Music transcends languages and is one of the most ancient forms of human communication and culture. Even other animals like birds and organic life forms such as plants respond to music. Humans use music to make love and war as a psychological tool.
“In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music” - (Wikipedia). Today, music is big business and used by global advertising agencies to create campaigns that target people of all ages. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, News Corp, Disney, Universal, Warner and EMI all have their fingers in the music business.
Since the advent of the internet and the “Napsterization” of music with digital peer-to-peer services, YouTube and portable “iPods”, the music industry is in a rapid state of convergence and change. Search engines and social media “trending” list music as a primary topic and media type that is passed around the planet at the speed of light. Thus, with rapid global changes in social behavior created by new technology and digital connectivity, bands have to react quickly to develop new music business models.
The most successful bands in the world do not only sell music. Rather, they sell an experience that you can be a part of and share with your friends.
Big shows like the recent U2 concert broadcast live on YouTube, featured a complex visual component the helped them create a mind blowing integrated experience. The sound was amazing and the 360 stage provides views for all. U2 also created an amazing centralized 360 degree video screen that complemented the music as well as was used to communicate the band’s messages about global poverty and freedom. These messages mixed with visuals created a U2 experience that connected with fans worldwide in a manner more powerful than simply only playing music during the concert.
Here is a demo of the recent U2 Concert with a very crude live Twitter Stream overlay. At 1:22 you will see different Twitter visualization modes with member photos, etc. A few paragraphs down, you will see a more integrated and visually appealing approach that I discovered and have working in the media lab.
With the advent of social media and mobile phones, live concerts now may add a direct connection to their audiences to create a new more consumer centric experience. A very basic example is to display live Twitter streams into their visuals as we have seen with business events. For bands it is now possible to create an “integrated experience” by remixing social media via mobile devices with visuals and audio. They key then is how to create a “real-time blended interactive experience” and new user interaction models. This will change the notion of a band playing in the typical one-to-many model to a “many-to-many” model. The opportunity for bands is to leverage music and visuals as a medium that their audience interacts with and there for personalized as their own experience. Then they will share the media experience with their friends and drive new fans via social media and social discovery.
What I find is that there are gaps between the tools that we need to create integrated mixed media experiences. Sure big bands like U2 can afford a multimillion dollar stage, sound and lighting setup. But they are the exception as 99.99% of all bands are small local bands with tiny budgets. The question to then answer is how may a small band with a few laptops, off-the-shelf projectors and software emulate a big budget band’s stage show?
Some background: I am a long time DJ (two turntables, old school vinyl and a mixer) and electronic musician (laptop + software and control devices) that has recently added live visual remxing “VJing” as part of my tools set. Thus, I am a digital and analog native when it comes to mixing various analog and digital sources. In addition, when my band plays local shows we are also shooting HD music videos, thus to create a more compelling and visual video, the VJing aspect adds sizzle to our productions.
My band uses an array of instruments both electronic and traditional. Our band’s goal has been to federate (unify) our instruments and the music with a visual component that integrates real-time social in a method that our audience may also be part of the federated experience.
This past year I have tested ideas for “small bands” to create a magical experience and connect with fans leveraging sound, lights, visuals and social media. Along this journey, I always run into issues where digital media applications are missing key components to work as part of an ecosystem of tools that band’s need to create a unified two-way experience to connect with their fans. Just this week, I found a few key components that act as “glue” to connect software programs, laptops and other basic tools to create unique experiences on a budget.
In my quest to create a federated band and audience experience I found a cool plug-in for my visuals program then uses Flash / Action Script to pull in live Twitter streams into the composition. The system uses keyword searches that then are visualized with different settings in with up to 10 layers of video, motion graphics, Quartz Compositions and live video feeds. For a simple use case such as an event, it is possible to get away from the standard “Twitter Fall” and move to more advance mixed media presentation of your Twitter live feed back channel. The flash coding for this application was created by the talented Erik Kateborg.
Here is a video sample of one of my music projects called Miss Solar System with live visuals. Now imagine this using the above Twitter Visualizer as part of the visual mix. This would create a back channel and cool way for the audience to interact with the band. Plus, it would look a heck of a lot cooler than projecting the “standard” Twitter Fall which would actually look totally lame at a concert. The video was filmed with my gear by Felix who rocks on the camera—haha, you can see when I am holding the camera while trying to VJ, when Felix left for the bathroom. If you are into visuals, forward to 8:00 minutes, where I switch from modulating videos to real-time particles with gravity and other effects.
Millions of musicians today have integrated laptops and music production software into their live music sets. Often the use of the laptop is lost on the crowd because the audience can not really see the music interface. One huge untapped source for both music and visual material is the internet. The main issue is that the internet media sources do not currently provide a time clock, MIDI, OSC or other to connect to real-world control devices such as a control surface.
