EXA is an immersive virtual-reality environment for composing your own music, recording loops of your performed notes and motions, designing custom instruments, performing for audiences, building up virtual bands, and more. Step into EXA and experience an entirely new dimension of musical creativity!
This app has been under constant development since early 2016, continually growing and improving. Despite being in Early Access, the app is polished, stable, and packed full of features. Here's a look at the basics of making music with EXA in VR:
RINGERS & THEIR SOUNDS
EXA’s musical shapes are called ringers. They make sound when you hit or interact with them using one of the various playing tools (like a mallet, violin bow, or proximity tool). The ringers in EXA react to the velocity and angle that you play them, and they provide an extremely responsive, zero-latency playing experience. (Note: external audio-routing apps can introduce latency, please disable them or adjust their settings!)
You can change the sound that a ringer produces (like a drum, piano, guitar, synth, etc.) by choosing a different Soundfont (SF2) or sample (WAV, AIFF, OGG) as its audio source. EXA ships with 1,000+ built-in sounds, and encourages you to import your own! You can change a ringer's pitch by setting it to a specific note, shifting it up or down, or by applying a particular scale/interval across several selected ringers.
CREATING INSTRUMENTS
Ringers are the main building-block for creating your own custom instruments. There are four available ringer shapes, and you can move and resize them however you want. Sketch new ringers out of thin air using the draw tool, and use the group and clone features to assist your instrument-creation process.
EXA’s virtual space gives you incredible flexibility for designing entirely new and “impossible” musical instruments. You’re free to break away from traditional instrument structures, and instead create instruments that are perfectly suited to the way you want to move, the notes you want to play, and the musical performance you want to compose.
You could arrange ringers into curved rows that wrap around you, or into large grids, or stacks that form chords, or guitar-like rows of strings, or radial patterns that you play with circular motions… the possibilities are endless.
Of course, you don’t need to create everything yourself. EXA ships with several pre-built layouts (full musical scenes) and bundles (reusable instruments) that you can use right away. If you do create an instrument, however, you can save it as a new bundle and reuse it anywhere you want.
RECORDING AND PLAYING LOOPS
Recording and replaying loops is at the heart of EXA’s music-making experience. As you record a loop, EXA captures the notes you play and the motions you make while performing. Then, whenever you play the recorded loop, you'll see (optionally) a “robot” performer repeating the exact motions that you did.
To record a loop, hit the loop recorder’s red ringer. It displays a countdown to the first metronome beat of the next measure. Recording begins on that beat, and continues until you hit the red ringer again (or use the “auto-stop” feature). At this point, the loop recorder becomes a playable loop. You can apply new sounds to it, adjust its volume, change its duration, quantize its notes to align with the metronome, and more.
EXA's sequencer interface allows you to schedule loop playback and assemble full songs. You can link each sequencer row to a particular loop, then add playback events within that row. As the sequencer plays, each sequencer row sends those events (when the playhead reaches them) to their linked loop.
REMIX AND MORE
With EXA’s custom instruments, recorded loops, robot performers, and powerful interfaces to schedule playback and keep it all organized, you can compose and produce entire “virtual band” music performances.
Watch and move through these performances again and again, customize them, share them, and even export them into other apps! The EXA Remix package allows third-party developers to load, display, and customize full EXA performances within their Unity-based software.
There’s so much more to explore in EXA! Export loops and songs to WAV audio, 64-channel live MIDI output, sleek user interfaces, fast and efficient workflows, in-app audio device selection, teleport and slide-based locomotion, high-quality display mode for recording videos or performing live… and more being introduced all the time.
EXA thrives on feedback, ideas, and wish-lists from players like you! Share your thoughts with Zach (the EXA dev) and the community using the EXA discussion board.
That's it! Now that you know the basics, it's time to step into EXA, and start making music with your very own infinite instrument.
Screenshots
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User Reviews
Overwhelmingly Positive
91 user reviews
97%
Positive
User #973171english
21 hrs at review
Recommended
This is an absolutely fantastic concept, with a lovely early execution. Well worth supporting the dev - who has been incredibly responsive to feedback and with providing early updates. Check out the group discussion threads for some of the ideas that dev has cooked up for possible future releases.
User #725267english
12 hrs at review
Recommended
This is the Future of Music Design, Creation and Performance
I don’t think people realize how revolutionary this software is?
