Physical Digital Music Collection

While spending some time at a local maker-space, I stumbled upon an idea that I've fallen in love with. It was in my last 20 mins of using their laser cutter and I wanted to try engraving and cutting out something I had drawn and decided on a drawing of the album art of Oh Wonder's No One Else Can Wear Your Crown.

I thought it would be nice to make it look like a vinyl, with the disk partially removed from it's sleeve and even list the track titles. I didn't really know what I would use this as, but had thought it might make a nice key-chain, hence the little hole in the top corner.

Anyway, it wasn't until I got home and remembered that I had a bunch of NFC tags lying around from my Pixel Tab-at-home instructable, that I realized that I could stick an NFC tag behind my little key-chain and have it be that when I tap my phone on it, it would open that album on my phone and I could then play it.

I really loved this idea because it lets me keep the convenience of having digital media, while allowing me to have a bit of the joy and fun of owning "physical" media. I can create a collection, lend/trade with friends, and experience a somewhat modern version of making people mix-tapes.

Another benefit is that it is cheaper than buying physical media and can take up much less space.

I'm also realizing while writing this, that it doesn't have to be limited to music, it could be a shared online photo album, business card or website, but I'll stick to the music example here :)

I used a laser cutter/engraver for this attempt, but the great news is, you could use almost anything: A drawing, photo, poster etc.

So as for the materials, you'll need:

1. Home-made "Physical" album i.e. laser cut, drawn, photo, poster, etc.
2. NFC tags
3. I had searched "programmable nfc tags" on amazon. I was able to get a pack of 50 for about $15
4. Adhesive
5. Phone with NFC capability and
6. NFC Tools App to configure the NFC tag

Because there are multiple ways you could do this, I won't go over specifics with any one method. When I get the chance, I'd like to make more laser cut versions because I really like how it looks, but other options like photo paper, card stock or canvases are also other options and allow you to have them in color.

You could even get really wild and use clothes for a whole different experience xD

In order to configure the NFC tag to open the webpage, I used an app called NFC Tools. There are probably many others that could work too. This is just the one I happened to use in previous project. It is on both the Play Store and App store

All we need for this step is the link to the digital album. This can be a YouTube playlist link, Spotify, or whatever music platform you use.

Copy the link of the album, then open the NFC Tools app and navigate to the Write page.

From there, tap on Add a record, then tap on URL / URI.

Paste the url in the input field and make sure to remove the "https://" at the beginning, then tap on OK.

Tap the Write / [number] Bytes button, and a dialog should pop up telling you to approach the NFC tag with your phone. It might take a couple of tries but a dialog should pop up telling you when it's successfully written.

Also note: You can re-write e tag, so in case you want to change the album down the road (or fix a mistake in the url) you can!

Now all you need to do is stick the tag onto your physical album. You could use tape, or glue, or even stitch a pocket depending on where you're putting it. The only thing to keep in mind is that the distance between the phone and the tag shouldn't be too big. This might depend on the phone/tag but at least in my testing my phone began to detect the tag at around 3cm

I hope you enjoyed reading this. I know I'm going to enjoy building up my "physical" music collection, without hurting my wallet either! ;)