EXA: The Infinite Instrument is basically a musical instrument made exclusively for VR. The goal here is to help users realize the expressiveness and feeling of playing actual musical instruments within the virtual space, thereby offering a completely fresh dimension of musical performance and creativity.

The Environment

Positioned within the VR realm, you would have your VR controllers in hand, which would appear as cylindrical handles. You could snap different kinds of tools on the ends of both these handles. The majority of tools could communicate with the musical shapes of EXA, referred to as ringers. EXA’s default layout comprises multiple ringers that are arranged as four unique structures. A couple of these have a fairly similar pattern: a “drum kit” and a “curved piano”. The remaining two are a lot more imaginary: a “flower-shaped synthesizer” and “box-shaped guitar”.

Creating Music

Upon hitting the tool against a ringer, a sound is produced. The ringers certainly aren’t solid. Therefore, after hitting one, you could opt to slice through it or just recoil. The ringers have multiple sides, which means you could slice forward via one and then through the next backward. And as the instrument is “infinite”, there is a lot you could do with the instrument – such as moving and resizing any ringer, recording and playing back the audio within a loop, muting and muffling the ringers, and configuring them to come up with any kind of sound.