Making physical music worth buying: CD case includes theremin-like instrument | Hacker News Reader

Making physical music worth buying: CD case includes theremin-like instrument

gizmodo.com

31 pointsendtime15 comments

Yes! Finally some creative designing for CDs!

For musicians who don't want to go to such lengths - adding a free poster or maybe an autographed memorabilia also works well.

Give something tangible and extra and more folks will buy CDs and DVDs and even books.

(Oh - also have you gone to a bookstore and spent time surfing childrens books? Aged 2-7? They come with popups and slip outs and buzzers and colouring crayons! Its awesome. Can no way be pirated online...)

I have severe doubts that musicians can profit from getting out of the music business and going into the poster business.

"Hey guys, I've got this great plan -- let's go into an IP-based commodity business which can be traded across the Internet losslessly and perfectly duplicated for negligible cost."

Selling out theaters for $30+ a seat isn't a bad business though.

Title should be "theremin for sale: $50, (comes with free cd)"

Sorry, I rarely downvote, but I couldn't disagree more. Someone is taking their music and making something freaking awesome out of it. This isn't just another album that's physical embodiment is the same process that's been used on every other album. It's something different. Work went into it. Passion went into. This is the difference creating StackOverflow and throwing up a phpbb and calling it a question and answers site for programmers.

I respect your thought, but my intent was not to throw a random incendiary statement out there. I am saying that this is not "a new way to market music" because it is not a scalable model. It is one man who (albeit with a lot of smart effort and innovation) is selling a packaged instrument so that you will also receive his music.

It's not like interesting album art that comes with his CD, it is actually unclear which one is the draw? Actually it is clear since it's priced at $50, it's the theremin.

I'm more commenting on calling this "a new way to market physical music". I too think his theremin is "freakin awesome."

I don't know how you intended it, but something about the statement that this is "not a new way to market music because it is not a scalable model" just terrifies me. Heaven help us when creativity becomes a negative thing in music.

Sorry to back and forth, but you are clearly misunderstanding if you are terrified.

If someone wants to build a musical instrument: by all means, that's terrific. As a music lover and instrumentalist, I will buy it and play with it...w/e. But don't write an article telling the world you've figured out how to sell CD's, since that is NOT what you're doing.

I think your added sentence in your edit helped.

In any event, this can be abstracted. The way to sell CDs isn't to make theremins... it's to not suck. It's to put passion and energy and effort and time into your projects instead of just grabbing 10 random songs, burning them onto a CD and calling it a day.

I thought this was a pretty clever hack, even if it sounds screechy and unpleasant.

Here's a free idea, if you want to do it on the cheap: write your stuff to a USB stick, partner with someone who makes (appropriate) art, embed the stick in the art, sell as a package. Instant one-of-a-kind item that corporations can't emulate.

Picky, and it looks like the post's title writer (but not gizmodo's) realized this, but it's not exactly a theremin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin

Yep, that was me. In case anyone's wondering what the difference is, theremins don't use light sensors (or whatever the technical term is; I'm CS, not EE) but something that detects proxmity.

Oi! You are not CS just because you are studying it :-P It's pretty basic electromagnetism, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin#Operating_principles

I wonder how long will it take for the theremin PCB schematics to be found on Pirate Bay :-D

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