Co-Designing the Beat of the Musical Metaverse (MUSMET)
MUSMET — Musical Metaverse made in Europe — is a Horizon Europe research initiative exploring how extended-reality can transform music creation, performance, and audience experiences. As the technology partner in the consortium, PatchXR is designing the next generation of music-making tools and a collaborative VR platform.
Opening the lab: why we co-design
PatchWorld has always been built with users at its core. We jam with you, hang out on Discord, and treat our community as an extension of our team. With MUSMET, we went a step further: instead of just collecting feedback and building alone, we surfaced the hard problems of making music together in VR—and set out to solve them with you.
Co-designing the Beat Maker of the Musical Metaverse
We launched a series of co-design workshops, inviting professional musicians and enthusiasts from the PatchWorld community to shape the tools they want to play. Our first challenge: build the ultimate beat-making instrument for VR.
The brief was demanding. In VR, small timing deviations can break ensemble cohesion. Drumming in the air lacks tactile reward, and many sequencers aren’t immediate for live play. We needed something expressive, intuitive, and robust—for seasoned producers and first-time jammers alike.
How the sessions worked
We ran multiple remote VR workshops using PatchWorld on Meta Quest 3. Each 60-minute session, facilitated by Gad (“DJ Patchy”), alternated quick play and discussion:
• Hands-on rotations through six PatchWorld rhythm instruments (expressive pads, gestural grids, algorithmic rhythm cubes, and more).
• Group debriefs to unpack what worked, what didn’t, and why.
This rapid cycle gave clear feedback on latency, responsiveness, visual clarity, and collaborative usability. Participants gravitated toward gestural instruments with continuous control and clear feedback—expressive without cognitive overload. Anything sluggish, rigid, or lacking tactile feel quickly fell out of favor.
A standout prototype: the Pattern Grid
One prototype, the Pattern Grid, consistently rose to the top. It let players control pitch, rhythmic subdivision, dynamics, and sample length by moving their hands along different axes. Waveform overlays and nuanced haptic cues reinforced the sensation of striking a real instrument. Round after round, participants voted it their favorite.
“We can patch it right now!”
Live iteration in VR
The magic of PatchWorld is its modular building environment. During sessions, participants didn’t just critique—they patched ideas live. Suggestions became real features in minutes, then everyone jumped back in to test. This kind of immediate collaboration proved pivotal to refining the instrument.
From prototypes to the Universal Rhythm Box
[Place video here with a short caption.]
Using workshop feedback, we merged the best of the Pattern Grid and the Rhythm Variation Grid into a single instrument: the Universal Rhythm Box—a semi-transparent cube designed for live play and collaborative jams.
What it does
• Four expressive axes:
– Lateral → Pitch
– Depth → Subdivision rate / groove density
– Vertical → Dynamics
– Wrist rotation → Sample length / decay
• Two-hand support for bilateral expressivity and complex patterns
• Real-time visual feedback with waveform overlays
• Adjustable haptics for physicality
• Built-in looper and MIDI out for capture and integration
• Resizable UI to fit different play styles
• Optional Edit mode that hides complexity for newcomers while keeping depth for pros
What’s in Expert Mode
• Off-grid rhythm logic: polymeters, shifting cycles, evolving grooves
• Advanced mappings: velocity to volume, LFOs/sliders, feedback loops
• Full modularity: patch pitch, volume, filters, and FX chains as you like
We believe this co-designed instrument is one of the most versatile beat makers in VR—and it wouldn’t exist without the community’s ideas and hands-on testing.
What’s next
The beat was only the first step. In upcoming articles, we’ll share how the community re-imagined the ultimate VR jam-room layout. Stay tuned.
Join the journey
Our co-design workshops are ongoing. We’ll soon integrate the Universal Rhythm Box into PatchWorld for wider testing. If you’re passionate about music and VR, join our next co-design session and help build the musical metaverse of tomorrow.
Huge thanks to everyone who has already contributed time, creativity, and energy—we couldn’t do this without you.