I mean I can create my own instruments, play, record music and perform with it, I just don’t think people understand how much this is changing the future of music creation just yet.
User #062421english
18 hrs at review
Recommended
Short version:
Best VR app I've owned. The features and details are second to none. This app could easily go for $30 on Steam, at $15 it's a steal.
Long version:
Wow! This app is to music what an app like MasterpieceVR is to sculpting, or Tilt Brush is to painting. But so much more. You can actually "draw" instruments, change their sound, hit them with different tools for different effects, etc. Just be warned, when you create a loop and play it back, there it a floating head and tools that actually show what you were doing while creating the loop. Freaked me out the first time, as I wasn't expecting for someone to pop-up and start playing. Lol.
Seriously though, I've spent money on a lot of sub-par apps that cost twice as much as this one. Don't even think about it, just buy it.
TL;DR - Get it now.
User #323294english
51 hrs at review
Recommended
English below !!!
Diese App ist absolut einzigartig und ich kann sie nur empfehlen! Es handelt sich um eine Mischung aus virtuellem Musikinstrument, Loop-Station und virtueller DAW. Der Name "Infinite instrument" passt, da man sich beliebig viele Formen frei platzieren und skallieren kann und diese mit Audio-Samples und Tonhöhen belegen kann. Hierzu können eigene verwendet werden oder es kann bequem ingame auf die Datenbank von EXA (>1000 samples) zugegriffen werden. Wer Noten lesen kann, kann sich diese auch vor seinem Instrument schweben lassen. So hab ich zum Beispiel das hier gemacht: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAuH1DJV-M
Die Funktionen sind jetzt schon sehr vielseitig, intuitiv und trotzdem nicht unübersichtlich. Aber das beste ist: Ich hab noch keinen Developer erlebt, der so eng mit der Community zusammenarbeitet wie der momentan noch alleinige Entwickler von EXA, Zach Kachinster. Er arbeitet schon seit Jahren neben seinem Teilzeitjob an EXA. Also holt euch die App ei...
User #159072english
14 hrs at review
Recommended
I'm the kind of guy that loves creating songs as a hobby, but always gets discouraged by the complexity and time needed to produce anything with programs like fl studio. They are simply not fun after a while.
But VR is a game changer! In EXA you simply lay out the notes, choose a sample (instrument) and start hitting them with your two hands / sticks. Instant gratification!
The app gets updated regularly and there are already many excellent features, like loops, automatic note scales, double-sided notes (they will produce a sound even when hit backwards), designing / resizing / moving notes around and many more.
Be warned that this app isn't ideal for composing a whole song as of yet* (most notably features like exporting a song are still missing), but the dev is paying close attention to players' requests and has an internal roadmap that seems to cover many crucial things. I'd recomend buying this now to support the developer, but if you re after a complete music producing solution...
User #005836english
6 hrs at review
Recommended
Amazing. Top 3 VR apps. Just. Get. It. This is the kind of thing I was envisioning and hoping for before VR became a thing, and its better than I imagined.
User #251957english
2 hrs at review
Recommended
How has this app not made national headlines?? This is nothing short of a REVOLUTION in how people perform and produce music. Absolutely incredible. So much value.
User #679415english
17 hrs at review
Recommended
Just the fact that I can connect my hardware synths via usb to the pc and then build instruments in EXA, set the midi ports/channels and then play said hardware in VR is an absolute game changer!
User #246246english
18 hrs at review
Recommended
Probably the best music making program for VR.
Pros:
* Great, high-quality samples and soundfonts.
* Custom soundfont and sample support for near-infinite possibilities.
* There are some pretty handy quality-of-life options, like being able to disable double-sided ringers.
* Multiplayer support
* Very easy to learn and play!
Cons:
* The sound engine can sometimes get overwhelmed and mixing can be a little annoying.
* There's no way to manually quantize a played note- you have to play the whole clip perfectly in one go with the auto-quantize feature.
* Locomotion can be rather annoying, and there's no analog stick support.
* Missing some more special features such as filters and effects.
* There is only one visual theme.
User #210144english
4 hrs at review
Recommended
The best VR program yet. Exactly what I want in a VR experience. I can't want to see where this will go.
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System Requirements
Minimum
Minimum:
OS *: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or later, Windows 10
Processor: CPU: Intel i5-4590, AMD FX 8350 equivalent or better
