Chris Hegstrom

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Fine Practicality

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Heart of the Matter

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Quarter Life Crisis

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One Girl. One Journey

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New Hardware & VR Audio….Are we there yet?

Tis the season for some of us to start thinking about upgrading our workstations. Those of us W-9 freelance types have till December 31st to get in that 2016 write-off & / or counter our earnings with business spend.

 

Luckily, both Microsoft & Apple have made it very easy to part with our hard earned cash by introducing the Surface Studio & the new Macbook Pro. If you’re like me and you do (or plan to) make the majority of your earnings doing VR audio, would either of these machines be worthy of their 4-figure investment?

 

First of all, can either of these machines run VR? The answer is unfortunately, for the most part, no. You can run mobile VR on both, but as implied by the definition, you’d eventually be publishing to a mobile device. It’s the computing equivalent of shake weights vs. the heavy lifting required to run a Vive or Oculus.

 

In addition to processing power, the video card is what makes or breaks VR compatibility. After all, running duel 4k display monitors at 90+ fps requires some real horse power and neither the Surface Studio nor the Macbook Pro have it.

 

Surface Studio runs on a GeForce 980m, a really good mobile video card, but not good enough for VR power-towers. Mac is running on the AMD Radeon Pro 450 or 460, again great for gaming, but not quite there yet for VR.

 

Bummer? Well maybe, but not really in today’s workflow. Most interactive audio folks have two machines, so an all-in-one solution isn’t really in the cards yet. There are some exceptions.

 

I know of some teams who are running a decked out version of Nuendo or Adobe suite with all the VST plug-ins you could ask for on the same giant Ed 209 looking box  that houses their blinged out Titan X graphics card, but they’re the exception to the rule. Besides, since both Digital Audio Workstations & VR displays are CPU hogs, putting all that computing on one machine has diminishing returns.

 

It seems counterintuitive but in some ways it’s better to have two $2500 boxes than one $5k box that runs everything at once. It’s also a way to separate church and state or in this case, the creative and technical. Interactive audio folks I know are comfortable letting their right brain create on a Mac & their left brain implement on a PC.

 

So, what about Microsoft’s pitch to the creative audience? I watched their 10/26 keynote again & I love their message. I love that this is hardware for the future generation of creators. I love that they’re pushing 3D for everyone and I love the potential of the Surface dial, or any non-keyboard / mouse interface for that matter. Microsoft is well on their way to an all-in one solution and with their (albeit confusing) enterance into the VR headset world, they are poised to get there first.

 

For audio however, it will still be a bit. To make full use of their surface dial, Microsoft needs a 2nd party developer (like Apple has Logic or Roli) to work exclusively in the hardware & make it sing (pun intended). Their keynote mentioned a composer who works exclusively on Surface using the stylus pen and a music teacher who DJs on the weekend but I only saw examples of visual applications that showcased their dial / studio.

 

Apple on the other hand had me opening my wallet when they showed that DJ set using the touch bar as a filter sweep, x-fade and a number of other assignable parameter controls. Corny, maybe, but it was an interesting baby step for Apple since everyone thought they would ‘me-too’ Microsoft by introducing full touch. I can say that it might be a smarter move to for Apple to do one thing well rather than mimic something that they don’t have a comprehensive plan for.

 

A touch bar that works 90% of the time is better than a touch screen that responds 70% of the time. While Microsoft has some very deliberate intentions for its touch screen models across Windows 10 development, it makes sense for Apple to distance themselves from that path for now instead of jumping on the bandwagon.

 

Back to VR development, Palmer Lucky had some not-so-nice things to say about Apple & running (or rather not running) VR from a Mac. The fact is that Apple is such a bespoke ecosystem that it makes sense for them to wait and introduce their own AR / VR device, one that’s designed from the ground up within the Apple environment. Besides, those that want to run a Vive on a Macbook seem pretty niche compared to those who want to say, make a dope beat in Garage Band.

