One of the advantages of the Vision Pro and Quest 3 over previous VR headsets is its ability to handle mixed reality. This is the blending of virtual objects into actual reality where cameras on the headset show your surroundings and place objects within it. So you’re not fully immersed in some virtual world; you’re still in your studio, where you can see all your synths, your computer and other gear. This means you can still see and play your physical piano while benefitting from overlayed software augmentation.

There are some specific mixed reality music apps which I’ll cover further down, but for the moment we’re talking about the viability of bringing desktop music apps into the mixed reality space. With both the Vision Pro and the Quest 3 you can run a desktop projection as a window. You can place and enlarge this window to be huge. So, rather than running off a laptop screen you can place a huge virtual screen of Logic Pro or Studio One or whatever DAW you’re using right on top of your piano, or along side your guitar amp, above your drum kit etc. You can do the same with virtual instruments, effects, and potentially clip launching in something like Ableton Live.

However, the virtual desktop in both cases doesn’t magically acquire a touchable, VR-compatible interface. So with the Vision Pro the eye and finger tracking doesn’t translate to the mouse movements you need to control your DAW, neither to the controls on the Quest 3 handheld controllers. But in mixed reality you can still see your mouse or trackpad and so it becomes a truly mixed experience.

The Vision Pro can run most existing iPad apps as flat applications within Vision OS. So there are lots of music apps you could be playing with that will also support the touch and pinch interface. The focus of this article, however, is on applications designed for 3D space. But in both cases, for Apple and Meta, there are 2D applications that can be accessed within the environment that offer something over the traditional screen.

Moog were straight out of the gate with this stunning synthesizer. It’s based upon the iOS synth called Animoog Z. It uses the same Anisotropic Synth Engine to navigate through wavetable-based sounds in three dimensions. The X, Y and Z axis lets you move through timbres and dynamics to generate very expressive sounds.

It also looks amazing. You can enjoy it in full immersion and use the virtual keyboard and sequencer to push the melodies while interacting with the nodes. Or you can float Galaxy in mixed reality and place it on a real surface as part of your studio.

As a synthesizer it’s fully functional with envelopes, LFOs, filters, effects and modulation for you to interact with. You can also connect it to MIDI controllers if you want to play it for real.

Moog Galaxy is innovative, interactive and intelligently beautiful. It demonstrates what could be accomplished in this space and sets the bar high.

Street Price: $29.99
Moogmusic.com

While Galaxy is currently the only Vision Pro music making app, there’s one music utility app that makes perfect use of augmented reality. It’s called MIDI Widgets and the basic idea is that it lets you build faders, knobs and buttons that can send MIDI commands to your MIDI gear.

So, if you have a real-world synthesizer you could create a row of virtual faders that control aspects of that synth. You can float them alongside the synth for additional controls over the sound. It’s like you’re designing your own MIDI controller for all your gear. You could build a controller that runs multiple synths from a single space, bringing together a virtual MIDI hub.

It looks quite basic but the functionality is amazing.

Street Price: $9.99
uwyn.com

More of an educational tool than a music-making app but it uses mixed reality so perfectly that I decided it was definitely worth a mention.

Pianovision is a Guitar-Hero style game but where it teaches you how to play songs on the piano. You use your real piano or MIDI controller keyboard and Pianovision places the game engine over it. It then streams the notes towards you like a game and you hit the right keys in order to play along. It’s terrific in helping you memorise songs and develop the speed and accuracy of your playing.

It has a virtual keyboard if you don’t have one, has a collection of over 1000 songs and exercises and gives you stats on everything you play.

Street Price: $9.99
Pianovision.com

Korg Gadget started out life on the iPad as a collection of little synths and drum machines that were playful and fun to be around. Since then it’s developed into quite a collection of interconnected synths and rhythm boxes that can work on iOS, macOS and Windows as plugins. Alongside Korg has released a VR version that surrounds you in a circle of synths.

