Editor's Letter
"Today's technology brings the imagination to life for both performers and fans."
This new era opening up new opportunities for the forward thinking artists, musicians, and the music industry actors. As a result the shift is rapidly transofming the traditional music industry as we now. Many companies are already started to reimagining music for the metaverse by combining interactivity, and innovative mixed reality technology. The cases given above exemplifies how the music industry adapting to the digital revolution and achieving success. Today's technology brings the imagination to life for both performers and fans. that means, we can imagine creating remarkable experiences that go beyond physical reality and offer the fans to join the audio-visual world of their beloved artists. A comprehensive metaverse can provide astonishing growth and enlargement for the music industry, as technological innovations combine with creative ambitions to develop engaging virtual music worlds. We already witness how new tools allow making music in metaverse that people around the world get together and form a new band without being in a physical location at the same time.
I believe that metaverse is not going to be a replacement of what we have today in the music industry; it's going to be a digital extension of our current practices, whether as a substitute when being together in person is not possible or an extension of current music industry ecosystem. In addition, we may see recording studios taking place as virtual studios for recording an album or rehearsing, virtual music schools for the students to virtually get together with their instructors to continue their education
Most of the music equipment and studio technology tools already have software versions, such as Musical Instruments Digital Interface (MIDI), Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-ins, etc.., which already take an essential part of today's musical creation process. We could implement them into metaverse to create virtual studio environments to continue our practices when in-person get-togethers are impossible. Not only because of COVID-19 restrictions but also to save time from commuting, traveling from different countries and continents; therefore, we can also see a positive impact on our environment by reducing carbon footprints caused by transportation.
Although the metaverse is still in progress, a few problems need to be worked on in terms of practicality. Realistic immersive experiences in virtual environments requires powerful computers, high internet speed, and specialized equipmetns such as VR headsets, haptic vests and suits, which are not actually affordable for everyone.
Another problematic is that the VR glasses we have today are causing motion sickness during prolonged use. For seamless experience in virtual environments 5G technology required which believed will deliver wider bandwith, higher download speed, and reduced latency around 10ms.
As we called that the customization and creating something out of nothing, which called “User-Generated Content” is an important component of the metaverse; for this to happen, metaverse platforms must provide user friendly interfaces. And what we have today either offers limited customization options or is too complicated and requires advanced computer programming knowledge. In the recent past, increased internet usage and digitalization required a user-friendly design attitude to be adopted by the companies to offer users better experiences and increase their product usage. I believe this attitude is already in center of the developing process of metaverse.
"we need to look ahead and monitor developments in these subjects beforehand..."
Since we are still on the verge of digital transformation and evolution, defining what the metaverse will offer in terms of the music industry aspect is hard. All these cause misunderstandings, confusion, and intimidation. That is why I have tried to gather the information related to the metaverse and music performances in metaverse to briefly explain and examine past virtual music events that took place and understand the outcomes along with the future opportunities that the metaverse can offer. This website is an attempt to lead better understanding, therefore adapt, participate, and create better experiences.
I believe it’s worth thinking as early as possible about these opportunities and challenges, and as part music industry community, we need to look ahead and monitor developments in these subjects beforehand to avoid lagging behind.