TheWave VR coordinated two days worth of DJs playing musical sets in the world’s first VR Rave at VRLA. It was TheWave’s first event since announcing that they raised a round of $2.5 million to build out an interactive, VR music concert platform. I previously had a conversation with TheWave co-founder Aaron Lemke at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference where they were showing off their musical content creation tools, but they’ve since shifted their focus on building out the social experience for watching live performances of electronic DJs.
I had a chance to catch up with TheWave CEO Adam Arrigo at VRLA after the first day of their VR rave at VRLA to get more information about the future direction of their music platform, inspiration from livestreaming of DJ sets, and some of the unique affordances of performing music in VR.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
Donate to the Voices of VR Podcast Patreon
Music: Fatality & Summer Trip
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. On today's episode, I have Adam Irigo, who's the CEO and co-founder of The Wave, which is a interactive music concert platform that was showing at VRLA. And what they were showing was a day-long rave, where they had a number of different DJs who were using their tool to be able to live mix and perform to an audience filled with people who had Gear VRs and subpacks on. So I'll be talking to Adam today about The Wave and some of their latest plans to be able to bring forth a lot of the social components in music performance using virtual reality. So that's what we'll be covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. This is a paid sponsored ad by the Intel Core i7 processor. You might be asking, what's the CPU have to do with VR? Well, it processes all the game logic and multiplayer data, physics simulation and spatialized audio. It also calculates the positional tracking, which is only going to increase as more and more objects are tracked. It also runs all of your other PC apps that you may be running when you're within a virtualized desktop environment. And there's probably a lot of other things that it'll do in VR that we don't even know about yet. So Intel asked me to share my process, which is that I decided to future-proof my PC by selecting the Intel Core i7 processor. So this interview with Adam happened at VRLA, which was happening in the LA Convention Center on August 5th and 6th. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:45.379] Adam Arrigo: My name is Adam Arrigo. I'm the CEO and co-founder of The Wave VR. And we are building the world's first interactive VR music concert platform. And our company's mission is to bring people together through VR and music.
[00:01:58.298] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I had a chance to actually play a demo of this back at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference. And it was one of my favorite experiences that I had there. And just the process of music creation, and then there's the other dimension of consumption and creating this rave type of environment. So maybe you could talk about if you're still doing both tracks of doing music creation, but also music experiences.
[00:02:24.626] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, thanks so much for the compliment. That's awesome to hear. And so just to give you some history of the project, you know, I met Aaron Lemke, one of their co-founders at GDC several years ago, back when I used to work for Harmonix in Boston. And, you know, since then we've kind of always been talking about, you know, how we could use VR to push the music medium forward. And I was always a huge fan of Aaron's stuff back in the days of the DK1 when I downloaded all the prototypes, and one studio stood out as really knowing how to nail design aesthetics in VR. We did Eden River, classic DK1 demo, and Luna Droid and stuff. And so we've been talking for a while about it, and we started kicking around some ideas for prototypes. The first thing we did was this music creation demo that has this 3D sequencer that Aaron rigged up that a lot of people have described as the tilt brush of music. And we found that something about the music being visualized in 3D was really accessible for people. So our company, we have seven musicians. Everybody plays an instrument, and it's a DJ, or plays jazz, or reggae, or indie rock. And so we thought it was really cool. We're like, oh, wow, you can actually use all the tracks in the same space. You don't have to do all this menu diving. But we were actually surprised to find that a lot of people, like non-musicians, went and spent a long time creating music, similar to how you see casual users use Tilt Brush unnecessarily. you know, Android Jones or Tippitat Genovese. So that was kind of the first thing we did, and then we set up this camera in Unity, and I was watching Aaron perform on stage. He started shooting these particles at me, and we were thinking, like, oh, what if we did some sort of performance prototype as well, like, you know, on the spectrum of creation to performance. Let's go to the other end and see what that feels like. So we called up Clark Nordhauser, who's one of my co-workers at Harmonix back in the day. He's this games DJ that most people know as Grimecraft. He's an awesome video game DJ, and he streams his sets over Twitch. And he built this cool audio-reactive visualizer on his channel. And we were kind of inspired by it because a bunch of his fans would come in every week, subscribe to his artist channel. pay him, socialize with each other, and actually meet up with each other in real life. So we kind of asked him, what do you need to perform your music in VR? And let's try to create what you're doing on Twitch in a virtual reality music venue. And so we worked with him to build this DJ interface. So we kind of found, oh, well, this is a really interesting combination of creativity, of social interaction, of creating a dreamlike experience that you can't have in reality. And we kind of decided to move more towards the social platform aspect of it.