Each of the six devices are nicely rendered in 3D and covers analog-style synths, wavetable, drum machines and samplers. You can sequence them together, building patterns and songs all within an immersive 360 degree space.

Gadget VR is a workable personal studio setup that you can immerse yourself in wherever you are. It’s one of the most complete solutions out there although the controls, as with all the apps here, take a bit of getting used to.

Street Price: $24.99
Korg.com

SynthVR takes on the concepts of Eurorack modular synthesis and brings it into virtual reality. Once you’re in the environment you are faced with the task of building your own synthesizer from combinations of over thirty different synth modules.

You have oscillators, filters, mixers and modulators that you can patch together with virtual cables. You can explore sound and control voltage as if you were using the real thing. You can also place speakers in the space, sequence, mix and generate whole tracks. The look is on the basic side but it’s smart enough to be intuitive and easy to grab with the controls.

SynthVR is available through SideQuest which is an alternative to the Meta/Oculus store and sort of gets side-loaded into your Quest. It’s also available on Steam.

Street Price: $24.99
SynthVR.com

Virtuoso takes a different approach and gives you musical interfaces designed expressly for VR. So you have big pads for drums, weird three dimensional models for synth playing and lots of arm waving. It has the aesthetic of a game but has powerful musical features.

It works around the concept of a looper. So you perform something, loop it and then add another layer. It all gets synced to tempo and preset scales so you never find yourself out of time or off key. All the loops can be launched with spawnable launch pads (which sounds exciting). It will take audio from the Quests’ microphone and process it through effects for recording into Virtuoso. You can also hook it up to MIDI for controlling other stuff.

Virtuoso looks great and feels completely at home in what we’ve come to expect from a VR headset.

Street Price: $19.99
Virtuoso-vr.com

Synthspace is another virtual synthesizer based on Eurorack modular. It looks really impressive although that may be because it’s only available on Steam and so is using a desktop computer to handle the rendering. With SteamVR software your Quest has to be tethered to a computer with a USB cable and becomes just the viewer for the software running on the computer. This means you can run far more powerful apps but means you can’t run it stand-alone on the Quest.

It should have over 40 modules to choose from including all the usual oscillators, filters and effects we’ve come to enjoy. It’s even possible to code your own modules if you are into that sort of thing. It supports the importing of samples and you can record everything from individual signals to entire performances.

It’s been in “Early Access” beta for some time now and I’m a bit concerned that it will never quite make it an official release. That would be a shame it looks great, sounds amazing and has the potential to be the best thing out there.

Street Price: $29.99
Synthspace.rocks

Transient from Aliveintech started life as a virtual reality clip launcher for Ableton Live. It has since evolved into a self contained music making system with loop launching, sequencing, and support for VST plugins.

It has its own subtractive synthesizer, a wavetable synth, sampling and effects. You can set banks of clips running with just a gesture. You can play drum kits and synths with controllers or hand tracking. The updates for the Quest 3 enables it to work in mixed reality environments. You can also live stream and invite people along to your performances

Transient has the makings of a thrilling music making environment and is probably the most fully-featuring music app we’ve seen so far.

Street Price: free with in-app purchases
Aliveintech.com

I’ve been using the Quest 2 for a couple of years and I enjoy a bit of VR gaming. The biggest hurdle to music making on the platform is fatique. It’s hard on your arms holding them up to access controls and trigger pads. It’s quite heavy and I think I can stand only about 30 minutes in one session before I need to take a break. That’s not awesome when you think about the time it takes to put some tunes together. I also get queasy in full immersion which again does not lend itself to being creative. However with the Vision Pro and Quest 3’s ability to do mixed reality, the travel sickness element is perhaps not so much of a problem.

It will be interesting to see where the technological weight of the Vision Pro will take us. It really will come down to finding that killer app. Capability wise there’s very little to justify the price of the Vision Pro over the Quest 3 at this time, but when has that ever stopped Apple fans from doing their Apple thing?

The potential for VR or AR music making is huge, but we’re not there yet.