PatchXR turns writing music into an Metaverse VR experience where you can shape your music and visuals
Beta signups are now open for those with the hardware to participate
Credit: PatchXR Official YouTube
PatchXR is a new visual music platform and tool that lets users create and physically ‘shape’ their music and instruments in virtual reality, with 3D objects and graphics. In essence, imagine writing music in the same way Iron Man assembles his armour with holograms – only trippier.
Their website describes PatchXR as a tool that allows users to “create interactive worlds, instruments, sound FX, automata, music games, perform live and stream online simultaneously”, while allowing users to link VR machines to their existing real-world workflow tools using OSC, MIDI, CV gate.
Using a native VR tool, users will be immersed in their own fully customisable soundstage, with over 50 instruments and a library of sounds at their disposal. Graphics and models can be added to the soundstage, becoming an interactive music video that can be shaped according to the music the user wants to perform.
A modular DSP tool is also included, letting users build custom synths, samplers and tools to be used within the virtual soundstage. Spatial audio is also supported, allowing you to ‘place’ the instrument within the virtual space in order to layer the sound according to the rules of a 3D space. You can even invite fellow users to ‘jam’ in your virtual soundstage, opening up possibilities for collaboration between musicians and video artists.
Perhaps the most representative result of working within a VR space can be seen in the trippy, alien visual shapes that represent the instruments and DJ console of Hong Kong-based VR artist Sinbiox in Bug, a Patch music video created in a weeklong ‘patchathon’. It highlights the many possibilities apparent on the PatchXR platform.
Of course, as part of the Metaverse, PatchVR is also a performance platform, allowing users to play concerts in and out of VR.
For now, PatchXR is still in beta, with a large beta intake expected in January 2022. Sign-ups are currently open, provided you have the hardware to participate in VR, and the PatchXR YouTube page is frequently updated with guides and how-to videos necessary to get caught up on using the expansive tool.
A gamified version of PatchXR, PATCHWORLD, is being touted for release on the Oculus Quest in the first quarter of 2022.