[00:04:56.775] Kent Bye: Great. And so here at the VRLA, you're showing a VR rave. And so maybe you could talk a bit about what you're showing here.
[00:05:05.359] Adam Arrigo: Oh, sure. So I guess the genesis of this idea started from talking to Cosmo a while ago about the idea of a VR rave. And the thing we're building is a social platform that effectively accomplishes that. A bunch of people can be networked into this VR venue from anywhere in the world, interacting in this really trippy, synesthetic environment. One of the side products that we got from just showing this thing at a bunch of these VR parties and industry events was we developed this installation piece where a DJ can be DJing in VR, we project what they're seeing behind them, and then we have some mobile headsets going through the audience that people can put on and go into the virtual venue. So this was the most involved, insane version of that, where we basically have a lineup of famous DJs each day playing in the Wave, controlling the audio, creating the visuals live, and then a bunch of Gear VRs live networked in the audience. This time they can all see each other and they can paint using the touchpad. And then we also did this crazy thing where we worked with this amazing company called 3D Live. The DJ plays in front of this humongous 3D screen. that we optimized all of our visuals for so they all kind of pop out as the DJ's playing and people can put on 3D glasses in the audience and kind of experience this augmented reality-like effect. And then everyone's wearing sub-packs, which are amazing too. If you don't know, it's a subwoofer vest that you strap to your chest.
[00:06:24.622] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think to me, the subpack kind of gives that extra layer of immersion into this type of experience, where it starts to make your body kind of feel like it's feeling the bass. But when I saw it, there was somebody who was in a Vive who was DJing. So maybe just talk about that process of how you're representing the DJ, and what the DJ is actually saying, if they have a completely different interface in order to actually perform, and what it's like for them to be able to play music to a bunch of virtual avatars.
[00:06:55.189] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, so we made the decision early on that the DJ should be in VR. You know, the things we talked about was, should we let DJs use their decks that they're used to? And we kind of decided that our goal is to bring people together in VR, but also connect the performer to the audience. So that's why we made the decision to develop these 3D interfaces that let them kind of manipulate the audio using motion controls. Right now the demo's for the HTC Vive, so they're using the controllers to interact and create the music and the visuals. So from a feature standpoint, it's not as robust as Traktor because you don't have all of the features available there. But our goal is to create a simple interface that has a much higher value proposition in that it allows you to control the entire world that people experience the music in. So before the drop, the DJ can manipulate this thing we call the chaos cube. As they turn up this parameter, a noise filter ramps up and the whole world becomes noisy for a second. And then right as the drop happens, they can hit a button and transform the whole venue to outer space. So we're really trying to empower artists by providing them this new toolkit. And the goal and the central design philosophy of our company is to let people do stuff in VR that they just can't do in reality. And so that's kind of why we decided to put everybody in VR together, to connect them with each other and also just create this dreamlike experience.
[00:08:11.036] Kent Bye: And so did you mention that you're focusing on more of the social elements and moving away from doing content creation tools in terms of actually generating music?
