OD Designs Custom Music Shop

Want to go to a place where you can not only get a cool guitar, but also customize it to your liking? Head on over to OD Designs, where one can get guitars, drum sets, and musical AO's to perform your own dream concert, and more.

The store itself has a *huge* variety of guitars up for sale, grouped by the name of the maker of their real-life counterparts, as well as the models and color schemes of the instruments.

“There’s no real genre attached to this (store),” store director Leilani Teskat explained, “We have several different musical tastes here. I’m trying to get a Shakira tribute to play here soon, hopefully. Our tributes are open to any of the tribute houses. We offer that to give them added exposure. Plus, we also have the OD Band HUB too. That gives even more exposure, that’s located out on the back porch. We also have OD Live, which is our Live Artists branch of things. We’re partnered with some live performers too, StevenJaimz, Anek, Space Junky, to name a few.”

“So it really is a wide open genre. (laughter) Which I prefer, because it adds to the variety.”

Leilani went on, “Also, we’re partnered with real-life guitar manufacturers ... Ortho makes reproductions in-world of them.” Leilani explained the real-life companies treat the virtual goods more or less as a kind of advertising, “so we provide text shouts when the person wears the guitar. Plus, we have links from the OD website to all of their sites. Plus, I have them followed on Twitter too, and we have them on Myspace and Facebook. So we’ve got the whole web 2.0 network going.” Feedback from the real-live guitar companies has been “very positive. Actually, some of them have been so impressed, they linked our website onto theirs. So we have our pages on theirs. The ones I specifically built myself, so that’s been a real feather in my cap, so to speak. ;-) “

She brought up the website of the BC Rich guitar company, which at the bottom had “Visit BC Rich at” followed by several places online, the one virtual world being Second Life, which was a link to her OD Designs page (http://www.odmusic.info/leilani/bcrich%20webpage.htm). “If you go there, and look at the very bottom, you’ll see the link to SL,” which was a SURL to their store, “That’s the webpage I made for them, and the others too. It’s added promotion for them too, something interesting.”

But the store does more than just sell guitars, it allows one to modify them, “We’ve got (a) custom shop that allows people to customize their OD guitars and basses, even adding their own stickers to their instruments. It’s very cool! ... There’s also a short video on how to do it.” She showed me the shop, which has separate stations for stickers and streamers. A webpage shows two videos on how to operate the booths (http://www.odmusic.info/CustomShop/customshop.html#Custom%20Streamer%20Station). For stickers, one can select from the textures in the station, or use one of your own from your inventory. You can also enlarge or shrink the sticker and choose where on the surface of the guitar front you want it. For streamers, the guitars come with three invisible ones hanging from the headstock. The booth allows you to texture and tinit from one to three. Once again, either one can use a texture of those from the booth or one of your own.

When one wears the guitar, one gets a copy of the Heads Up Display to control it with various animations, “you can also adjust the guitar on your av (recommended if you have a tail), then when you have it positioned properly, click the guitar and select ‘Teachfront.’ “
The custom shop has its own HUD as well to help with editing the guitar. Guitars can be copied for one’s inventory, or one can use the store redelivery system for a new copy.

For purchases made at the store, customers are given OD rewards points. “Just like air miles, in a sense,” Leilani explained, “It’s helped out a lot of people who want to do tributes.” In picking the guitar, one may want to pay attention to how it’s color compares to your clothes, “ That's the biggest problem I've found is matching the color up. Sometimes SL can make it kinda disappear. If you have an all black ensemble it gets lost.” The guitars are also highly detailed, down to the strings, made from about 180 to over 250 prims. Most of the guitars come in three sizes, “some of these guitars are so big for my av ... but I want them that big to show off, if I use the Medium sized ones they look good but you can't see the detail.”

Besides guitars, OD Designs also sells drum sets, in different sizes, “the medium ... , the monsters, these are the model most commonly used in Second Life, and the small ... People usually get them depending on which tribute or application they are wanting to do.” Like the guitars, the drums are highly detailed, “we do offer a wearable version of the drums just in case people don't want to use up any prims.” The largest “monster” set is The Titan, “there are a lot of people who just love that particular drum kit ... they also do different things, like the Titan there can spin around and even UFO around.” Like the guitars, drum sets come with their own HUDs for options like different styles of drumming, lights and special effects, and spinning the whole set around drummer and all, “I suggest not doing it in Mouse View.” Sitting on the drums, one gets a copy of the HUD plus the drumsticks.

OD Designs also sells keyboards and pianos.

Animations can be remote-controlled, “say you were a live artist playing a guitar, you could have a friend control your animations.” OD Designs sells the H2V vocal HUD, “some do use this vocal HUD along with the guitar playing as some real-life artists sing and play guitar.” And it also has the H2X, a whole-body HUD similar to the one with the guitars, but has many more animations, over fifty, “ think of it as the HUD you get with the guitar is the H2 lite.”

Leilani also pointed out the Redelivery and Help Center, which can get people a fresh copy of their guitars, as well as showing how many reward points they have.

“Someone can come in get a guitar, and be able to do a tribute or performance right away,” Leilani explained, “and we also have a database of people wanting to get into the SL music industry (so to speak) ... the SL Live Music scene is very live and kicking, there are a LOT of live artists, some using SL to promote their own music, and then directing people to their websites to make sales. ... We're trying to help the people get more gigs too because we know that if they're not making the lindens they can't purchase OD Gear. So I'm always looking for ways to help people, and help them step up their performance too. Not just me but the other OD staff. We all help out in customer service.”

