DigitasLBi Team Creates RPM at Music Hack Day

A blended team of DigitasLBi creative technologists has created RPM, a physical music player that makes digital listening a more tactile experience, as part of Music Hack Day which took place in London yesterday. 

Music Hack Day is an international 24-hour event where programmers, designers and artists come together to conceptualize, build and demo the future of music. 

The DigitasLBi team’s concept for Music Hack Day was inspired by the insight that when listening to music digitally, we miss out on the tangibility of a physical experience.

RPM is a music player that aims to evoke the tactility of an old-fashioned LP by allowing you to associate physical artwork with any Spotify album or playlist. 

RPM learns the personal connections we all make between our music and our life. Users can choose their own artwork and RPM associates it with a Spotify playlist or album of their choosing, so that every time you pick up the artwork, RPM plays the relevant playlist.

RPM is a fusion of physical and digital computing. The product ties together a number of different independent services including Spotify, Arduino and Java.

The product takes the form of a record cabinet. Inside are a number of LP-shaped slates which allow the user to create their own artwork and then associate that artwork with a particular playlist or album.

Music Hack Day has been running for 5 years and this year took place in Shoreditch Village Hall.

Ricky Burgess – Creative Technologist at DigitasLBi, said: “When listening to music digitally, it sometimes feels like we’re trying to consume as much as possible, without stopping to actually listen. RPM aims to slow things down and bring back the ritual of selecting, playing and falling in love with the music we listen to”.  

Aaron Faber – Creative Technologist at DigitasLBi, said: “It’s been exciting to work together to create something which is a fusion of the physical and the digital worlds. We think RPM allows us to enjoy the more tactile experience of playing an LP with the convenience of listening to music digitally.”