[00:08:20.341] Adam Arrigo: Well, I think the social element is number one. But the extent to which people have access to the tools, like we found in that first demo, putting these elements in 3D make them really casual. And we think a lot of the growth of the platform is going to come from user-generated content, not just the dead mouses and the Skrillexes of the world, but real users creating their own Rooms and putting on these parties whether it's a private listening party or you know It's an aspiring DJ trying to get good at mixing or it's someone who doesn't really know how to do it But just wants to mess around so it's really about you know democratizing the live experience both from like a social interaction standpoint but also a creation standpoint and you know our plan is to integrate that original demo into the DJ suite of 3d primitive so that you can do stuff like mix tracks together but also do live looping and all kinds of stuff that electronic musicians like to do in Ableton live and
[00:09:10.700] Kent Bye: And from an audience perspective using the gear VR I found Myself as I'm kind of dancing around it was almost like not having positional tracking can be a little bit disoriented almost you know how to kind of hold back my dancing a little bit but also kind of using a trackpad to be able to draw with your face is interesting and novel but I kind of really want to move my hands around in a way and so I'm just I I'm curious if you've started to look at something like Google's Daydream and start to prototype what a 3DOF controller might be able to do in terms of some of the interactions within this.
[00:09:43.150] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, we're actually one of the early development partners for the Daydream. And we're really excited at the fact that they're bundling that controller with the system. So I totally agree. I mean, right now, it does feel awkward to just, without positional tracking, you're kind of just stuck there. And we're really looking forward to positional tracking being integrated in mobile headsets eventually. Until then, we're kind of coming up with designs that let you do simple things that are fun, that don't have the same expectations of reality. We have a couple of great ideas that we're going to be working on in the coming weeks.
[00:10:13.427] Kent Bye: Now, in terms of actually deploying this experience and people being able to go to these DJ sets, is the plan to kind of have a series of major famous DJs? Or do you expect at some point kind of like a turntable FM where anybody can sort of get up and start to be the DJ and have people listening to them?
[00:10:33.897] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's a combination of both. I mean, we're definitely going to have the influencers, you know, wrapping the platform and bringing in their fan base. You know, part of the goal is to get artists closer to their fans using virtual reality. But also, you know, as I said, I think a lot of the growth is going to come from user generated content. When you're developing a social platform, there needs to be that loop that keeps users engaged, right? Just like, you know, in some platforms have different creation-to-consumer ratio. Like Vine, it's like 10% creation, and 90% of people just consume content. I think our goal is to be better than that in terms of the creation ratio. So we do want to democratize music creation, but I think that right now we've gotten so much interest from artists in the music industry that we're really interested in getting their feedback and hearing how we can open up new revenue streams for the music industry as well.
[00:11:19.574] Kent Bye: What's been some of the reactions of DJs as they maybe have some of their first VR experiences within the Wave?
[00:11:25.797] Adam Arrigo: Oh my god, it's been so amazing. I've gotten to meet so many of my favorite artists just through the demo process, and a lot of these guys have never even tried VR, so it's in part blowing their mind just through the possibilities of, oh, we can take you to another space, and then also showing them what our app can help them do in terms of creating this new type of music content. but people have been extremely excited and you know we've been working with a lot of forward-thinking artists like Morgan Page who is really interested in VR and he's been a huge proponent of new tech so working with artists like him who are really forward-thinking and thinking about you know how this is gonna evolve their crafts has been awesome so we have a lot of great collaborators.
[00:12:03.938] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I happened to come across a picture of you and Paris Hilton, and I was showing her the wave, and so I'm just curious how that came about, and then kind of what happened after that.
[00:12:15.200] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, oh my god, that was awesome. Paris was super cool, and one of our investors introduced us to her, and she's a really awesome DJ. And so we went and did the demo for her, and she just loved it. And she ended up Instagramming a couple pictures of us with HTC Vive. And, I don't know, there's this Kotaku article where a bunch of gamers were responding negatively to her using the Vive and saying, you know, VR. belongs to us, or everything's over and out, Paris is doing it, or something. It's a bunch of negative comments and stuff, which we thought, whatever, VR is an inclusive thing, and it needs all the influencers that it can get. And Paris was extremely excited about it, and we just thought it was kind of silly that people responded with such negativity.