 

If PC is the way to go to run VR, how can we, a-hem, scratch the surface (get it?) and get a machine powerful enough, yet elegant enough to not want to hide it under the desk next to the literal trash can? There are new middle-school solutions out there that offer customizable yet compact / sexy chassis. PCs from companies like Falcon Northwest can run the pixles out of some VR & yet fit in your carry-on for a client flight in a pinch.

 

How about PC laptop solutions? Well, there are some, but besides being 13 pounds and as big as many current desktops, most of them are geared toward the hardcore gamer. If you’re concerned with aesthetics, you may not want a neon pink dragon laser sketched onto your laptop cover that makes you seem like you just stole it from the props department of the live action remake of Akira.

 

Sometime down the road, this will all be moot & we’ll be running audio applications seamlessly in VR using a server hub interface that looks like a glass salad bowl & opens and closes the data pipeline depending on the usage we pay for per household. Until then though, we’re still confined to keyboards, screens and mice with occasional toe-dips into the pool of alternative user interfaces.

 

For me, I’m already running my audio software and hardware though an iMac so odds are I’ll plunk down for a mid-level 15” Macbook Pro. It just makes sense for me to make a redundant workspace, especially if I get more away gigs. After that I will probably invest in a custom Falcon Northwest Tiki with an NVidia 1080 video card, or the price equivalent of what’s available when I can afford (or justify) it.

 

That being said, if I were still working at Microsoft, I would be tempted to use that employee discount for a Surface Studio, or at least fight hard to convince my team to spend some of the fiscal budget on one for my office. ?

The Importance of 3D Audio for VR

Written for Designing Sound:

Audio for VR is important, especially for audio people. For us it’s really important, but how important will it be to your everyday developer?

Before we dive into that, a quick back-story:

VR has been around in one form or another for decades, but computing power has only recently caught up to our dreams & allowed people (not at technology institutes) access to head mounted displays & experience fabricated worlds in stereoscopic 3D.

& now…the arms race.

It’s an exciting time for technology right now because it feels like everything from camera technology, to story-telling techniques to graphics cards have a new goal: Be the VR standard. Be first, be the best & most importantly: be the one that everyone uses.

[Read the complete text at Designing Sound]

3D Music: Presence Beats Fidelity

The new buzz to come out of the VR audio space is 3D music, that is, music that takes advantage of the 360 degree spatial sound available through VR headsets and advanced audio algorithms.

We’re beginning to see audio solutions decouple from head mounted displays in the form of Ossic Headphones and other audio only endeavors. We know 3D music production isn’t far behind.

If you do a search on this subject at the moment there’s a surprising amount of skepticism, especially from the audiophile community.

This is most likely due to lack of VR exposure coupled with the failure of previous hi-def audio formats that have plagued the audiophile community for so long, placing them further & further into the minority.

Excuse the pun but let’s get something crystal clear here: 3D sound isn’t about fidelity, it’s about presence.

Stereo audio in a 3D experience like VR won’t seem lower fidelity, it will seem wrong. If sound sources move with your head opposed to locking to the environment as you move freely around the space, your sense of immersion will be lessened and the listener will fall into the audio uncanny valley.

Additionally traditional stereo will seem static, muddled & claustrophobic when compared to the much more open soundscape of 3D, similar to listening to mono after getting accustomed to stereo.

Applying that parallel to 3D music will take a bit of trial & error. Remember when the first commercially available stereo recordings in the 60’s meant guitar in the left channel, piano in the right? It was only after lots of experimentation that the stereo field finally found its ‘space’.

In current VR experiences, 3D sound is subtle because it fits so well within a 3D environment. Seeming ‘right’ only draws your attention when it’s taken away. In that respect, the majority of users won’t appreciate it until they become used to it & then go back to 2D. The user will then understand that this is a quantum leap opposed to an additive improvement.

Audiophiles traditionally emphasize fidelity over immersive context because it’s easier to quantify (96kHz > 48kHz, etc.) The problem with this is 3-fold.

1) it’s elitist.
I brought my 40 pound refurbished reel to reel player and my 7 1/2″ tape of Jimmy Hendrix Rainbow Bridge over to the house of a friend who builds custom tube amps & speakers. This is a labor of love that took time, money, physical effort & coordination. I don’t expect many people to make this sort of pilgrimage to listen to a commercial album.

