Virtual reality, along with its siblings, has the opportunity to profoundly change the way we interact with all things digital. As a visual medium, we often don't think about the impact on audio, but it plays a significant role nevertheless. When it comes to music—and music videos—the possibilities are enormous.
Last week, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz teased his Twitter followers with some "fun and cool stuff" to share in the coming days. On Monday, he made good on that promise, sort of.
For those about to rock, Live Nation salutes you, now with augmented reality. This week, at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival of Creativity in France, the live entertainment giant unveiled a suite of AR experiences that music festivals and their sponsors will be able to deploy in their mobile apps to engage attendees.
When choosing a phone or tablet, I always take in to consideration what my music experience will be. Unfortunately, the Nexus 7 doesn't have Beats by Dre technology, which some may view as overrated, though it's definitely one of the better ways to get perfect-sounding tunes with headphones. But it's not all about the Beats. There are many other ways to make listening to music on your Nexus 7 tablet a better experience, and we'll highlight some of the options and add-ons that you can try out.
Say you're on a train to work, but you forgot your headphones. You'd normally listen to music to pass the time, but given the circumstances, your choices are to sit silently like a considerate adult, or to blare songs out of your phone's main speaker like a jerk. Thankfully, there's now a third option.
While Snapchat augmented reality often embraces pop stars like Drake and Ariana Grande, a couple of bands from the louder side of the music industry have found a home with Facebook.
Despite the rise of music streaming, the experience of immersing oneself in the artwork and lyrics of old school albums is alive again, as sales of vinyl records and CDs have outpaced digital downloads for the first time since 2011. Now, the latest album from Amsterdam-based Necessary Explosion evolves this experience through augmented reality.
In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie leads the audience through an exploration of music not as notes on a page, but as an expression of the human experience. Playing with sensitivity and nuance informed by a soul-deep understanding of and connection to music, she talks about a music that is more than sound waves perceived by the human ear. She illustrates a richer picture that begins with listening to yourself, and includes emotion and intent as well as the complex...
Video may have killed the radio star, but will volumetric capture and augmented reality kill the video star?
Being a musician, whether experienced or just starting out, if you don't know your basic music theory, then you're selling yourself short on a wealth of knowledge! If you're just getting started and have never learned theory, this is where you begin. In this video you will get a basic over view of the staff, bar lines and double bar lines, treble clef, bass clef and the grand staff.
What better band than Pink Floyd, the pioneers of psychedelic and progressive rock, to show the music industry how to reinvent album art for the augmented reality age?
While the audio experience is solid on Galaxy phones, it isn't the absolute best out of the box. That's because Samsung has partnered with Dolby Laboratories to provide its industry-leading sound technology known as Dolby Atmos, but it's turned off by default. Once enabled, your audio experience will go from good to great.
Overall, Plex is a great service. You just install the server on your computer, then you can stream your media library to wireless devices with the Plex app for iPhone or Android. But it does have one annoying feature that's enabled by default: Theme music plays automatically when you're viewing the details page for a TV show.
In this video, Andrew, from Creative Guitar Studio, explains how to translate sheet music, (not tablature), to notes on the guitar. You will learn how to finger the notes and chords you see in sheet music on the guitar fret board. Beginning guitarists, and experienced players alike will appreciate this lesson in music theory as it applies to their instrument. Andrew does a great job of explaining how to learn how to convert sheet music and demonstrates it all very well in this guitar lesson.
Although next week will mark the late David Bowie's 72nd birthday, his fans and admirers are the ones receiving a gift in the form of an augmented reality app that explores the artist's career
Move over, Hype Williams, it looks like Snapchat is about to take some of your music video-making business, and pop rock group Maroon 5 is the proof.
Combine your iPod and a laser to send your music on the beam. Easy project that anyone can do, with the help of a little soldering. You will need your iPod, a solar cell, a laser, and a soldering tool. Watch this video circuitry tutorial and learn how to hook up an iPod to a laser for a laser-wired music experience.
Hip-hop artist Drake once rapped that "goin' online...ain't part of (his) day," but that's not stopping him from promoting his new double album, Scorpion, via augmented reality on Snapchat.
It looks like Snapchat is becoming the MTV of augmented reality. On Thursday, Ariana Grande, with her new album Sweetner, joined Drake and Nicki Minaj and other artists who are pushing new releases through Snapchat's Shoppable AR e-commerce platform.