[00:12:57.640] Kent Bye: Wow. And so I also heard recently that you've just raised a round of funding, and maybe you could talk a bit about that process and what that's going to enable you to do.
[00:13:06.237] Adam Arrigo: Sure, yeah, we're so excited. This is sort of an amazing moment for us where we spent the last several months kind of building this prototype and brought it more to product vision, spent a couple months on the fundraising trail, and we've just been incredibly lucky to have the support of so many amazing people in the industry, especially in the VR community. anything like Tippitat, Marco from the VR fund, BoostVC, Presence. It was awesome to have these guys believe in us from the beginning and kind of help propel us and gain momentum throughout the fundraising process, which was just amazing. And so we raised $2.5 million, which still blows my mind. One of the articles that was written about us in some Austin publication was like, a dream come true. Company raises $2.5 million to build VR music rave. And I kind of couldn't have said it better. This started as a passion project that most of the team was working on on the side. It was totally bootstrapped. Everyone was working on it because we're all musicians, and we selfishly just want this thing to exist. And so now that we have funding, the feature set's going to be deeper. We're going to be able to have higher quality and faster execution. This is just the beginning. We're just really excited to see where we can take it.
[00:14:13.884] Kent Bye: What do you think are some of the big new affordances that VR provides to musicians, both as they're creating and performing?
[00:14:23.160] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, good question. So one of the artists we've been working with is this guy on Ninja Tune, was one of our favorite labels, his name's Ash Kusha. And he is another one of these forward-thinking musician tech guys. And so he is really interested in VR. We did the show with him in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art. We spent like a couple weeks working on a build that kind of matched his visual aesthetic, which is very different from what you see in there at the rave. His aesthetic is a lot more aggressive, like monochromatic, glitchy, kind of the polar opposite. And so we worked with him and were like, hey, what do you need to to achieve your vision here for the show. He ended up playing his set in the Wave at the ICA. We projected what he was seeing on this giant black scrim in front of him. And it was really cool because his artistic vision is really crystal clear in what he wants to achieve. He wants to use VR to get his audience closer to the vision in his head as he creates music. And his music is really kind of abstract and textural. It's really great. You guys should totally check it out. But it's very visual. And so he, like us, believes in this concept of synesthesia as providing this new dimension of experiencing music. So his goal is to actually put people inside his mind in this new way. And it was awesome just sitting with him and working with him for that week on hearing how he would want to use tools like this to achieve his vision and empower him artistically. And, you know, for us, like, we want to build a social platform that's going to change the world, connect people in this amazing way. But I think because we're all musicians, like, this is something that we really believe in, that the moments where we get to actually see artists happy and excited and, you know, their minds kind of expanding and what we can accomplish together in the future, like, that's kind of what it's all about for us.
[00:16:02.233] Kent Bye: Yeah, another thing that I think of is the instrument of the theremin, which is kind of like this really crazy, wild, volumetric, lead-controlled thing where you're kind of playing it with your hands. But yet, in VR, you have this depth dimension, and I know that there are some sliders where you're able to do some different types of effects by moving the six-degree-of-freedom controller within the Vive and all those different degrees of freedom. And so, with that, I'm just curious of what type of ways that you've been able to use that three-dimensional interaction to be able to actually change the way either effects or things that you're doing within music.
[00:16:39.088] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, totally. So at a basic level, we build this thing called the Chaos Cube, which is, if you're an electronic musician, you know, the Chaos Pad is basically a two-dimensional pad that controls two parameters at once. A lot of times you'll control a synth's pitch, like a theremin, on one axis and then a filter on another axis. So the Chaos Cube allows you to control three different parameters in 3D space at once. So in the Create demo we did, you're controlling an organ pitch on the Y-axis and then two different effects on the X and Z-axes. So it's something that you can only do in VR or in 3D that you can't do in 2D. And then just to a larger extent, like being able to lay out interfaces in 3D lets you perform music at a different and more physical way. So for this VR Rave, this is the first time we've kind of assembled a list of well-known artists on a roster to play a show in the Wave, which is a huge milestone for us that actually kind of gets lost in all the other hoopla that's been going on. But it was awesome today just watching six different artists go in and perform using our platform and our software. And one thing I noticed that was common in all of them was that they got into the performance physically in a way that if you're performing on a normal more DJ deck, you're kind of like hunched over and performing on this like kind of defined smaller interface, but when the interface is around you, you should get more physically into it and becomes more like a dance. So it was awesome. You should check out some of the videos that are going to be posted online. It was just, it was really inspiring for me to see that because that's something that you can only do in 3D that inspires a new type of performance.