2) The return on investment is diminished at best.
Listening to Rainbow Bridge was more about the ritual than the qualitative improvement. Objectively, I’d say that custom setup yielded about a 30% better listening experience than playing it on YouTube over a Labtec 2.1 system, about 15% better than a Spotify premium version over a Denon Heos & about a 5% improvement over a Cambridge Audio CD player through a Harmon Kardon amp & PSB speakers.

3) Fidelity isn’t important to the masses.
Today’s consumers value portability & access to content over fidelity. The music you listen to at the gym has 3 additional layers of data & signal compression then it did 20 years ago. MP3 compression (1) optimized for cloud streaming (2) played over Bluetooth (3) squeezes that fidelity down like a juice presser. & everyone seems fine with that.

An executive once asked me to help him price out a stereo system with his $10,000 budget. I told him if his source was either a streaming service or an MP3 library played over a 3.175mm phono jack, he should spend $2000 on a decent prosumer system & save the rest for live shows. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

So if no one cares about niche incremental fidelity improvement, how would 3D music catch on? Simple, thanks to VR / AR, it will be the price of entry for sonic content & more importantly it’ll use the same gear you already have for your HMD.

Not too many people are going to pony up for a Pono, but if you’re using headphones to experience VR, you will certainly expect music listening not to sound worse than your multimedia content over the same hardware.

What will 3D music sound like? Only time will tell. It could be like hearing the London Philharmonic Orchestra from the conductor podium or hearing Nicholas Jarr’s samples spin around you like fireflies or it could be something completely new that no one has thought of yet. We’re at the ‘guitar = left, piano = right’ stage right now.

One thing is for sure, if the future Dark Side of the Moon is released exclusively in 3D music, audiophiles can buy their high fidelity adamantium collector’s edition vinyl. The rest of us will be happy to stream it over Steam music or Spotify 3D assuming the content is just as present and the experience is just as real.

VR Theater

A few months ago,  Variety had an article all about Broadway’s new love of VR. This made sense the more I thought about it. An old-school entertainment industry embracing a new-school technology. Theater folks would love to introduce folks unwilling or unable to travel to a specific square mile in Manhattan to experience their creations. Plays on TV or DVD don’t translate quite as well once the whole element of ‘being there’ goes away.

But capturing / broadcasting a theatrical performance form Orchestra seat 5b is not only brilliant from an immersive standpoint, it’s also quite economical. Most of your interesting content is fixed to the front 45 degrees, although you’re free to look around at the surrounding environment. It’s pretty easy to capture with VR camera & 3D audio arrays (what’s more binearal than sitting in a seat & letting the theater sound system spoon feed your audio?) & finally, you don’t need to concern yourself with playspace because people watching plays don’t generally climb around onto other seats during the performance.

There’s a social-economic implication with broadcasting Broadway plays to VR as well. Theater was originally imagined as a cultural destination for anyone affluent enough to consider ‘dinner and a show’ reason enough to brave the bridge and tunnel traffic.

The first musical I saw was Grand Hotel when I was 17. My dad drove us in from Moristown New Jersey. We parked, grabbed dinner near the theater, saw the 2 hour production & had drinks (soda for me) after. This was an amazing experience but even then I thought how foreign this was for a suburban high school student. The fact that I didn’t summer in the Hamptons put me in the minority of patrons but a cultural shift was already under way to make Broadway more accessible.

As entertainment became more available through tv, megaplex movie theaters & video rentals, Broadway’s brow began to lower, the ties & evening gowns replaced with baseball caps and jean shorts. Gum chewing tourists (like me) would grab discount matinee tickets from third party vendors or add-ons to Greyhound bus tours.The content shifted as well. Ask Sonheim or Loyd Weber what they think of Spiderman & Jerry Springer the Opera. But what to do? People have to come to your show. Theater never really translated to recorded medium. It sort of felt like a low budget soap opera with no cinematography. Besides, the whole allure was physically being there, part of a live performance.

