Sansar Pick of the Day: Beat Blocks

Beat Blocks 4 July 2018.png

Beat Blocks is music creation experience created by GranddadGotMojo, which allows you to easily build a music track using blocks (hence the name). According to the instructions that GranddadGotMojo placed on GitHub:

Beat Blocks is an experience in Sansar where you can do you own Live DJing. You can create music by adding beats to build up a song. The main component for building up a song is the Beat Block. A Beat Block is a 1/2 meter cube that is initially stored on shelves that are in the Sample Warehouse. These shelves are on the right hand side when you enter the Experience. Each Beat Block contains a sample which is basically a short recording of music. Examples of samples are drum beats, bass lines, guitar riffs, keyboard riffs, lead riffs, pads, risers, etc. All the basics of modern Electronic Music. There are over 400 Beat Blocks and corresponding samples in the Techno Experience using Beat Blocks. These samples are arranged on Shelves by Instrument Type. There is a shelf for Drums, Bass, Guitar & Keyboard Instruments, Leads & Vocals, Effects and Pads (Strings and Ambiance).

Essentially, you pick blocks from the supermarket-like shelves on your right, and place them on special shelves on the left in order to activate them. It’s very easy to use!

Here is an 11-minute YouTube video that GranddadGotMojo created to explain in more detail how Beat Blocks works:

Next to the spot where you assemble techno tracks is a spacious dance floor, where your friends can dance to the grooves you create! Beat Blocks is great fun, and I would encourage you to visit this Sansar experience and try it out for yourself.

Sansar Store Spotlight: GotMojo Musical Instruments

GranddadGotMojo has just released what I believe to be the first line of playable musical instruments in Sansar. He has listed them all for sale in his store, GotMojo Interactive Music:

GotMojo Store 12 Apr 2018.png

There’s a steel pan drum, a regular drum set, a Hammond organ, a grand piano, a Moog synthesizer, a drum machine—even a boombox with 40 jam tracks! And he has also put working models of all his instruments in his new Sansar experience, called GotMojo Interactive Musical Instruments:

GotMojo Musical Instruments 12 Apr 2018.png

To try them out, stand on the red pad in front of each musical instrument. Give it a few seconds to load, and then use your keyboard to play musical notes!  Granddad explains:

The Stand Alone Instruments are played using the PC Keyboard. The top row of numbers 1 to 0, the keypad numbers 0 – 9, the Shift Key plus the top row numbers 1 to 0 and the Shift Key plus the keypad numbers 0 to 9. This means that you can play up to 40 notes using the PC keyboard.

For example, here is a chart on the wall showing you what keys control various sounds on the drum kit:

GotMojo Drum Set 12 Apr 2018.png

To learn more about what you can do, check out the wiki that GranddadGotMojo created to support these products. They are quite detailed, and explain exactly how to set the musical scale, octaves, volume, and pan of each instrument.

You can buy and install these playable musical instruments in your own Sansar experience, following the step-by-step instructions GraddadGotMojo has prepared. There’s a fair bit of setup involved, but Granddad walks you through it all.