[00:18:05.377] Kent Bye: I'm just curious some of the reactions that you're getting from people that are playing the Wave. Because I imagine if you're going to some of these situations, again, it may be people's first experiences with MVR. But even here at VRLA, you have a lot of VR veterans who are going in to experience this whole immersive experience. So I'm just curious to hear some of the feedback.
[00:18:23.885] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, I love giving these demos because it's so fun to see everyone's individual reaction. I think especially when people do the creation stuff and the DJ stuff, there's something engaging about it because you're putting part of yourself into it. The same reason why Tilt Brush is such an engaging experience, you're actually creating something. And, you know, we've had people go in there and just refuse to leave. Like, they're in there just composing their magnum opus, and I would just kick them out of my apartment at some point. And I think, yeah, there's something about this third layer of, you know, being able to, like, walk through the music. It's sort of this third dimension that it's just an experience you can't have not in VR. Like, if we're adding this third dimension to music experiences, like, the first one is audio, the second one's video, and then the third one is interaction. So we kind of want to own this new space where people can go in and socialize. And we've had all kinds of amazing demos where every time we do a demo, I text the whole team and say, hey, jump into the venue because I want to show this new person the social experience. And we've had all kinds of crazy stuff happen. Like at one point, we have this painting mechanic where you can draw in 3D, kind of like Tilt Brush. And we had a bunch of people in there, like 10 people dancing together while someone was DJing. And someone drew the word limbo in the air. And then drew a limbo stick in 3D. And everyone formed this Congo line and started limboing. And I had no idea. This totally emergent gameplay happened. This guy was in my living room limboing. And I thought he was going to fall and break his neck or something. I was like, whoa. Calm down man, so stuff like that that you know once you give people these basic tools of expression and interaction You're just constantly surprised what happens Do you have any favorite memories or stories of being in VR? It's hard to pinpoint one because my life is in VR at this point Yeah, I think the first time we did that Twitch stream when Clark played the DJ set for the first time was a really magical moment in seeing people's reactions because we actually weren't sure if we were going to stream this on Twitch because some of the graphics weren't totally polished yet. And Clark was the guy that helped us design the interface and is our resident DJ. And just seeing people's comments streaming in, it was the first time anyone had seen anything that we'd been working on, people saying, that's lit, lit, lit, using Clark's emotes on Twitch. And people saying, how do I go into the virtual venue? Like, how do I buy this? Someone else was like, you're going to be richer than Mark Zuckerberg or something. You know, the Twitch crowd is amazing. Yeah, just seeing that people actually wanted to use the tool and also experience the social aspect of it. It was just like an amazing moment for us because we're just a bunch of music tech nerds working on this thing. Like, oh, so there's actually somewhat of a product market fit. And we have an audience that we can serve.
[00:21:10.402] Kent Bye: Yeah, what kind of insights are you bringing from your work at Harmonix, which is a video game company that has done a lot of musically-based video games, and using this interactive paradigm within the Wave?
[00:21:22.406] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, I loved working at Harmonix. I can't say enough good things about those guys in terms of just the most innovative thinkers in the industry, especially when it comes to music. And so it made me realize, one, how much room there is to innovate in interactive music. And working on Rock Band and Den Central and Disney's Fantasia and Music Evolved, there's just so much unexplored territory in terms of how people can interact and experience music in new ways. Especially working on Rock Band and a lot of those games that were kind of party games gave me this appreciation for how music can bring people together in a social experience. You know, anyone who's played Rock Band knows a totally different experience playing solo guitar versus a full band. And I think, you know, ever since working on those games, my mission has kind of always been find ways to bring people together.
