A lot of things've already been said — and well-covered — in the monumental discussion of "voice in Second Life", leading up to how we now have the Voice Client in Beta. Sure, you can talk, but what fun is that?

I was transforming SLoundwave into his alt mode, a tape deck, and realized, well, Resis have been asking for mobile music, which is to say: a ghetto blaster you can carry around cross-land, and have it be tuneful (as opposed to being confined to a parcel).

Whelps, some Lindens already got it figured out, so I'm highlighting it. We (meaning me and who else who knows) know about the "live music scene" in SL. So let us bring forth CYBER-BUSKER (TM) tech and be rad. You put your mic near your lute while in the voice client, and may you be merry and serenade many fair damsels.

So I'm really hoping someone(s) takes turntable attachments like hors d'oeuvre trays and starts sharing their rockalicious rhythms. As reference in paragraph #2, it'd be so fun to have a ghetto blaster on your shoulder with a special pose to give you yes! That strut! and the confident swagger, all while surprisingly funky electro rains out of your boombox.

Spatialized sound is what's been missing from live music for so long.

Jeff Linden earlier clued me in that this was pretty easy to setup, by connecting Winamp's audio output to the mic input. I also figure:

  • Connect an audio device (like an iPod) to the line-in of your computer.
  • Set mic input properly.
  • Push play.

But by feeding back SL's sounds into itself, you could also come up with some really hypnotic audio loops if you're not careful, or are, but don't care.

Heck, hire two avs and you can have a concert in stereo. Get more and ((SURROUND SOUND))! And if the latency isn't too bad, maybe we can jam in realtime? Beatbox, even? Barbershop quartet? Soundbots that can sit in your vehicle and act as your CD player? Opportunities, ripe.

These are not hard questions, but the answers will say a lot about who you aren't.

Feature suggestions:

  • Add a way to control other people's volume. There's too much variance, which can be very painful for your ears if someone starts shouting. Even better would be to implement a dynamic range compressor; I don't expect a Joe Meek but like broadcast radio, it'd be great for keeping things level.
     
  • Give us voice chat logging. Big deal?! Well, remember the precursor kerfuffle to text chat logging, and it happened and there were a lot more important things to worry about? With voice being used to teach and meet, like leaving a portable recorder on a desk, it's going to be really useful to easily review sessions. (That being said, there are 3rd-party solutions, and I don't want this to end up like the broken built-in video capture.)

And while we're at it, remember that standup comedy is virtually nil in SL. Mebbe voice will change that. I should go around as my piano and communicate with people in notes. Musical notes, mwahaha! I was actually thonking of getting a vocoder so I can sound just like my fave Transformer.

Truth: "LOL" sounds a lot better in voice when you're actually Laughing Out Loud. Fo' rizzle.