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The Raindance Immersive Awards just announced its 2024 nominees, and a project in the Best Live Show category caught our attention. "Connected Waves: VR Jazz Session" is a live performance on VRChat by the virtual music community EMN Records.
After watching the group's live concerts from the past, we were impressed with the quality despite jazz being a highly improvisational form of music. There were no noticeable delays, which are common in online performances, and the audio was so clean that we questioned whether those were pre-recorded.
This piqued our curiosity about how jazz, which thrives on improvisational spontaneity, is presented in virtual worlds like VRChat. And how do musicians overcome the technical challenges of live performances with artists playing in different locations?
EMN Records comprises a group of passionate virtual musicians. They regularly host jazz concerts on VRChat and have released several original albums. Before this project, they also hosted a large-scale jazz performance featuring a Big Band with up to 16 musicians on Cluster.
The group's instruments are perfectly replicated in virtual reality. (Source: EMN Records)
Since the concerts can be experienced in immersive environments, how they look and feel are also important; hence, live VJs are frequent collaborative partners.
The award festival will showcase the nominated Connected Waves: VR Jazz Session on VRChat, set in a specially crafted deep-sea ambiance called Blue Rondo: Bathys. Free tickets for the performance are available now.
Let's go behind the curtain and discover the secret of EMN Records' ability to deliver real-time, high-quality concerts despite geographical constraints. The demand for interactive virtual entertainment rose during the pandemic, creating new challenges for musicians in different locations who still need to practice and play together in real-time.
To address this challenge, Yamaha collaborated with Japanese telecom provider NTT to develop the proprietary technology called NETDUETTO, which they used to create the SYNCROOM app in 2020. The free software enables low-latency, bidirectional audio transmission, allowing musicians to jam together online in real time.
Delays in audio during calls and video conferences are common and usually don't cause major issues. However, even a slight lag can spell big trouble for music performances. NETDUETTO efficiently processes audio data over the network, using buffer control and auto-correction to ensure near-zero latency.
Beyond streamlining virtual concerts and musical improvisation, SYNCROOM has applications in remote band practices and online music lessons. (SYNCROOM is currently only available in Japan and South Korea.)
Whether you enjoy making friends through music or attending virtual live concerts, these emerging technologies are super exciting and will change how we consume and produce music!