The OD Designs website is at http://www.odmusic.info/. The page for the custom shop is at (http://www.odmusic.info/CustomShop/customshop.html#Custom%20Streamer%20Station) and the one for the H2X Full Motion Authentic Guitar Animation HUD / AO at (http://www.odmusic.info/H2x/H2x.htm).

“OD ROCKS!!”

Bixyl Shuftan

Perri's Xanadu

In the movie “Xanadu,” two men turn an empty auditorium into a successful nightclub with the help of a muse. In Rainbow Wood, it might not have been a muse behind the club Xanadu, but there are certainly a number of creative people behind it.

Club Xanadu is owned by Perri Prinz (Perri Rhoades in real-life) and RECoyote Mindes. “There was another Club Xanadu when I first joined Second Life,” Perri explained, “It was my favorite hang out, but the owner never advertised it, so it soon disappeared. Later I found the building on SLX and bought it. I carried it around in my inventory for about a year, having no place to put it. Then we got a place, and REC wanted to (open it) too, since he liked the movie. So we set it up. But we soon saw it was beyond us to do a real Xanadu sim based on the movie. So we developed it into a classic rock club for people who enjoy both popular and obscure rock music from the 70's and 80's.” Club Xanadu opened in May 1, 2009.

RECoyote, “When we couldn't do a exact copy of the disco, we went for a 70s feel and music. But even getting DJ that stick to a 70 and 80 easy pop listing music is not easy.” Still, they found some who would, such as Nydia Tungsten, Lsai Aeon, Dusk Griswold, Timber Wolfenhaut, and Asuna Kaligawa. “Timber is one of the best for era music,” RECoyote felt. “Well, I'm the main DJ,” Perri told, “My music plays there round the clock, 24/7, when another DJ is not hosting an event. I play eclectic 70's and 80's album music, hit tracks interspeced with non-hit tracks. Disco, Classic Rock, Soft Rock, Progressive Rock, Jazz, Swing, Rock & Roll and Novelty tunes. We have other DJ's that specialize in things like Anime tunes, Euro-disco and other things for special events.” RECoyote described their special events as including, “Hippie, Groovy, Cartoons, Movies, Sci Fi, and a mix of general events.” Spoke Perri, “Whatever theme we can imagine, we do it.”

Club Xanadu is on a wide sky platform high in the air over Rainbow Wood. The exterior, like it’s movie counterpart, is based on the real life Pan Pacific Auditorium. The interior is dominated by a huge colorful disco dance floor, with a DJ stand in the back decorated with a row of vinyl records. One clicks on either the black singles danceball or the rainbow-colored couples’ danceball. The ring around the dance floor can be used as a roller rink, and residents can sometimes be seen skating around. On the walls are a small number of artworks and posters, including the poster of the Xanadu movie. There are a few seats further away from the dance floor one can rest one’s avatar, as well as a bar. The club also has a balcony, with a few cuddle couches and more displays of art. Just outside the club, there are a few cuddle spots for couples.

In one corner of Club Xanadu is a tribute to the Pan Pacific Auditorium, several photographs of the structure. The Auditorium was built in Los Angeles in 1934, and became an iconic structure. It hosted a number of events (including wrestling, which was mentioned of the auditorium in the movie). The place was closed in 1972 after the opening of the L.A. Convention Center. For the movie Xanadu, the exterior was made to look covered in neon lights through special effects. It was hoped among some that the movie would bring attention to the building and it being refurbished and saved. But no effort was made to preserve the building, and it continued to deteriorate. Just six days after it’s 54th anniversary in 1989, the building was destroyed in a spectacular fire.

A friend of RECoyote and Perri, Aurora Avilla, had the idea for a “Chocolate Lounge” as part of the club. But that idea was shelved and instead was set up elsewhere in Rainbow Wood separately. “Was created for the chocolate bunny craze that was going around a few weeks ago,” Perri explained, “We were thinking of adding a chocolate bunny lounge to the club, hosted by chocolate bunny dancers.” Aurora leads a group called the “Chocolate Nosebobbly Collective.”

Perri talked about a mall being planed to match the club, but for now there are a couple art shops outside the club. The larger one is especially important to Perri, “This is the art done for Perri's story,” RECoyote told, art for Perri’s thirty year old work of writing: Spectral Shadows (http://www.perrirhoades.furtopia.org/). Perri’s website describes Spectral Shadows as “a novelized serial in format of Doctor Who.” It’s origins go back to the 1960’s when a “makeshift demo” was made for a series of rock operas. But instead Perri began writing it down in the late 1970’s. She rates it “PG-16.” The store contains artwork for the stories.

“The saga concerns the exploits of intelligent animals with time travel capabilities. It is very much inspired by the traditions of Doctor Who and Star Wars, with a good bit of Watership Down and Jonathan Livingston Seagull thrown in for contrast, and a bit of Spellsinger and Xanth to provide balance. Whereas George Lucas used old-time movie serials for the formatting of Star Wars, we use the formatting of old-time radio serials. This works well, as it is a very dialogue driven series, containing many cerebral oddities and conundrums. What you might call a thinking person’s adventure serial. It’s something that, by all logic, should not work. But it most often does work, if just through the sheer tenacity of the creators to make something ridiculously impossible seem like a logical course of events.”

So for a walk back in time to the music of the 70’s and 80’s, come to Club Xanadu. The club is at Rainbow Wood (128, 72, 2501)

Whether it’s music, art, or fiction, “Find your muse at Xanadu.”


Bixyl Shuftan