RT in-world musical instruments?

Does anybody know about any guitars, keyboards, etc that play in Real-Time in world...say via a customizable Notecard?... I found one: the Hyper-Flute by Robbie Dingo, but I'm wondering if there are any more.

I heard there's a band that plays in-world without a stream, and that seems like it would be damned tricky given the fact that rhythm is needed, and even Torley's machine obviously lags, but is good enough for the Tutorials

I'm not gonna be able to upgrade to a machine that can say, run as smooth as the ones that made Scion's newest Machinima (smoothest SL rendering I have ever seen), but there must be a few more live SL instruments out there that don't just play a loop from a known musician, or play an anim while you stream vio shoutcast.

I don't know of any such instruments. I was truly disappointed when I finally understood that real-time music making wasn't possible in-world! Let's hope some extremely gifted but musically frustrated scripter will get inspired someday soon!

I can't think of any better way to play a live instrument in SL than this. After all, the physical interface pretty much has to be a real instrument in RL.

Good Lord.....it would be wonderful to be able to perform without streaming...a dream come true in fact. Just a thought...do you think it would be possible to sing using voice as opposed to streaming? I'm dying to perform in SL but just can't seem to get my head around the 'streaming' thing. I've gotten as far as downloading Winamp and the Shoutcast plug-in, but that's as far as I've gotten..

Avatar Orchestra Metaverse do some interesting stuff. They build and play some very complex inworld instruments with preloaded sounds.

There is also a fabulous mandala drum machine made by Adam Ramona.

It would be great though if you could actually manipulate sound live in SL, like an inworld version of Pure Data, with patches made of scripted prims.

http://puredata.info/

Hey Pocket,
Yes you can use voice to sing, in fact some musicians do it for impromptu gigs for friends and such, but you have to be aware that not everyone has voice enabled. Plus, it opens up a whole new can of worms.
I'm sure there's a bunch of people in the music community who'd be happy to help you get set up for streaming though. Ask in the SLMC forum and there's bound to be someone who can talk you through it.

/me is dying for Pocket to perform

Good luck

Hey there Sally.....

I know I've been talking about this for what seems like ages and ages..

I've only just been reading though some other sites that offer some tips on streaming...and I think It may be starting to sink in at last and I'm pretty sure that I know how to connect to a stream...(I think) So all I have to do now is to set up my RL equipment... which probably won't take all that long ...lol

Hey Sally, you could be my agent....

Robby makes a Hyper-Cello as well. But unfortunately, it's not (and can't be) really realtime because SL itself will always introduce a delay between clicking the note and the note sounding.

Playing tight music with other musicians in real time is not possible on the internet (or any network), except for musicians who are relatively close to each other (say, within a couple thousand miles), due to the speed of light.

Sorry, but that's just how it is!

The tighter you want timing to be, the closer the musicians have to be together.

If anyone's interested just ask and I'll post the math, and that would apply to ideal software (which SL is not likely ever to be, for this particular purpose).

Note that I'm talking here about playing real instruments and simply sharing audio on the net. Add issues of how to control a scripted instrument, involving script lag and SL-specific stuff, and you're way into the weeds. The best I can think of in this case are the following ...

* dreamy, drony music with relaxed timing
* random rhythms (these can be fun, but everyone hears something different)
* synchronized timing, using a master clock to strobe when the next note starts -- my guess is that this is what Torley's thing does
* select among canned phrases rather than playing notes, again with a master timing source

While live multi-user streaming jams is not availible yet, it might very well be soon, I own and operate AntiJacks Sounds recording studio in SL, however the studio itself is just a front end, all real recording sessions go thru Novel Intervallic Network Jamming Architecture for Music (NINJAM). Basically each musician, each in thier own part of the world, plays along with thier own metronome and the network meshes it together for a live sound. It may be posible to bring NINJAM into SL as it uses Ogg Vorbis to stream, and Ogg Vorbis is a accepted streaming music file in SL

some talented scripter will be able to make it work

The Virtual Live Band uses NINJAM to stream into SL. 4 different musicians in 3 different places around the world.

I'd think the biggest problem isn't the delays, but gettings multiple notes in at once... granted you could get some interesting scripts to do both single notes and chords, and sustained notes can cover alot of errors in timing, but sequencing would seem very hard even on fast setups.

now multipart prerecorded collaborations would seem the way to go, with each part triggered seperately with sequences prerecoded, all timed to the server, but come to that you might as well compile all the parts together for best effect.

performig over voice is a simple way to go for soloists, but as lear pointed out, the effect gets very loose for people playing as a group, because there's no central synchronisation, so each player would at the least hear all the others at an offset, though the audience might hear it all correctly. the other drawback is that anyone with an open mic can spoil the whole thing.

the biggest drawback to using the land stream is having a server, especially one that will support the number of listeners at a decent quality over the limited formats SL uses (ogg or aacp would be great if SL supported them). for instance, I can stream to 6 people on aacp (unsupported by SL) direct from my computer, but only 2 safely using mp3 at a decent quality... an external server makes a huge difference, allowing dozens of people.

