MR-DAW: Towards Collaborative Digital Audio Workstations in Mixed Reality
Torin Hopkins, Shih-Yu Ma, Suibi Che-Chuan Weng, Ming-Yuan Pai, Ellen Yi-Luen Do, Luca Turchet

TL;DR
This paper explores the use of Mixed Reality to create collaborative digital audio workstations that enable natural, remote musical collaboration, overcoming physical and network limitations of traditional DAWs.
Contribution
It introduces MR-DAW, a novel mixed reality system allowing multiple users to collaboratively control a shared DAW in real-time with physical interaction tools.
Findings
Users found MR-DAW intuitive and engaging for remote collaboration
The system enabled real-time, multi-user musical interaction with physical controls
Participants expressed optimism about future MR-based musical collaboration
Abstract
Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) are central to modern music production but often encumber the musician's workflow, tethering them to a desk and hindering natural interaction with their instrument. Furthermore, effective remote collaboration remains a significant challenge, with existing solutions hampered by network latency and asynchronous file sharing. This paper investigates the potential of Mixed Reality (MR) to overcome these barriers, creating an intuitive environment for real-time, remote musical collaboration. We employ qualitative and speculative design techniques to better understand: 1) how players currently use DAWs, and 2) to imagine a speculative future of collaborative MR-DAWs. To facilitate this discussion, we developed and evaluated the usability of a design probe, MR-DAW. An MR system enabling multiple, geographically dispersed users to control a single, shared DAW…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInteractive and Immersive Displays · Music Technology and Sound Studies · Augmented Reality Applications
