Avatars That Are Harmonizing Musical Band Instruments

Bandbots - Second Life Musical Avatars from Chantal Harvey on Vimeo

Good lord this is awesome, and that's a word I rarely use.  Lorin Tone and Madcow Cosmos have created deliriously adorable avatars that are anthromorphized musical instruments -- tuba, drums, etc.  (If Pixar makes a movie called Band Story, the heroes will look like them.)  This would be superlative in itself, but that's not the best thing.  Each avatar instrument is embedded with several sound loops appropriate to it.  (So the drum avatar for example has various syncopation styles to choose from.)  That's superb too, but even that's not the best thing.  This is: if a group of these avatars get together and start emitting their music loops, they harmonize together.  Think of all the dizzying collaborative opportunities.  Screw playing Rock Band for awhile, why not try being the band?

Much mahalo to Vlad Bjornson of Shiny Life for the tip, who has a more extensive write-up on his blog with details for where to see and get the Bandbots in SL.

Update, 2/6:  Below, I asked Lorin Tone for some more background on creating the music samples for Bandbots, built by Madcow and scripted by Jellybean Wopat.  In real life a professional musician and sound engineer for three decades (he was a keyboard technician for The Tubes and Todd Rungren, for instance), here's how he made them:

"I've played many of them myself via MIDI, using soundfonts I made myself, some are from (properly licensed) sample collections such as Bill Laswell's fine sets, some are from studio sessions I played in over years of noodling and performing... This particular set of loops includes about 200 loops I made one at a time and matched down to 1/100th of a second. It's the sixth set I've done for use in SL, and the 7th, 8th and 9th are under way. Any given set is based on a given BPM (beats per measure) for a duration of 4 bars (16 beats). If the BPM varies by any degree at all, the synch cannot work."

But how many bots can play together before Second Life lag begins to hurt the sync?

"So many variables there," says Lorin. "The scripts used in these bots are fairly low lag, but we must acknowledge for starters that the presence of any avatar in a given sim contributes to lag. I've personally had problems using more than 7 of them at a time, but we must factor in the matter of my wimpy computer, which is wired for audio rather than graphics."

Comments

[Paisley Beebe]

Ok I wanna Sing with These little blokes!!!!

[Dr. Darien Mason]

Excuse me while I pick my jaw back up.

Do they have one for bagpipes?

[Komuso Tokugawa]

Needs more cowbell;-)

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

Wow, that's very cool! I've always thought sound was the forgotten element in SL design. A few years back, I designed some theme music attachments that play different music loops depending on whether you're walking, running, jumping, crouching, flying, etc. They're a lot of fun, but annoying if you wear them too much. :)

[Judi Newall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZkZT3TL-s

Not a professional one like Chantals' but you get to see the idea, the sound starts partway thru

[Lorin Tone]

James, thanks for putting this out there! Bands are forming as we speak, and certain mayhem will hopefully not rule SL as a result.

I owe ya copious beers at the next O'Reilly conference we both attend, and look forward to it.

Also, for people who are interested, there is a group which has been established, run by Neleximo Contemponi, called the "Junkbots Band".

I hope you all enjoy these toys to the fullest, and there's more to come. Thanks to Robbie Dingo for inspiration, Madcow Cosmos for Madness, Jellybean Wopat for brilliant scripting, Chantal Harvey and Judi Newall for vids, and thanks to my Mom, who also loves these avi's and to my Dad, who just keeps asking "why"?

Because we can.

And it's big fun.

Madcow would thank you too, but he doesn't want to damage his sandbox hermit reputation, and we should respect that, really.

Enjoy!

[Hamlet Au]

Lorin, I owe *you* a beer for bringing teh awesome!

[Lorin Tone]

It's all about the fun factor.

I'm delighted that we've managed to get to it.

I'm buyin'! Well, Tim will probaly pay, ultimately. Catch ya in NY next week, I hope.

If not, next show.