Current Musical Direction
In the pursuit of making music listening compact, we've gradually reduced its physicality. We've reached peak convenience, having access to nearly all music ever created at any time, in the palm of our hands.
But not without a sacrifice. With the loss of physicality, tangible charming experiences have weakened.
A New Musical Device
The Music Console gives users a dedicated touchpoint for their streamed music, with the aim to create more charming and involved musical experiences.
References
Past Music Touchpoints
Research
Musical Ceremonies
Intentionally or not, physical music tech has always sprouted different distinctive experiences. Digitization provides a clean canvas for creation, and I find it a mistake to not carefully incorporate a similar charm, albeit in its own distinctive flavor.
Through my first hand and online research, below are experiences I chose to reference for the music console.
Romanticizing Life With a Curated Playlist
Opening Up an Album and Reading About It
Crafting the Perfect Mixtape for Someone Special
Digging For Music and Finding an Unexpected Gem
Slow Start to the Day With the Right Music
B2B Gathering Mixing Rotation
A wholesome musical back and forth between friends, that involves sharing new songs, and transitioning in between all kinds of music.
Firsthand Research
Listening Stations
In order to gain a better understanding of these past touch points and their charm, I composed 3 listening stations throughout my apartment.
Record Player + Kaoss Pad Effect/Sampler
Playing records through the Kaoss Pad let me create loops to transition inbetween records, as well as color the sound in different ways.
Koss Boombox (Cassette/CD/Radio)
+ OB-4 Magic Radio
Removed the speakers off of my boombox and ran it through the OB4, letting me speed up and lightly remix CDs, Cassettes,
and radios.
90s CDJ + Pioneer Performance Effector (CD)
The option to both listen to music normally, and remix it at any time was really fun to me. A lot of the functionality from this combo and other tech from this time period was incorporated into the final console.
I also modified the original deck with custom 3D printed surfaces to explore how that could affect the user's control over the music.
Concept Development
Feature Set + Layout
I wanted to create an interface that felt like a carefully curated table of ingredients, and then allow the user to play and form their own connections.
Turning the decks on their sides to create weighted mega scroll wheels made me smile, and felt like it appropriately signified a new type of mixing.
First Checkpoint
I had figured out the identity of console, and now needed to make the controls more intuitive and compact.
I took inspiration from cassette mixing and micro-sized the decks, letting me downsize significantly.
This created a poetic connection between a tracks physical and digital reels.
Larger decks would be sold as a separate add-on, and would include additional slots for extra modules.
The final direction focused on creating a great platform that could be expanded on and customized to fit the users unique listening, mixing, and exploration style.
Final Direction
What Is It?
A Casual Home Mixer
Addressing friction points around music mixing to create a more seamless and casual experience.
A Tunable Music Explorer
Building on existing music exploration features and expanding them further.
New Way to Share Digital Music
Simply sharing a playlist through text just doesn't hit the same.
Compact Portable Mixer
A compact 2 channel mixer with full set of features that revolves around Spotify's queue feature.
Pull From Your Library and Mix
Never spend time downloading music again, simply pull tracks from your Spotify library.
Explore + Discover + Share
Dedicated features for finding new music, exploring new spaces, and sharing your discoveries with friends.
Product Overview
Key Features
Queue Display
The upcoming tracks are always in view. Rearrange them freely at any time.
Vocal Seperation
Tracks split into three frequency channels, as well as an additional AI separated vocal channel.
Use it to karaoke/freestyle over a track, or splice beats and vocals from different songs.
Flexible Mixing
The device allows you to mix inbetween two internal music sources, but also plug in external gear and take advantage the included unique features.
Motorized Faders + Knobs (Ghost DJ)
Motorized faders let you stream and mirror your set onto your friend's mixers, letting friends be musically present alongside you.
This opens up possibilities for streaming performances, pirate radios, international B2Bs, motion recorded mixes, long distance late night serenades, and much more.
Auto-Mix Micro Module
For a more casual experience, you have the option to
auto-mix at any time. Don't want to hang around the mixer at the end of every song, need to greet a friend at the door, or want to focus purely on song selection, remixing, or effects? Use auto-mix!
Mini-Dek Tech
Dedicated Explore Display
Scrub through tracks, adjust their BPM, and mechanically see their current speed using the two minideks.
The left screen lets users sift through and display artwork, lyrics, and other music media and info.
Disk Emulation
Lets you see a moving, reactive representation of the music, emulating the magic of seeing a blurry spinning CD.
The display can also be used to display audio levels, waveforms, and other information for more serious mixing and tuning.
The Digi-Ai DJ
Direct your personal DJ with hands on controls, as well as save and share your DJ profiles with friends.
Tune your direction using the four scroll wheels, and set the time periods to explore.
RISK - familiarity to taste
ENERGY - track speed
POP - number of listeners
SPICE - user assignable
Custom Radio Archive
Build or download complex custom radio stations to explore music in new ways.
Store an artist's custom radio, create taste mashups, and more all accessible at the click of a button.
EFX + RMX Module
Inspired by remixing tech of the late 90s, this module lets you color and remix your tracks.
For example, use the pads to specify on which beat you'd like to apply the effect, and create unique drum fills using delay.
Effects Application
Use EFX control to apply the effects to specific frequency channels.
Transpose vocals, add distortion the low end, and much more.
Product Overview
The Module Section
Interchangeable modules that swap out the feature set of the device. The first three modules allow users to explore, discover, and listen to their music in new ways.
Product Overview
Pulpcart Storage
These small carts let you share playlists, mixes, effects, developed Ai DJs, custom radios, device themes, and more using NFC technology.
Pulpcarts can be read and filled by the mixer, or by scanning the NFC chip using your smartphone.
How do they work?
Pulpcarts are composed of stacked clear sheets of PET that are enclosed by a compressed paper pulp frame. These sheets are printed on and can be layered to create a volumetric image.
An NFC tag storing the information is encased in the pulp to link to a playlist, for example.
Maximum Layer Variant (16)
Inspiration
Printed PET Layers
Paper Pulp Frame
Embedded NFC Chip
Aluminum Antenna
But why?
They provide an optional, more intimate and special way of sharing music.
They are more compact than a compact disk, and enhance the shareability, collectability, and gesture of sharing a good (physical) mix, while also reducing its production impact.
Leaning more towards a handwritten letter feel rather than a link through text feel.
Product Overview
Gallery + Conclusion
Final Thoughts
Portable music has been perfected, but the simplified approach isn't ideal for more involved home listening.
There's something special about each of the music mediums, and the newest one deserves a dedicated controller with its own memorable and charming music player experience.
This project proposes a single direction in a larger opportunity space. People are reverting to older music mediums for a slower more tangible experience, and although I'm happy for it, it signals that our current music listening medium lacks something important.
With the massive amount of music we now have access to, music platforms should provide unique ways to aid with exploration, listening, and sharing.
There have been good features, but I believe tying music down to purely digital puts a hard limit on the depth of its experience, and the potential usefulness of any new developed features.
With music listening no longer requiring physicality, it doesn’t mean aspects of physicality are no longer important.
The Music Console
It provides music fans with a touch point to interact with their streamed music.
It’s flexible in its feature set, and provides access to some of the greatest and warmest experiences available around music.
Explore, discover, and share gems with friends.
Mix, remix, and then remix again,
Or turn it on, and just listen.
