The Aldean Instrument

Summary

Hyperfixed Podcast Episode Summary: "The Aldean Instrument"

Release Date: June 19, 2025

Introduction

In this engaging episode of Hyperfixed, host Alex Goldman delves into the intricate world of digital musical instrument design inspired by the iconic sci-fi series Star Trek. Joined by Astrid, a seasoned designer and co-founder of Bella IO, the discussion centers around the Aldean Instrument—a fictional device from Star Trek: The Next Generation—and its real-world recreation.

Episode Overview

The episode explores the intersection of fiction and functionality in musical instrument design. Alex and Astrid dissect the design elements of the Aldean Instrument, its portrayal in Star Trek, and the challenges involved in bringing a fictional device to life. Their conversation offers insights into the creative process, the importance of design aesthetics, and the technological considerations in modern instrument creation.

Main Discussion

1. Revisiting Star Trek and Instrument Design

   Astrid shares her journey into Star Trek during the pandemic, which reignited her passion for digital musical instruments. Her doctoral research focused on building digital instruments, making her particularly attuned to the myriad of instruments showcased in the series.

   Astrid [12:19]: "I couldn't get over how many musical instruments there were in the show."

2. The Significance of Music in Star Trek

   The hosts discuss how music in Star Trek serves as a storytelling device, reflecting both human and alien cultures. Instruments like the Vulcan bells and the Bajoran percussion instruments symbolize cultural sophistication and interpersonal connections.

   Alex [19:09]: "Music equals humanity. It's used to communicate that non-humans have human nature."

3. The Aldean Instrument: Discovery and Fascination

   The Aldean Instrument, featured briefly in Star Trek: TNG Season 1, Episode 16 ("When the Bough Breaks"), captivated both Alex and Astrid. Its unique design—a disc with rainbow keys—sparked curiosity about its functionality and aesthetic appeal.

   Astrid [14:03]: "It's called the Aldean Instrument."

   Alex [14:19]: "It's a direct reflection of the music within."

4. Recreating the Aldean Instrument

   Alex recounts his efforts to recreate the Aldean Instrument based on limited information and a production sketch from Andrew Probert, the show's production designer. The process involved laser-cutting layers of paper, prototyping, and incorporating sensors to detect user interaction.

   Alex [17:07]: "I used a Bella mini, which is a tiny, embedded processor for sensors and sound."

5. Technical Challenges and Design Philosophy

   The discussion delves into the technical aspects of the recreation, such as using touch sensors and accelerometers to interpret the player's mood and translate it into sound. Astrid commends Alex's approach, highlighting the balance between technological constraints and creative design.

   Astrid [17:02]: "How does it work? I assume that it doesn't play off based on your mood."

   Alex [18:09]: "These instruments embody the vibe intended as a storytelling device, which is a different approach from traditional instrument design."

6. Astrid's Keynote at the Audio Developers Conference

   Astrid shares highlights from her keynote speech, where she elaborates on the lessons learned from designing digital instruments inspired by Star Trek. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on the instrument's purpose and the emotions it aims to evoke, rather than strictly adhering to technological capabilities.

   Astrid [21:35]: "The point was, how do I achieve this vibe? What can I do for the vibe?"

7. Community Engagement and Feedback

   The episode concludes with Astrid updating listeners on the reception of the font from their previous episode, showcasing the community's enthusiasm and the collaborative spirit in the design and tech spaces.

   Astrid [43:07]: "I've released it on GitHub for free, where people can download it and use it themselves."

Notable Quotes

• Alex [10:24]: "Astrid is so charming and she's like, so smart and creative. I could have talked to her forever."

• Astrid [19:46]: "Do you feel, like, dissatisfied with just about everything you're using?"

• Alex [20:59]: "I love it. I love it."

• Astrid [21:02]: "Thanks for listening. We'll see you next."

Insights and Conclusions

The episode underscores the profound impact of fictional designs on real-world technological advancements. By dissecting the Aldean Instrument, Alex and Astrid illustrate how storytelling elements can inspire innovation in instrument design. The conversation highlights the delicate balance between aesthetic appeal and functional technology, emphasizing that successful designs not only look intriguing but also serve their intended purpose seamlessly.

Takeaways

• Fiction as Inspiration: Star Trek serves as a rich source of inspiration for designers, illustrating how fictional elements can influence real-world creations.

• Design Philosophy: Successful instrument design requires a balance between creative aesthetics and technological functionality, ensuring that the instrument not only looks appealing but also works effectively.

