1. Avatar Orchestra Metaverse
New World Notes has an excellent story on this orchestra.
2. ADABOT, now at the institute
3. The Edge Eden Project
Interview – Dexter Ihnen (Dexter Moore)
November 15, 2007 By
Dexter Moore (SL: Dexter Ihnen) is one of a growing number of Australian musicians performing in Second Life. Like most, he’s a well-established real-life musician who’s built up a loyal SL following. At present, he’s number one most played artist on Slusic.com, so he’s obviously doing something right. We caught up with Dexter this week to find out a little more about the life of an SL musician.
Lowell: When did you first get interested in Second Life?
Dexter: I started performing in Second Life March 2007 – SL was mentioned to me and I had seen it in passing on TV too. Since then I’ve been doing up to 8 shows a week. I’ve pulled back to 4-5 for now as my RL career is extremely busy both coming up to Christmas and after my award for RnB Song of the Year on ABC Australian Radio. Anyway, I entered in to SL in Feb 2007 and spent a month just getting used to the virtual world experience. It’s been an amazing experience since I started, right up to today.
Lowell: Was music the drawcard for you initially or were you just checking it out?
Dexter: My brother said he thought it might be a good platform for my music. I came in to have a look and a listen I didn’t really think it would become integral in my life – but I do follow up ideas
Lowell: What are the attractions of performing in-world versus real life?
Dexter: Performing in Second Life is quite unique, The most fascinating aspect is the direct personal feedback you experience whilst playing. This is not very possible in RL as one person in an auditorium cannot make themselves heard over the volume of the concert, but here they can talk directly to the artist and the artist to them – I really dig that 
Lowell: Without getting too technical, how do you actually get your music and voice in-world?
Dexter: In my studio I have 2 separate mixers and 2 computers also. One mixer has in built FX and I plug my stereo Godin guitar, vocal, congas and roto-toms into it. As well as that I record any backing tracks I create and choose to use into it also ( it is an 8 track hard disk recorder too ) I send a stereo mix out of that into my main mixer which has a Firewire connection to my main music computer. This is also wher I take my headphone feed. I stream the out of my music computer with SimpleCast. Meanwhile, I run SL on my other computer which I run at standing eye level. This is the one I interact with while performing. The reason I run 2 computers is that if I crash I know that the stream is still stable.
Lowell: How would you describe the music you perform?
Dexter: Interdimensional SOUL – FUNK 
Lowell: How have you built up a following in SL?
Dexter: I worked my butt of for 6 months – to the point of burn out! Up to 8 shows a week, plus 3 RL shows and a major recording project. I moved around a lot in that time – but I am pretty much in a holding pattern until the New Year now until the RL Christmas season commitments subside.
Lowell: What are your goals in the longer term with performance in SL?
Dexter: I want to tour the world playing live to my SL fans plus whomever else is into my music. SL fans though will always have a special status with me. Prior to that I have a number of ideas to bring to life here in SL;
Lowell: Who inspires you in SL?
Various types of people inspire me in SL: Dane Zander – Lost Gardens of Apollo builder. Skribe Forti, Film maker. Circe Broom and Slim Warrior, entrepreneurs. And anyone having lighthearted fun
Lowell: What are three SL landmarks that you keep coming back to again and again?
Dexter:
1. The Lost Gardens of Apollo
2. The Wild Coast
3. Tableau – Roller Disco, 10 pin bowling, Cool shops,
Lowell: What are the pet hates you have about how SL operates that affects your ability to perform?
Dexter: In this order:
1. Crashing ( sim crash excepted – we all have a strange affection for that one lol )
2. Freezing & heavy lag
3. Notecards ( they cover up my guitar controls )
New SL Music site launches
November 9, 2007 By
Slusic is a comprehensive new SL site devoted to music. It has the whole social networking thing down pat – playlists, forums, charts, blogs and so on. Australian artists are well represented – the top artists chart has Australian musician Dexter Ihnen at number one.