[00:22:08.522] Kent Bye: Yeah, and to me, I think it's interesting that you have so many people that are on your team that are musicians. And so do you imagine a time where you're actually able to bring some of that social collaboration of actually kind of creating this band-like experience? Or are you kind of focusing on more synthetic electronic music like the DJs?
[00:22:26.153] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, we've talked about that. I think there's a really great product involved with kind of asynchronous VR collaboration. The electronic creation tool that we built in the beginning, I think we're just going to rig this up because it'll be awesome, but you could easily put a second person in there and you could have two people from different places in the world actually sequencing a beat together and creating music and adjusting parameters. There are latency and physical limitations, but because of the way electronic music works, if you're just kind of setting up notes to happen in a sequence, I don't think users would notice a difference. So yeah, I think that's a really juicy area.
[00:22:58.860] Kent Bye: Great. So what's next for you and The Wave?
[00:23:01.842] Adam Arrigo: Well, priority now is setting up the company. We're hiring a few engineering positions. We just got an office space in central Austin. And putting out the first version, going to market as quickly as possible and getting user feedback. We're going to start staging this weekly VR rave series where we'll invite a bunch of our friends to kind of hop in, you know, once a week and have a different DJ as we test out a bunch of new social features. So our goal is to kind of rapidly iterate on the social experience and then put out the first version for everybody.
[00:23:29.580] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:23:39.212] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, that's the question you always ask, right? And I'm totally unprepared for it. The successful virtual reality experiences are the ones that we are most interested in, have like three things. One, creative, they let you put part of yourself into the system and see really cool feedback. Two, that they're social, that it can bring people together in new ways and interact with people that you either wouldn't be able to otherwise or that you're physically separated from. And then three, have dream-like experiences that are very different from reality. So for us, what we're doing is kind of twofold. It's one, promoting greater access to content based on democratizing the live music show experience. People can't go to some shows because of their location, their age, that they're too expensive, they don't like to hang out in crowds, and now they'll be able to access this content. And then also for empowering artists to create this new type of content that hasn't existed before. You know, what you'll be able to do when you create a show is not only drop in the audio, but also customize the visuals in the venue, just like we did with Ash Kutcha for that London show. As I said, like, we're all musicians and we're artists, and what motivates us is just empowering people like us to create new content that will be experienced by others.
[00:24:55.601] Kent Bye: Awesome. Is there anything else that's left and said that you'd like to say?
[00:24:59.503] Adam Arrigo: Yeah, just I guess again how grateful and excited we are to be working with such amazing team of investors advisors and just I'm so psyched right now because We have the shot to do this thing that we all really believe in and I just want to just give a shout out to the rest of our team like I I'm so personally lucky to be working with these people who I think are just the most talented and chill and hardworking team like I've ever worked with. So I'm so excited to keep growing our company culture now that it's a real thing.
[00:25:29.941] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
[00:25:32.022] Adam Arrigo: All right. Thank you.
