Song Exploder, the popular music podcast that lets musicians explain every part of their songs, has gotten some help from Google to create a new app that throws you in the middle of song so you can experience it like never before. Called Inside Music, the WebVR app lets you turn individual pieces of a song on and off, giving you a little more insight into just how it’s made.
The project, which Song Exploder reiterates is “an experiment, not a Google product,” lets you select a song from the menu, presenting you with little orbs that represent parts of the song, or ‘stems’. Viewable in both VR and flatscreen mode on desktop and mobile, Inside Music lets you toggle the orbs on and off, something that helps you pinpoint exactly where any given sound is coming from within the song.
The design of the app is fairly simple, featuring the pulsating orbs that give you a visual que. The real star of the show is the app’s positional audio though, which helps you dissect the song by letting you can tell where each stem is physically located, and whether it’s plugged in or not. With all of the stems coming at you from different directions, you can really hear when one is missing a much easier.
The brilliant part: the creators have thrown everything on GitHub so you can integrate your own songs, or others’ into the app. The application supports between 1-7 stems.
Considered a WebVR Experiment, Inside Music was built using WebVR, an open standard that’s gained notoriety as a quick and easy way for users to launch VR apps, which are accessible through a number of supported web browsers. VR headsets with access to WebVR browsers include Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows ‘Mixed Reality’ headsets, Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, and Samsung Gear VR.
Check out the app here—just make sure to grab a pair of headphones first if your VR headset doesn’t have integrated audio.