~ MuTechLab - Music Technology Workshop in Luxembourg

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of facilitating a hands-on workshop in Luxembourg as part of MuTechLab workshop series, organized by Luc Nijs at the University of Luxembourg. Together with Bart Moens from XRHIL and IPEM, we presented a system to control musical parameters with body movement.

MuTechLab is a series of workshops for music teachers who wish to dive into the world of music technology. Funded by the Luxembourgish National Research Fund (FNR, PSP-Classic), the initiative brings together educators eager to explore how technology can enhance music education and creative practice.

What we built and presented

During the workshop, participants got hands-on experience with the EMI-Kit (Embodied Music Interface Kit) – an open-source, low-cost system that allows musicians to control Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) parameters through body movement.

The EMI-Kit consists of: - A wearable sensor device (M5StickC Plus2) that captures body orientation and gestures - A receiver unit (M5Stack STAMP S3A) that converts sensor data to MIDI messages

Unlike expensive commercial alternatives, EMI-Kit is fully open source, customizable, and designed specifically for creative music practice and embodied music interaction practice and research.

The Experience

Teachers experimented with mapping natural body movements – pitch, yaw, roll, and tap gestures – to various musical parameters in their DAWs. The low-latency wireless system made it possible to move and control sound, opening up new possibilities for expressive musical performance and pedagogy.

Learn More

Interested in exploring embodied music interaction yourself? Check out:

• MuTechLab Project Page
• EMI-Kit on GitHub

The EMI-Kit project as-is is a demonstrator to inspire educators to embrace these tools and imagine new ways of teaching and creating music. The EMI-Kit as a platform can - with some additional programming - be a good basis to control musical parameters using various sensors. Have fun with checking out the EMI-Kit.

Code, UGent, and Projecten

~ MIDI and OSC tools improvements - MIDI processing and mDNS support

I’ve just pushed some updates to mot — a command-line application for working with OSC and MIDI messages. My LLM tells me that these are exciting updates but I am not entirely sure that this is the case. Let me know if this ticks your box and seek professional help.

1. Scriptable MIDI Processor via Lua

I have implemented a MIDI processor that lets you transform, filter, and generate MIDI messages using Lua scripts.

Why is this useful? MIDI processors act as middlemen between your input devices and output destinations.You can do the following on incoming MIDI messages:

• Transform - Transpose notes, generate chords, map velocity curves
• Filter - Block unwanted messages - channels - or select specific ranges
• Route - Send different notes to different channel
• Generate - Create complex patterns from simple input

The processor reads incoming MIDI from a physical device, processes it through your Lua script, and outputs the modified messages to a virtual MIDI port that your DAW or synth can receive. Some examples:

  






  
# Generate chords from single notes
mot midi_processor --script scripts/chord_generator.lua 0 6666

# Transpose notes up by one octave
mot midi_processor --script scripts/example_processor.lua 0 6666

2. Network Discovery via mDNS

OSC receivers now advertise themselves on the network using mDNS/Bonjour with the _osc._udp service type.

This makes mot compatible with the EMI-kit — the Embodied Music Interface Kit developed at IPEM, Ghent University. OSC-enabled devices can automatically discover mot receivers on your network, eliminating manual configuration if the OSC sources add this functionality.

Get started

Installation via Rust’s cargo:

  





  
git clone https://github.com/JorenSix/mot.git
cd mot
cargo install --path .
mot midi_processor -h

Check out the mot repository for full documentation and example Lua scripts!

Code, Music Information Retrieval, and UGent