Virtual Music Experiences

In the international music industry, there has been a significant growth in experiments with new technology in recent years. For example, hybrid concerts enriched by the use of AR/VR and LED screens, immersive music on streaming platforms and in concert halls, virtual concerts in so-called ‘metaverse’ game platforms, image and sound generated by artificial intelligence, silent discos, productions on radio and TV with virtual studios or avatars, and much more. The industry is increasingly reaching out to adjacent sectors such as the gaming industry and the IT sector to join forces.

The international music industry has been increasingly using new technologies in recent years. This includes hybrid concerts that use AR/VR and LED screens, immersive music available on streaming platforms and at concert venues, virtual concerts in game platforms known as ‘metaverse’, as well as audio and visual content generated by artificial intelligence. In addition, there are silent discos, productions that use virtual studios or avatars for radio and TV, and much more. The industry is expanding its collaboration with adjacent sectors such as the gaming industry and IT sector. The research team considers a music experience to be “virtual” when it relies on new technology. The focus is mainly on how we will experience music in the future. How will we attend and organize concerts, play instruments, create visuals and music, and collaborate with humans and machines? Will it be physical, hybrid, phygital, digital, or a combination of these? Think of a concert in virtual reality with avatars in a digital concert hall, composing music with an interactive installation, playing instruments with augmented reality, a physical concert with 360-degree audio and video, and images and music that are dynamically generated.

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LATEST USE CASES

Digital Twin: Artist, Venue and Acoustics
As part of our ongoing exploration of how XR technologies can enrich musical expression, we set out to build a complete digital twin experience—not just of a musician, but also of the venues they perform in. The project investigates how accessible and efficient it can be to create virtual performances that preserve both the performer’s likeness and the acoustic identity of real-world spaces.
Pothamus AB Live Immersive show
For this project, we collaborated with the Belgian post-metal band Pothamus to design a custom visual experience for a showcase of new material from their upcoming album, “Abur.” Our aim was to stay true to the band’s intense, ritualistic aesthetic, while using cutting-edge tools to create something both visually reactive and emotionally immersive.
Psychonaut AR Towards the edge
To demonstrate what’s possible with Augmented Reality (AR) today, we set out to build an immersive musical experience. Our inspiration came from the Gorillaz’s “Skinny Ape” AR performance, which debuted alongside their single of the same name. That experience showcased how game technology can be used to create new, engaging fan experiences. For our own experiment, we were fortunate to collaborate with Psychonaut, a Belgian psychedelic post-metal band, who kindly allowed us to use their music as the foundation of this AR experience.

BLOG POSTS

Photogrammetry research by our interns.
During her internship in our research team, Hanne Yperman, a 3th year DAE student, was tasked to experiment with scanning in a person using our photogrammetry setup and documenting the process. Along with some fellow interns, she made this video explaining her findings.

RELATED EVENTS

VMX Closing Event

27/11/2024
Wintercircus, Ghent, Belgium
After two years, our VLAIO TETRA Virtual Music Experiences project has been completed. We investigated which technology works in a music context and which does not, we gained valuable insights into possible future developments, we inspired players from the music industry, involved many students and shared our findings with you at home and abroad. First of all, we would like to thank you for your involvement and feedback throughout the process. On Wednesday, November 27, we will officially close VMX in Club Wintercircus (Ghent). We go over all the results again and present our final use case: a VR experience in which we take users into digital copies of two concert halls (each with their own acoustics) while they listen and watch a piano performance by the metahuman. version by Tom Beghin (Orpheus Institute). The researchers will explain the how and what in detail during this final event, and you can of course also test the VR experience yourself.

Audio Developer Conference 2024

11/11/2024
– 13/11/2024
Bristol, UK
ADC is an annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems. ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new skills, and build a network that will support their career development. It is also aimed at showcasing academic research and facilitating collaborations between research and industry.

NIME 2024 Conference

02/09/2024
– 07/09/2024
Utrecht, The Netherlands
The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression gathers researchers and musicians from all over the world to share their knowledge and late-breaking work on new musical interface design. The conference started out as a workshop at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in 2001. Since then, an annual series of international conferences have been held around the world, hosted by research groups dedicated to interface design, human-computer interaction, and computer music.

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