WeMUST - Wireless Music Studio

 

The recent advances in wireless networks and the increased computational power in embedded devices make new scenarios feasible for music production and performance. WeMUST (Wireless Music Studio) is a framework for the research and development of new applications based on small footprint embedded devices and IEEE 802.11 wireless networks for low-latency uncompressed audio streaming between instruments, effect processors, acquisition units and loudspeakers. The current development platform is the BeagleBoard xM, an open-hardware device, running GNU/Linux and a set of tools. 

Open source tools are being developed for uncompressed multichannel streaming and network latency test under Pure Data, Python and C/C++

Premiere performance: Waterfront

Waterfront is a live performance showcasing WeMUST as a novel system for sonification of open spaces, monumental areas and so on. Waterfront opened the 9th edition of the electronic arts festival ACUSMATIQ, in front of more than a hundred listeners on the premises of the Mole Vanvitelliana, a magnificent construction from the 18th century built on an artificial island close to other historical buildings and the modern port of Ancona, Italy. Three skilled musicians, G. Antongirolami (sax), E. Francioni (double bass) and L. Muncaciu (voice) performed on separate boats across the sea in front of the Mole Vanvitelliana. WeMUST enabled them to interact and play sync'ed.
 
Mole VanvitellianaSolo nr.19SoloSolo

Maritime Rites Ancona, by Alvin Curran (2015)

A new version of the famous set of compositions by Alvin Curran named Maritime Rites was conceived by the composer for this new performance held on July the 31st 2015 in Ancona for the 10th edition of the music festival Acusmatiq.
 
AcusmatiqXMaritime Rites

Related pubblications

  • L. Gabrielli, M. Bussolotto and S. Squartini, "Reducing the Latency in Live Music Transmission with the BeagleBoard xM Through Resampling", in Proc. EDERC, Milan, Italy, 2014
  • L. Gabrielli, S.Squartini, F. Piazza, “Advancements and Performance analysis on the Wireless Music Studio (WeMUST) framework”, in Proc. AES 134th Convention, Rome, Italy, 2013
  • L. Gabrielli, S. Squartini, E. Principi, F. Piazza “Networked Beagleboards for Wireless Music Applications”, in Proc. EDERC2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, sept. 2012

Documents

Software

WeMUST OS v0.3 (tar.gz, 883MB) - Linux image for the BBxM to experiment with the WeMUST framework (md5sum of the uncompressed file: 45277c3d087a09127afaf04c780070d9)
 
we-tools v.RC2 - Python tools to debug and connect devices implementing the WeMUST framework
 
WeMUST for puredata v.0.1 (zip) - This package contains puredata externals implementing the SABy protocol for device discovery, uncompressed audio streaming over WLAN or LAN and testing capabilities for a network link. Tested on Ubuntu Linux for PC and the Beagleboard xM.