[00:25:33.884] Kent Bye: So that was Adam Irigo. He's the CEO and co-founder of The Wave, which is a interactive music concert platform created by a number of different musicians. So I have a number of different takeaways from this interview is that first of all, when I first tried the Wave, the thing that I really loved about it was the creation process. And I was really looking forward to it as a tool to be able to actually create my own music and to learn perhaps more about music theory. So I think since then, the Wave has really been putting their primary focus on the social aspects. So I think that there's actually a connection between the creation tools as well as the performance. In order to really do a performance you need to create the creation tools for the performer to be able to kind of imbue their human spirit within the actual experience. I think one of the challenges with electronic music sometimes is that you could just basically hit play and the DJ and the performer could just kind of sit back and let the music kind of play itself. So in terms of performance, it sometimes can be not all that entertaining. So I think that the thing that I found really interesting about the Wave is that it is using electronic music and allowing people to really move their body around and potentially use some of those movements to be able to use the affordances of the 3D nature of VR to be able to do unique things with their chaos cube that you wouldn't be able to necessarily do working with 2D. Some of the challenges I think that are going to be facing the wave is that first of all, anything that's social VR has to kind of build up an audience to be able to go into an experience and actually have something to see and to experience. And so I think at first they're going to be starting with these different raves and music experiences. And I think the big question is, are they going to be able to get people at any moment in time, go into the wave and see somebody playing some sort of DJ set? So it kind of reminds me of Turntable FM, which was an interactive music streaming service that was launched back in early 2011 and eventually had to shut down in 2013. I think one of the challenges that Turntable FM faced was just the music licensing issues. So that's a question that I didn't ask in terms of the logistics of how is this going to be legal to be able to just jump in and start streaming music over the social VR application. And the other thing is that using a mobile headset, it does kind of limit your ability to move around and dance. And so that's one of the things that I like to do at a music show is to really move around and dance around. And by not having that full mobility to move my body in all different directions within a mobile headset, then it's something that I think I'd have a better experience using a Vive at home than using a mobile VR headset. But if they are trying to reach the masses, then I think that is one consideration, is that you could essentially just kind of sit there and maybe move your head left and right, but kind of even bopping up and down may be problematic in terms of watching some music experiences within VR. In the future, I think some of the things that are going to make the Wave really super compelling are, first of all, the types of performances that are happening. And if you go to the performance and start to really feel like you're able to feel the essence or energy of somebody who's playing. To see someone kind of dancing around and having those movements impact the music, I think could be interesting to see how that type of live performance really translates into VR. You know, at the outset, it really seems like electronic music is kind of a perfect fit for virtual reality, just because the electronic music is going to be the sweet spot, what they're really going for. Playing live instruments within VR, I think, is something that is going to happen at some point. And I think the challenge again is to have people who are kind of distributed across the network and dealing with some of those latency issues. But I can start to see how if you're able to kind of do a distributed recording of a song of a whole band, it'll be interesting to see if they actually start to progress along those routes of playing other instruments beyond just electronic music. So I'd expect to see the the wave playing at different parties at different tech conferences I know at PAX West that's coming up this coming weekend grind craft is gonna be playing a virtual reality set within the wave at one of these parties and so I think that the visuals are gonna be another big part of this experience of kind of a adding something that can only happen within virtual reality. And so doing these 3D audio reactive music visualizations I think is going to be another big component of the Wave and allowing some of those tools to be accessible to the DJ. So not only is the DJ going to be playing the music but also kind of becoming the video DJ as well. So kind of the immersive VR and music DJ I think is kind of where this is all going. I'm curious to see how these tool sets develop, and they've got some funding to be able to continue to iterate. And I think with these social VR applications, at the end of the day, it's going to be a matter of, are they going to be able to attract and draw people to some of these different events and experiences? If you are interested in checking out some of these future events by the way then I recommend you check them out on Twitter as well as Facebook and sign up to the email list so that you can get the latest word. I personally am really looking forward to seeing some of their content creation tools to see if that is going to really inspire people to kind of become a dedicated virtual reality DJ where they're able to really come up with the process of being able to create live beats and sequences and at the same time be able to do the musical component as well as the visual component. I think that's going to be the the big question is that even though someone may be a great DJ are they going to be able to actually use all the full tool set to give a compelling visual experience Or is the tool set going to develop where it's going to kind of split into the music creation, content creation part and have a separate virtual reality DJ who's kind of taking responsibility for the visual and immersive experience that's happening. So I think there's actually a lot of really interesting things that could be done. And I'm really excited to check out some of the live concerts that are coming up at some of these upcoming concerts and kind of see how this technology continues to evolve and develop. So, that's all that I have for today. I wanted to just thank you for listening, and if you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then spread the word, tell your friends, and become a donor at patreon.com slash Voices of VR.
