MUSMET – a real-time musical performance across distance

Total project value:

€3,000,000.00

Grant amount:

€290,937.50

Duration:

2025–2029

CONTEXT AND CHALLENGE

MUSMET is an EU-funded R&D project supported by the European Innovation Council (EIC) under the EIC Pathfinder Open scheme, focused on making distributed music performance feel like playing in the same room by aligning technical audio transmission with human perception of timing and synchrony.

Similar to day-to-day remote online work meetings, concerts and rehearsals are no longer limited to a single venue. Today’s formats increasingly combine on-stage performers, remote contributors, online audiences, and immersive or virtual environments. The constraint is simple but strict: even small transmission delays can break timing, ensemble cohesion, and audience perception.

To deliver a truly shared experience across physical and virtual spaces, synchronisation has to be performance-grade, and grounded in human sound perception, not only network behaviour. MUSMET was initiated to address the key limitation that turns distributed performances into separate, unsynchronised sessions: perceptible latency.

See results and impact

Project objective

We aim to develop a platform that enables real-time audio synchronisation for live and virtual musical performances across any distance, so musicians and audiences can participate in one coherent performance without perceptible delay.

Scope and approach

MUSMET is a multi-year R&D programme combining audio engineering, hybrid concert-format design, and research into human sound perception. The work brings these disciplines together to explore how distributed musical performance can be delivered reliably across live, online, and virtual environments.

Industrial Research

Research focus

The research focuses on how audio transmission, performance formats, and sound perception interact in distributed musical settings. MUSMET examines how these elements can be aligned to preserve timing, cohesion, and a shared sense of performance across distance.

Validation context

The platform is designed to support performance scenarios that combine on-stage and remote contributors, online audiences, and virtual/immersive environments. The focus is on maintaining musical cohesion and a shared sense of presence without perceptible delay.

Experimental Development

Target users

Musicians and ensembles performing across locations (live + remote collaboration)
Concert organisers and venues developing hybrid and next-generation concert formats
Online and virtual-world audiences participating in shared live/virtual music experiences

Results and impact

Results and expected outcomes

MUSMET is expected to result in a validated approach to real-time musical performance across distance, demonstrating how synchronisation technology, performance formats, and sound-perception research can support live, hybrid, and immersive experiences.

7bulls contributes to MUSMET as an experienced technology partner with a long track record in European R&D projects. We bring applied research expertise in complex systems, combining platform engineering with a deep understanding of regulatory, performance, and reliability requirements.

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