We’ve seen other companies take on DJing in virtual reality, but what about a straight-forward VR emulation of a real DJing setup? The new Vinyl Reality app, available now on Steam Early Access, aims to do exactly that. Strap on a VR headset and get ready to mix virtual vinyl!
Vinyl Reality
- Software: Vinyl Reality
- Technical Requirements: Windows + HTC Vive Headset (Oculus support coming soon)
- Availability + Price: $12.74 on Steam (Early Access)
For many virtual reality developers, the secret to success is to come up with a fun and unique concept for a VR experience. But instead of going overboard, Vinyl Reality aims to create a simple but accurate recreation of a typical vinyl DJ setup.
The tools in-game are familiar: two turntables, a crate of vinyl, and a simple two channel mixer.
The turntables have complete pitch fader control, natural nudging motions, and platter control. The mixer has EQs, channel faders, a cross fader, and basic PFL monitoring for either channel.
A nice bonus feature – Vinyl Reality is designed for streaming from an audio output perspective. It has two audio output options, one for the DJ to use (headphone out from the mixer) and one as the master output (what you’d want sent to a stream).
What About Latency?
Anytime a new concept for DJing comes out, it’s always important to ask about latency – as someone did on Reddit. The developer, /u/TTycho, replied that latency currently comes in around 15~30ms between an action and the audio response. This is pretty low, but probably still too high to consider scratching in VR (for now).
What’s Next For This Software
While TTycho / EntroPi is a one-man development team, he has a full development plan available for anyone to take a look at on Trello. Upcoming features include Oculus Rift/Touch support, EQ kill switches, track BPM displays, unique environments to DJ in, and more.