This week I thought “why not just remix the music production interface” as part of a live remixed visuals set? Then I could mix music and video at the same time and have tight integration because I was actually remixing my music software interface as a visual asset. I created a working demonstration to leverage a video projector at a live music event to project the actual music software, in this case Ableton Live.
This demo creates the notion of a “live visual electronic musical instrument” to better engage the crowd with the digital part of the music production. My laptop is running Ableton Live and then feeds into my MacPro desktop using a DVI to HDMI cable, into a video capture card. This is then pulled into my live video composition software as a video feed. Now I can project the Ableton Live Software and interact with it in real-time to create music. In addition, I can add layers of color animation and live visual graphics effects to the Ableton Live Software interface, so it is now part of the visuals. I am able to pull the MIDI clock for music beat timing into my video remixing software as well as mic audio to create on-the-beat visual effects. In essence this is a real-time visual instrument.
Ableton is working with Max/MSP to create a new music production paradigm. See Max for Live - “Create all the instruments, effects and extensions you’ve ever wanted. Go beyond the common and predictable, and transcend the limits that conventional tools impose. Build completely unique synths and effects, create algorithmic composition tools, or fuse Live and controller hardware into radical, new music machines.”
Peter Kirn at Create Digital Music highlights a futuristic music interaction video on this blog post: “Subcycle: Multitouch Sound Crunching with Gestures, 3D Waveforms”
multi-touch the storm - interactive sound visuals - subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.
In the future all bands will be blending social media with live visuals into their show as a new way to connect with audiences and create a back channel for interactivity. Mobile devices with touch screens and other sensors will become the “joystick” for controlling interactive motion graphics live in real-time by audiences. Entertainment that provides the audience with interactivity will become mainstream especially as we enter a world where every mobile phone is also a micro laser video projector.
Here is a recent demo using VDMX, a visual mixing program with Ableton Live, for audio mixing and an iPhone App created by Memo Atkins. The iPhone application connects to the computer via WIFI. The iPhone has touch screen controls that are mapped remotely to both VDMX and Ableton Live via OSC. Thus, the iPhone is used as a remote wireless multi-touch controller for both audio and visual production in real-time.
MSA Remote + VDMX + Ableton Live from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
MSAFluid for processing (Controlled by iPhone) from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Computer Vision + Live Visuals + Audience Interaction in Real-Time = Body Paint
The amazing Memo will blow you away with this demo. Imagine your band having this as part of your sage show tied to a live capture video camera tied to your Facebook profile’s video capture and YouTube.
“Body Paint” Installation at “Clicks or Mortar”, March 2009 from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Next we know that social media is about the “media” that you develop to distribute on your social networks. In my “Media Lab” I created a very rapid way to create remixed photos using live video that I shoot at my band Surrealized’s shows. The idea here is to rapidly streamline the media production in order to quickly turn around very complex photos that would take hours to create in Photoshop. The effect looks like artwork. Thus, we leverage remixed photos to grab attention on the social networks where photo sharing is huge. In addition, I am able to create video loops by using say 100 photos to create something cool to project behind the band while they jam on stage.
We are use to the notion of “Square Video” and Square or Rectangular shapes photos, because video cameras, screens and projectors are square. New technology allows us to get out of the “square paradigm” by “Mapping” or stretching video to 3D shapes, warping video to non-square shapes and also by masking video so it is round. The use of non-square visual media creates a type of “new look” that grabs people’s attention and this is key to create “experiences” and videos that people want to share. Here are a few amazing demos of mapping video to give you some creative ideas for your band, event or other situation where you want to try something new. Most of these videos were found via Peter Krin and his Create Digital Motion blog.
Laser Cave Prototype from Suryummy on Vimeo.
Telenoika Audiovisual Mapping @ Ingravid Festival, Figueres 9/2009 [FULL] from Telenoika on Vimeo.
555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.
Google “Augmented Reality” and learn what a “Glyph” or “Marker”, then imagine one printed on a band’s promotional poster, a flier or on the back of your concert ticket. This is what will be possible and is possible now, just not widely distributed yet.
Connecting the Analog World to the Digital World. You have to watch this if you are a band as you will come up with a few new ideas for your stage show and for your audience to play with at home. Fressssh!
AR scratching from vanderlin on Vimeo.
I hope you enjoyed the above blog post in a way that stimulates new ideas for your band or friend’s bands. The key is to leverage consumer grade technology such as video cameras, projectors, laptops and mobile devices to create a new music experience for your fans. Many successful musicians understand that the music revenue model has changed and to be profitable they have to leverage social media and digital technology. Cheers, Techno Tim 
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