Digital vinyl records: Using NFC tags for a fun DIY music player

This is not my idea. I found this post on the Hacker News blog (link) and ended up creating my own version.

Some context:

I am not a “music” guy.

I don’t have a favorite rock band or album. I’ve attended only two concerts. One was free at my undergrad cultural festival, and the second was because I am married to a music buff. A woke person would make me president for my Spotify playlist’s diversity.

But I am surrounded by actual music lovers. My wife can talk for hours about '90s rock stars and is a human Shazam. In after-parties, my friends talk about attending Tomorrowland and Coachella (more than the Tomatina and Oktoberfest).

So, this was for them.

I wanted to create something that makes their favorite music physical. Something you can touch and feel while the music fills the space.

Enter Vinyl records.

I don’t understand Vinyl. Won’t they get bad over time? If the quality of the song is the core part, isn’t the digital version better than the Vinyl record? Also, they are damn expensive.

However, I do understand the love for Vinyl. My parallel for this is my love for physical books (crazy that I have to write ‘physical’ books. Books are physical, isn’t it?). As of today. I read ~30 books this year, and 28 of them were physical, and I wish the other 2 were too.

In my limited understanding, Vinyl records offer:

Committing to listening to a complete record. You don’t skip a song.
The friction of changing the records makes you enjoy the piece you chose.
Listening to something that’s not on your phone.
Away from the existing too-social/ too-online world.
Great artwork to look, touch, and feel.

I wanted to replicate this.

DIY

1. Order NFC tags from Amazon (Link).

2. Design some Vinyl covers on Figma.

3. Get them printed and, using glue, convert them to look like it’s a record cover.

4. Glue the NFC tag at the center of the cover.

5. Now, the digital part,

Upload the music and it’s metadata to some S3 server.
Vibe code an iOS app that acts as a writer and reader of these NFC tags.

6. The end result:

Your phone acts as a vinyl record player. Open the app, click on “Start scanning” and bring the vinyl record near it. The app plays the album of the record.

You can’t skip a song. Commit to the whole album and enjoy.
Your phone has to stay near the record for the music to continue. Move it away, and the music stops.
Swap the vinyl record, and the app switches the album.

Given that I made many (way too many) digital products. Loved building something that has a real presence outside the digital world. Thanks to Jordan Fulghum (a fellow neighbor on the internet).

Open-sourced the code for the curious - https://github.com/siddug/vinyl