I could be wrong but this seems to be the most well fleshed out SL music site I’ve seen. Is it something you’ll use regularly?
SL music discussion list launches
September 2, 2007 By
Jesse Linden has announced the formation of an email discussion list devoted to music development in SL. Promotion of events is off limits but it will provide a useful forum for discussing ways to improve music options in-world. Linden Lab describe their aims in the welcome email received when joining:
“Second Life has amazing potential for musicians looking to reach a global audience. Music performances in Second Life are a growing phenomenon, creating exciting social events where artists can not only perform live but also interact directly with fans.
Resident musicians, venue owners, buillders, scripters, audiences, and promoters are all working together to make this community happen. Linden Lab recognizes all this innovative work, and we want to do all that we can to help it thrive and continue to grow. We’ve started assembling a team of Lindens who will work together and with Residents to ultimately provide better tools and policies for the music community of Second Life.
This mailing list is open to anyone who is interested in sharing their ideas with Lindens as well as each other on how to better support the Second Life music community. What are some best practices that are currently working well for the music community? What are the biggest challenges? What would you like to see Linden Lab provide to better support this community? These are the types of discussions we’d love to see!
One rule: please don’t use this mailing list to announce specific music events. Information about such events can already be found on the Second Life events calendar. We’d like to keep traffic on this mailing list focused on discussions about ideas for improving the music community.
As we at Linden Lab get a better focus on specific tools and policies we think could best help this community, we’ll share them on this mailing list. Your ideas, feedback, and insights will be invaluable to us as we work to determine what we should focus on. Lindens will be reading and participating in the discussion as much as possible.
Please introduce yourself to the list, let us know a bit about your interests and area of expertise, and thank you for helping us learn more about how to make music truly ROCK in Second Life.”
The Neil Young Archives
August 8, 2007 By
Zak Claxton’s Neil Young Archives is a compact but effective tour of the artist’s work. You can listen to some of Young’s work whilst browsing the visual discography or replicas of Young’s favorite instruments.
Zak Claxton’s take on it all:
“Neil Young is a personal favorite musician and songwriter of mine, as well as someone who has embraced change and technological advancement throughout his long career. After about eight months as an SL resident, acquiring some building skills and so on, I decided that building a tribute of sorts to an artist for whom I have the utmost respect would be a good use of my time in SL. Plus, I felt that other residents of SL who happen to be fans of Neil Young would really enjoy visiting and learning more about him.
BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE.
I’ve named the area “Zak Claxton’s SL Neil Young Archives” for a rather tongue-in-cheek reason. In case you’re unaware, Neil and his team have been working on a massive project called the Neil Young Archives for many years, beginning back in 1991 I believe. The latest incarnation of the Archvies is a 2-DVD, 8-CD set of music and media collected over Neil’s career, with over 40 years worth of rare and unreleased material included. Unfortunately, the project has been delayed for over a decade while Neil tinkers with it. It was actually just daleyed yet again, with the most recent date being early 2008 on Reprise Records.
In any case, my SL Neil Young Archives was built as a true labor of love. I don’t intend on selling anything there through which I could profit, even on the microscopic scale of Second Life. It’s my goal to merely give SL residents a place to enjoy Neil, his music, and explore the mystique around one of music’s most enigmatic icons. It was built with the highest level of respect.
Lastly, while I’ve just begun announcing the SL Archives’ existence, I don’t feel it’s anywhere near complete. It’s a slow process for me (I have things like a job and a family to take care of while I’m not playing around in world), but I will be continuing to add to and build on the SL Neil Young Archives for quite some time. I hope people really dig it. If I do it right, even those who aren’t fans of Neil should find the environment a nice spot to hang out in SL”.
There’s also a machinima tour of the exhibit:
(Disclosure: Zak Claxton is part of SL Coyote that advertises at times on SLOz)
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