We’re at a strange inflection point with art and technology. The immersive revolution that futurists have been promising for the last three decades is about to happen, but no one involved with the technology really knows how it’s going to play out.
That’s mostly because the tools haven’t yet been put into the hands of the artists who are going to figure out the creative grammar of the format. Most everything we’ve heard about so far has involved technology companies trying to graft their new display tech onto the already existing formats.
I’d recommend that those engineers go back and study what happened in music when electric amplification, then magnetic tape, and finally stereo reproduction were introduced over the course of the 20th century. Artists and producers redefined what pop music was every time a new technology was introduced.
The same is even more true for movies. Sound recording radically changed an entire art form, and it’s fascinating to watch movies from the 1930-1934 era and see how rapidly the entire structure of filmmaking and the acting styles of performers changed as crews learned how to best use the new technology.
That’s what we’re working on a Soapbox Studios in Atlanta. There’s a new way of communication being invented that will finally make full-body capture and display a reality. The technology has advanced rapidly in the last few years and it’s about to be flexible enough to allow creative people to use the tools to figure out new ways to reach their audience.
Most reasonable people will have doubts about these possibilities because we’ve been plagued by hype about virtual reality for more than two decades. From the launch of the PC game Second Life to Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse, the biggest hoopla has been around experiencing digitally generated alternate worlds, most often with a headset.
We’re more interested in augmented reality, a process which places digitally generated images in the real world. It’s less disorienting than a VR experience, and display technology will evolve to the point where no one will need a headset.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news about the Apple Vision Pro, due for release sometime early next year, you know that Apple has embraced the idea of augmenting the real world instead of creating virtual ones.
There’s likely a place for VR in gaming, but we’re probably decades away from a Ready Player One scenario where a virtual immersive experience can offer a viable alternative to real life.
I’m now working with Soapbox Studios here in Atlanta, and we’ve got a plan. I’ve been an advisor for a couple of years, but I’m now spending a lot more time as we look to recruit artists to record and film in a whole new format.
Everything’s Gone Green
We’ve installed an advanced 360-degree volumetric capture system. It’s the best one of these setups available in North America and, as far as we know, we’re the only company in the world that has put a motion-capture camera system into a professional audio recording studio. We can capture a performance and create master-quality live-in-the-studio tracks at the same time.
The Soapbox system features 48 4K cameras, with 4 cameras each stacked on 12 stanchions circling the room. We can capture anything that takes place inside a 10-foot circle in the middle of the room. (We can bump that up to a 15-foot circle, but that complicates the post-production processing. It’s doable, but we think 10 feet is the ideal situation for now.)
After some incredible heavy lifting by post-capture processing software, we’re currently able to display a performance via a Magic Leap 2 headset. Put on the goggles, fire up the software, and you’ll have a life-size representation of whatever you’ve captured in the same room where you’re standing.
Soapbox saw the technology and had a big idea. The detail that this system offers allows us to capture music performances and allow a viewer to walk right up to an artist and see their technique up close. Look over their shoulder, peer down at their fingers on the fretboard, or stand on either side. A viewer will get the same level of detail no matter what angle they choose.
We did a proof-of-concept session with the legendary blues artist Buddy Guy, winner of 8 Grammys and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.* Buddy’s also 87 years old and currently on what’s billed as his final tour.
*(Note to anyone who thinks I’m still cynical about Grammys and Halls of Fame: Some people I care about have recently won Grammys and others have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve seen how much that recognition meant to them. Both institutions could and should do better, but any flaws in the system shouldn’t diminish the thrill for deserving artists who get to enjoy the experience.)
Buddy played seven songs in the studio and shared a few stories about his early days at Chess Records, why he chose the guitars he plays, and how the most famous British rock guitarists of the ‘6os generation traveled to Chicago to see him play. He also delivered a message for people of the future, telling them why they should care about the blues.
I’d describe the results as museum-quality, master-quality, and a whole new way to experience Buddy Guy’s music. He rolled into Soapbox, plugged in and was out the door in less than 90 minutes. What he created is the first step towards a new way for performers to share their art. It’s a simple, straight-ahead performance that will allow future music fans to get a real sense of what it was like to see Buddy Guy perform.
Soapbox has met with representatives from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Museum, and the Motown Museum. All of them are interested in some kind of partnership to create exhibitions or displays with the artists we capture.
We’re also creating an app for the upcoming Apple Vision Pro that will allow fans who have the device to buy these recordings and enjoy the performances whenever they want.
The Clock Is Ticking
You have questions about building an app that requires a headset with a starting price of $3,499. Soapbox believes that the price for these headsets will drop quickly, and that future display technologies won’t require any sort of headgear.
In the meantime, the generation of artists who came to prominence in the ‘60s and ‘70s are aging fast, and we want to capture their performances while they’re still here. Buddy Guy may not be here when the technology becomes ubiquitous, but he’s now insured his legacy for all time in what we think will become a widespread format.
I’ve worked with founders Kevin and Ryan Sellors for a couple of years while they raised the money to build the studio and come up with a long-term business strategy. Our meetings started when the pandemic was raging, and I was mourning the loss of more than a few creative people I knew who didn’t survive those years.
