the making of his music video "Waves." If you haven't watched it, do. Just remember to strap yourself in because you'll be entering another dimension. 

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