Thanks for the replies...yeah I met a member of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse early last year....I think his name was Miulew... I would classify them as "No-Wave" I think...maybe a little like The Residents or somethin. They do play with a "dreamy, drony" time signature like Lear said, which I really wouldn't mind that much to tell you the truth.

<-----has been in everything from punk and industrial bands to a rap group

I've heard of The Virtual Live Band, I think I even saw a little video of them around the time I first joined SL, that's one of the coolest ideas for a music project I've come across in a few years!


Hey Yumi thanks for mentioning the Cello Robby makes...I'm gonna see if I can dig up a demo!

for anybody who hasn't seen the AOM (Avatar Orchestra Metaverse), here's a video on YouTube, definitely not music for everybody:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ci63eJYusEgI guess in the end, something like Robby Dingo's Hyper-Flute might be the closest thing in-world to what I'm lookin' for

Very true Void.....just like RL too. I haven't really used Voice at all but I think I'll mess around with it a little and see what happens.....

I recently attended a performance where the musician - a drummer - was performing over voice chat. It definitely worked, but the sound quality was horrible. Voice chat is not an acceptable medium for music performance if sound quality is important to you. Or to your audiences.

Well, I listened in on a friend playing and singing over voice chat for a few friends and I don't entirely agree. The sound quality wasn't all that bad really, although nowehere near the quality of a music stream. As a musician, he uses professional audio equipment though and I'm guessing that would make a huge difference. On the whole though, I'd agree that is not a useful medium for music.
BTW, first time I'd ever enabled it and couldn't wait to disable it again, all the noises and static were driving me nuts.

The compression for voice chat will mangle some audio much worse than other audio, and it doesn't surprise me that it's rude to a drum performance (generally one of the hardest kinds of audio to do well). And of course, SL voice chat is mono.

Even a typical built-in line input on a computer has far higher sound quality than the audio stream for SL voice chat. As long as the input device is half decent (and I don't consider a laptop's built-in microphone "half decent" for music), it's the stream and not the input device that matters.

SL voice chat may be good enough for simple singer-songwriter stuff. The more complex the audio the worse the results.

NINJAM is sort of like jamming. Only sort of. But unless someone repeals the limitation on the speed of light or the performers are fairly close together, it's pretty much the best we can expect.

It would apply to using RL instruments, not inworld SL instruments. There would be little point, the SL latency being so high and unpredictable.

I've worked with NINJAM extensively, over the past 18 months, as long as you follow your metronome, and NOT the other players, Latency is not an issue, though it is hard to hear the other players and not try to follow them

Lear,
Thanks for clarifying........., but me is a total non-tech head, so.....
If I understand this correctly it is indeed the use of voice chat that does the damage and the quality of the audio equipment used makes no difference?

Using your voice audio is like listening to music thru a telephone, no matter how good the production equipment is the end result will be closer to telephony than CD quality

Jason is correct: if you're using voice, the quality of the audio gear makes little difference (unless it's really bad audio gear, as some laptop built-in mics are).

Voice chat isn't really that terrible: it's quite adequate for the intended application, voice, and even good enough for a little music that's not too dynamic. Just like many telephone circuits.

Also, even with excellent gear, you can get terrible sound if it's used incorrectly, with levels set too high or too low.

The upshot is you can't easily say "they were using X and it sounded like crap so X sucks". There are too many variables, and unless you really know what was going on you can't infer too much.

However, if it sounds fabulous and they were using X, then you can say "X sounds fabulous for ...." whatever they were doing. Which may or may not apply to something else.

WOO I finally made a useful thread after 3 Mains and almost 3 years on SL!!!


(wait, should I be cheering or committing ritual suicide?)

LOL...congrats ont that Xio..

I've been trying to think of things in the simplest of terms...

Exactly what RL equipment would I need.....here's what I have and what I was thinking...

A really good mic, mp3 backing tracks on either a CD or an ipod (can I use an ipod??)

Now here's where my brains starts to hurt slightly...

If I was using Shoutcast, with the source being the 'line input' on my computer, I would imagine that I would need a mixer that I could connect my mic and my iPod to and then connect the mixer to to my computer??? If I needed a little reverb, would that mean more equipment?

I'm not sure if I'm even making sense or not...

Guys, just imagine that you're talking to a a two-year old who wants to perform in SL using a mic and an ipod with mp3 backing tracks..... How would you explain it to them???????