Adam Schlesinger and I were friendly acquaintances, but we had a few great conversations over the years. I really enjoyed working at Stratosphere Sound, the NYC studio he owned with James Iha. Adam was best known as a member of Fountains of Wayne and as the Oscar-nominated songwriter behind the theme song for That Thing You Do! He’s also the first person I knew to die from COVID, getting sick right at the beginning in March 2020 and dying on April 1st.
There are at least a dozen other people I know who perished over the next three years, but the one that’s hit me hardest was Michael Belfer, the incredibly inventive guitarist who got his start as a teenager in iconic SF punk band The Sleepers, later played with Tuxedomoon, and found some alt-rock major label success as a member of Black Lab, a band fronted by Paul Durham that I put together when I was doing A&R at Geffen Records.
Michael and I were close for years even as he struggled to kick his addictions, a story he freely shared in his 2020 autobiography When Can I Fly?: The Sleepers, Tuxedomoon & Beyond. His years of hard living took a toll, but he’d settled into a healthy life in Idaho before the pandemic hit.
COVID put on an enormous amount of stress on care providers and the medical system, and the media told that story. What’s escaped notice is the damage the pandemic did to people with fragile health conditions. While the ERs were stuffed full of unvaccinated Americans, providers paid less attention to those whose serious, long-term conditions weren’t part of the immediate crisis.
Michael struggled with the isolation and stress of the shutdown, didn’t get the consistent care his long-term conditions needed, and his body shut down in March 2022.
Michael Belfer was a seeker, a guitarist whose experiments with tone and feedback never found the mainstream acclaim he deserved. I hadn’t been in touch with him for a few months when he died, and I’ve thought about how much I would’ve loved to capture his playing in our studio.
I think of Adam and Michael every time I’m at the studio. They had songs and stories that should have been preserved with a tool like the one we’ve got now.
Here’s a short list of musicians we’ve lost in 2023: Jeff Beck, Mark Lanegan, Sinead O’Connor, Tom Verlaine, David Crosby, Tony Bennett, Tina Turner, Gordon Lightfoot, Ahmad Jamal, Randy Meisner, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Gary Rossington, Burt Bacharach, David Lindley, and Astrud Gilberto. All of them made incalculable contributions to music, and all of them had techniques to demonstrate and stories to tell.
We’re fortunate to have a round of funding that’s allowing us to record as many artists as we can while our software team develops our app for the Apple Vision Pro and other headsets. If we wait for the technology to go mainstream, we’ll have lost the chance to work with dozens of artists who won’t still be around when that moment arrives.
Why Soapbox?
People smarter than I am have asked me a very good question: What’s to stop a tech company from buying their own camera system, paying a bunch of artists to file through their studio, and creating a readymade catalog of classic songs?
We describe ourselves as a creative company, but there’s a lot of complicated tech development going on. Our engineers are working on improving file compression algorithms and we’re developing proprietary deployment software that will solve fundamental issues with the vast array of clashing file types in a new area where nothing is standardized. No one can watch anything without the kind of custom software player we’ll launch in 2024.
Soapbox has a significant head start in fixing those issues, and we’ll have the patents that go along with those solutions.
Soapbox’s most important advantage is that we know how to make records. We know how to create an environment where artists are comfortable and secure and then capture their performances with the best possible audio. There’s an art that goes along with the technical craft, and buying an expensive camera system is only the first step in a complicated process.
Systems like ours were originally designed to work within narrow parameters. Capture subjects needed to wear certain types of clothes, avoid others, and make sure their bodies didn’t have anything going on that would confuse the capture software. You can imagine how much a long list of dos and don’ts would appeal to the kinds of performers we want to capture.
We’re developing new processing techniques that will solve the capture problems that such a list of instructions was created to avoid. Rather than accept what the system (allegedly) cannot do, Soapbox developers have been experimenting with tools that will allow artists to enjoy the physical freedom they need to deliver their best performances. Those are the proprietary techniques that will give us what we think will be an insurmountable lead in this field.
The mission is to bend the technology to serve the artists instead of limiting the artists to serve the technology. None of us had a background in VFX before we dreamed up this plan, and no one was burdened with a sense of what can’t be done.
I personally can’t wait for the day when we encounter artists who aren’t really interested in creating the kind of archival performances that are the initial focus for Soapbox. What happens when you don’t care if the finished film conforms to expectations? Will smeary visuals help to create a new kind of immersive psychedelic experience that none of us can imagine? I sure hope so.
See for Yourself
Anyone who wants to understand what we’re doing at Soapbox can get a demo any place one of us can meet you with a headset. There’s really no substitute for seeing things in action. You can also set up a visit to our studio just outside of Atlanta.
If you’re an artist, come in for a session. Your management will love the business terms and we’re always eager to try something new.
Credit to Kevin and Ryan Sellors for their input on this post. It’s much better after they gave my draft a read and suggested improvements to my description of our tech. A big part of why I’ve committed to working with these guys is their patience, collaborative spirit, and belief that creating fair partnerships with artists and making great art (because this is art) will yield the best results for everyone (including the investors). I said no to working with tech startups at least a hundred times before I said yes to Soapbox, and I’m really happy to be a part of this project.
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I look forward to seeing Buddy Guy's shoot. I had his partner, Junior Wells at the High Hat a couple of weeks after we opened back in 94' and wish I had even a smart phone at the time. He had some stories.