That’s where VR comes in. While it’s been more challenging to adapt movies or TV to VR, theater & live sports seem to be a natural fit. Transformative media works best when you actually want to be there. Watching Shark Tank on my couch with a bigger screen? Meh. Being in seat B10 at the Gershwin Theater without going to Midtown? That’s pretty cool.

Despite what you might think, Theater isn’t a passive media. From 1995 to 1998 I did live sound for Blue Man Group. In addition to being exposed to about a dozen or so other Broadway & off-Broadway shows I also got to see a couple hundred performances of the production I worked on.

Wasn’t that torture, seeing the same show over & over? Not really. Every performance of every show has an energy feedback loop between the audience and the performers. The sleepy Sundaymatinees were a much different energy than the 10pm Saturday shows and audience participation (both wanted & unwanted) can influence the cast & crew to react differently.

Feeling like you’re a part of that energy loop (even if you’re not really) can add a layer of realism in a VR setting. It’s that missing link that  DVD of Phantom doesn’t really have. In that case, you’re watching an audience watch the play. Not so in VR.

As VR defines itself in its infancy & Broadway reinvents itself in its twilight, it makes perfect sense for these two formats to intersect. Both embrace the excitement of presence with the depth of narrative & both coax you into an experience that seems maybe a bit less linear than it actually is.

Maybe theater & VR will take off into a beautiful mutually beneficial relationship, maybe it will die on the vine, or maybe, just maybe it will encourage new ways to write / perform and consume theatrical content. I anticipate this future with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm I had before curtain rise at that showing of Grand Hotel twenty something years ago.

The VR Revolution Will Not Be Televised

There’s lots of excitement about VR right now. Everywhere you turn from the New York Times to pretty much every conference out there, the VR bell is being rung by everyone everywhere.  But let me ask you this: How much content have you actually digested? My guess is not much & here’s why:

VR content doesn’t translate very well to Screen Based Technology (SBT).

Those of us lucky few who have been involved in VR developement know it’s difficult, it’s time consuming & it’s worth it. Once you have a full VR experience that tricks your brain with 360 degree images, sound and motion, it’s easy to understand what the hype is all about.

For the vast majority who haven’t experienced it, the effort donning a Head Mounted Display (HMD) hardly seems worth the effort when the only press seems to be one of three categories:

  1. Awkward looking people, eyes obscured, staring into a black box
  2. A 2d video representation of mediocre looking graphics / animation
  3. Photoshopped / doctored combination footage that comes across as amateur green-screen

The rub is you need to experience VR IN VR in order to truly get the intention & that’s not going to happen any time soon for those who don’t actively seek it.

This is much different than established industries like video games and mobile. Displaying a video of said app or game gives the viewer a good idea of what it would be like as a spectator to someone else playing or navigating it.

With the recent release of the Oculus & Vive, this is changing slowly but the early adaptors are most likely already converts. Because VR is a singular experience, even in “multiplayer”, it doesn’t matter if the other player is in the same room with you or in Guam, your experience is yours alone.

In VR there is no spectator mode or passive viewing, at least not yet.

The accidental by-product of this is that security is much less of an issue. You go though a top secret VR project in the same room as a hundred reporters and they will have no insight into what you’re experiencing, even if they’re standing right next to you.

Is this a problem? Well, yes and no. Yes, it’s a problem if you need to reach a wide audience, go viral or communicate the depth of VR immersion on a screen. No, it’s not a problem if you embrace this adolescent phase of VR with all it’s inherent awkwardness, potential and limited user-base.

Despite the hype, this industry is just getting started and the next year or two of early adaptor feedback is critical in determining the path of future VR development.

Soon enough we’ll be experiencing VR demos in VR while waiting for a download or seamlessly integrated into virtual social network but for now, understand that watching a video of a VR experience is like hearing a radio announcer describe art or reading a record review.

Take it with a grain of SBT salt, embracing the knowledge that gradually people will be exposed to this alternate universe at least enough to apply the filter themselves & understand that VR is more than just a bigger, closer screen.