Your thoughts about Post-digital design?

[Melooon]

Im not sure if post-digital is the right term; or maybe it should be like.. digi-analog? ANYWAY, its a focus on design that is not fully digital but is intended to be used in a digital world.

One example I came across today is this nixie clock on Techmoan (skip to 6 mins to actually seeee it)

The clock is very analogue; but it also has Wifi and GPS features. Im always interested by things that combine opposites and create unusual new hybrids. However there are plenty of pros and cons; the biggest con in my mind is always practicality; Im always conflicted by practicality, aesthetics and the personal philosophies I have related to both.

What are your thoughts on post-digital design and how do you think it could/couldn't fit into your life as an enthusiast of unusual counter culture things (if you're on this forum I assume you are that )

[Cobra!]

I'm not sure if this counts, but I love seeing the things people have been doing with Vinyl records since it's revival. Like making them heavier to improve sound and reduce warping, and even something Techmoan also covered, where people were able to get short black & white videos playing from them!

UtNGVb94TFE

I've also been hearing about "LPD" displays, which said to be are spiritual successors to CRTs due to using a lot of the same technologies. It would be so cool if we can see them being used in a more consumer level and even with our monitors!

[Melooon]

I'm not sure if this counts, but I love seeing the things people have been doing with Vinyl

I think thats totally part of it, because without streaming platforms making music super convenient; then no one would really be interested in exploring and investing in vinyl; its a great example of taking the pressure off something to allow it to grow, which is something that I think people forget you can do a lot!

Woah I have never heard of Laser Phosphor Displays before! If they have the ability to capture that glow and brightness you get from CRTs it would be really cool!

[Absentmind]

I always thought nixie tubes were cool, been looking to get into circuit bending. don't really have the space for it atm.

[Aarix]

I hope this counts: you'll see a lot of digital-meets-analogue in music & audio scenes... where the analog stuff never really went away, but has had some digital quality-of-life improvements over the ages.

Plenty of guitarists are still rocking (potentially brand-new) tube amps & transistor-based pedals in digitally produced songs, and many hardware synths are a hybrid of analogue and digital. Modular synthesis can be simulated inside a computer very convincingly (which is kind of the same concept as presented op but in reverse?), but there's still plenty of people spending heaps on traditional modular synths--tech which predates midi and microprocessors--to use alongside more modern synths or units with digital processing (and the quality of life that stuff like midi brings to the table...) and on the listening side, there's the CD & Vinyl heads, and also people putting massive 1000+kbps FLACs thru tube amps and whatnot...

On one hand, analogue gear is often expensive, heavy and fragile. Analogue is also somewhat of a status symbol and also a big marketing buzzword--It can't be denied, there's quite a bit of wank around it. All my amps are digital because lugging a tube amp up the stairs is not a life I want to live--sorry guitarists but for me The Toan is just not worth it. It's also temperamental--analogue synths need to be warmed up and tuned every time you turn them on, and the tuning will drift with the temperature and humidity of the room, which is incredibly inconvenient if you're trying to record anything.

All that being said, the *experience* of plugging away at an actual modular rig isn't something you can get from VCV Rack. The unpredictability is a lot of the draw. Since you're working with actual voltages zipping around in physical cables, there's a real sense of working with something that is, in a sense, alive. And I'll admit there really is something nice about the behavior of tube amps and stuff. Unfortunately, I do get it. I can do anything in FL studio, but the appeal of physical hardware is the inconvenience. I'd love to get my hands on some more modular gear one day, and if I was gonna use it for serious music I'd definitely use it alongside digital tech. (if the idea of soldering stuff scared me less, I could make my own modular synths... ha, maybe one day)

A single category of device which springs to mind are semi-modular synths... there's a nice midi-sequencer, and some more digital stuff going on behind the curtain, but also a more traditional modular patch bay which you can plug straight in to all-analogue eurorack gear. Best of both worlds? Waste of money? Both :V



Since vinyl's been brought up: I'll note about the vinyl revival which put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm... vinyl itself--the physical material that is--is apparently a pretty nasty thing. It off-gasses harmfully, and there's no way it can be recycled. Not so much an issue for the consumer, but as a hypothetical musician, I don't think I could feel good about pressing them in the hundreds... if something less harmful could be used then I'd be all over it.

That aside, the renewed interest in outdated/analogue music formats are GREAT news for musicians, who can sell some real merch again. Limited edition vinyls are a viable way to make money. And other even-sillier formats if you want to get into the real novelty territory--like that time Greenday re-released an album on such formats as floppy disc, x-ray record, and big mouth billy bass (side-note, the scrolling jpeg artifact effect is really cool on this website).

There's also some cool niche-application tech I've seen, like a little adapter which lets you stream music off your phone into your car's cassette player! Very cool workarounds for keeping old tech going :)

[NoxidKin]

I think we might start looking backwards at simpler more analogue technologies, using and upgrading ideas that have worked before.

But the clock, to me that's just a pretty ornament.  It has no practical use in the modern world.

And vinyl...oooh... I'm going to be careful about my words because I know my audience, but...  Vinyl is objectively worse than digital in pretty much every way, it should never have been revived and if you like vinyl, you're wrong!  (Mostly joking... mostly)

So I think there's a future for analogue, but we won't get there by living in the past.  :)

[candycanearter07]

I love the apperance of it!! I always wanted to hook up one of those flipping letter board things to a raspberry pi, but they're so expensive.. (3500 for a board??) If anyone knows where I could get/make one at a reasonable price..

[foxmosis]

And vinyl...oooh... I'm going to be careful about my words because I know my audience, but...  Vinyl is objectively worse than digital in pretty much every way, it should never have been revived and if you like vinyl, you're wrong!  (Mostly joking... mostly)

That's actually an interesting thing to think about that I've sorta landed on an answer that feels good to me.  I have some vinyls, I think they're neat to look at, but I don't have a vinyl player.  So I was gonna grab a Sound Burger because I thought it looked fun, but on further thinking I realized it wouldn't be the most practical option to go with.  However it's been a year and I still have no vinyl player because I just don't really have a place for it in my apartment right now, but I think I am going to go with the Sound Burger anyways because I think it seems fun!  And to me, not in all contexts obviously, but fun is more important than the practicality of something.

Like vinyl is objectively worse but it's fun!  It's fun to have this big obtuse vinyl thing in the same way that it's fun to have this small obtuse disc thing because the most practical thing now would just be buying music digitally and not dealing with physical media at all.  But I like physical media, I think it's neat!  And I think as long as something seems fun or interesting, people will be pulled into it, or at least I will be pulled into it.