It may take practice to get to Carnegie Hall, but a new mobile app gives the average iPhone or iPad owner the experience of walking on stage with a live orchestra.
Although Apple's Animoji game is strong, as recently exampled by its Ariana Grande collaboration, Google isn't slacking either, unleashing a far more immersive music experience for smartphone users.
When it comes to augmented reality apps, visually immersive experiences are plentiful, but audio experiences are somewhat underrepresented. A new app for iPhones and iPads seeks to shift the AR paradigm toward the latter.
The annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is one of those events that everyone talks about, so an augmented reality experience in the festival's mobile app and from one of its headlining acts, Eminem, basically means the technology is officially cool.
It's been rumored for months, but now we've got some official news about Google's newest music offering, YouTube Music Key. The subscription service will allow for an ad-free experience with background listening (i.e., having your screen off) and offline playback.
The mystery surrounding Overture, an app that showed up in the Magic Leap World app store along with the latest Lumin software release, has been cleared up.
Apple's in-house music identification app Shazam has been quiet on the augmented reality front since officially joining Cupertino's finest last year, but a new promotion gives AR enthusiasts an occasion to raise a toast.
Continuing with its new paradigm of using augmented reality to cover the news, The New York Times has published a feature story that takes a peek into the late David Bowie's eclectic wardrobe of on-stage outfits.
Don't get us wrong - we love our iPhones and iPods - but sometimes we just want to kick back on the couch, pour ourselves a glass of Chardonnay, and go for the full surround sound musical experience. Get a more visceral exerpience of your favorite tunes by listening to them on your TV.
For audiophiles, few smartphones come close to LG flagship devices. With either the latest G series or V series phone, you can be sure you're getting the best audio experience of any smartphone thanks to Quad DACs and headphone jacks. And with some tinkering, you can make this experience even better.
Famed musician and composer Brian Eno is giving the air guitar and drumming crowd the means to make music from their gesturing through the Microsoft HoloLens.
YouTube, the popular video streaming website owned by Google, announced on October 21st that it will be launching a new subscription service titled "YouTube Red" for $9.99 a month. Under the membership, subscribers will be able to watch videos without ads. Yup, all videos—from music to trailers to gaming and everything in-between—completely ad-free. Additionally, individuals can save videos to watch offline on their mobile devices as well as play videos in the background.
In an attempt to get more people to subscribe to Apple Music, the Music app was completely revamped in the iOS 8.4 update for iPad and iPhone to include new tabs for New, For You, and Connect.
Smells Like Teen Spirit is a song that defined a generation in the 90's and paved the way for alternative and hard rock music. In this video lesson you will learn the basics of playing the song, from the intro, the verse and the bridge section. He takes it slow and also displays tab during his lessons to give you a fast experience learning the songs.
Pro Tools 8 enables you to add all kinds of effects to all of the audio you are recording and working on. Music producer and musician David Franz has taken on the role of educator to share the knowledge that can only come from his years of experience to demonstrate some of the many things you do in audio editing. In this video, David Franz shows you how you can add effects while recording with Pro Tools 8.
I'm (definitely) not a vocalist but I'm sure there's many that like to sing or experience the fun of creating harmonic music alone. I'm using a headset so the song being played in noteworth composer is inaudible when I record to the mic.
It's not an official app, but for fans of Rick and Morty, it's a welcome piece of the series' universe until the recently renewed animated show returns to Adult Swim.
If you updated to iOS 8.4 already to try out the new Apple Music service, there's one important change you need to know about—there's no longer a "Shuffle" option for all songs in your library.
When it comes to subscription-based music streaming services, the conversation doesn't go much further than Spotify and Google Play Music (previously called "All Access"). Both services are essentially the same aside from slightly different catalogues and social options, and they both run ten bucks a month for unlimited music streaming and offline track saving (although Spotify does have a free, ad-supported service).
While holographic Whitney Houston is hitting the road, a new mobile app is bringing volumetric captures of up and coming performers directly to the iPhones and iPads of fans.
Newer gaming systems like the PlayStation 4 have a nice, subtle feature that goes a long way towards helping create a more immersive experience. Any time you're on the main menu or home screen, an ambient background music track is playing, which adds an aural appeal to an experience that would otherwise be all about the visuals.