• Community Collaboration: Engaging with the design and tech community fosters innovation and brings diverse perspectives into the creative process.

Conclusion

In "The Aldean Instrument," Hyperfixed masterfully blends pop culture with technical design, offering listeners a deep dive into the world of digital musical instruments. Through the collaborative efforts of Alex and Astrid, the episode provides valuable insights into the creative process, the challenges of recreating fictional devices, and the endless possibilities that emerge when imagination meets technology.

Discover More

For listeners interested in exploring further, additional resources and Astrid's full keynote speech at the Audio Developers Conference are available through the show notes at hyperfixedpod.com.

Transcript

[Alex]

We're living through a pretty rocky present.

[Astrid]

Maybe the past can help.

[Alex]

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[Astrid]

Jodi Avergan with historians Nicole Hemmer and Kelly Carter Jackson.

[Alex]

Three times a week they take you into one story from that day in U.S. history. From Eisenhower's weird vendetta against squirrels to the time we accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on North Carolina, to the women who fought against the right to vote. It's smart, surprising, and actually fun. This is a big moment for history. Next year is America's 250th birthday and, well, look around. There's lots of history being made. Subscribe to this day for your historical.

[Astrid]

Perspective, wherever you get your podcasts, as well as YouTube and Instagram. This episode of Hyper Fixed is brought to you by the Electronic Frontier foundation podcast how to Fix the Internet for 35 years, the electronic Frontier foundation has been fighting to make sure when you go online, your rights go with you. EFF has rescued podcasts from patent trolls, helped encrypt the web to protect your privacy, and prevailed in lawsuits against government secrecy and surveillance. As I'm sure you probably know, I used to host a podcast about the Internet called Reply all and the folks at the EFF have been on the vanguard of protecting the openness of the Internet and the safety of user data since long before I even knew that was a thing to worry about. They've been interviewees for my show. They've been resources. They are just fighting the good fight and I can't overstate how important the work they do is. And this podcast, how to Fix the Internet is all about what happens if we win the fight and get things right online. So go check it [e-mail] podcast to listen to how to Fix the Internet and join the EFF again. Visit eff.org podcast to listen to how to Fix the Internet and join eff. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hi everybody, this is Alex, host of Hyperfixed. I just wanted to drop something at the top of the episode really quick for a couple of reasons and the first is to say that we are unlocking a premium episode as our main feed episode this week, which is not something we were originally planning on doing. We were working on a story that we expected to run, and frankly, it kind of got away from us. I don't know how else to say it. One of the weird things about making a radio story is that sometimes you can sit down, do a bunch of interviews, and feel like there's a through line in it, a beginning, a middle, and end, just like, some satisfaction to it. And then when you sit down to write it, you're like, wait, I have more questions. I need to talk to more people. This story needs to go back in the oven. And that's what happened with the episode that was planned for this week. We're not abandoning it. It will come out. But, you know, when you're a staff of four, sometimes another story can be kicked into high gear and put out. But we just didn't have anything in the hopper that was quite finished enough. So we are running a premium episode that we released a couple weeks ago, and it's a very fun one because it came out of our interview that we did with Astrid, the person who wrote in for our fonts story, which aired on the main feed. What the. What's the name of the font story? What's the name of the fonts episode? Hyper Fixed fonts. I'm googling my own show because I don't know the name of the show. Little by Little. There we go. So I was interviewing Astrid for Little by Little, the episode about the missing font that she wanted to find, and during the course of that interview, she told me something so weird that I was just like, oh, this is a bonus episode. This rules. Astrid is so charming and she's like, so smart and creative. I could have talked to her forever. But anyway, this is a great one. And, you know, this is sort of also like a backdoor advertisement for our premium feed, if you like this. There are almost 20 bonus episodes floating around out there. So, you know, hyperfixedpod.com join to get access to all of those, among many other things. The other thing I wanted to let you know is we are in the middle of summer and people are going on vacation. They're going to be out of town. So our next main feed episode is going to be a feed drop from my friend Jane Marie, who hosts a podcast called the Dream. That podcast is fantastic, and you should definitely listen to that episode. And if you are a premium listener, you will continue to get bonus episodes during the course of these couple of weeks. And the last thing which is very important is that we are working on a banger of an episode that we are extremely excited about that is going to be released on July 17th. It's going to be our first two part episode which is really exciting for us. We're really stoked for it and after that, you know, our production schedule is going to go back to normal until the next time that we can't finish a story in time. So I think that's it. This week is an unlocked premium episode. The next main feed is going to be Jane from the Dream and then the following main feed episode is going to be this banger episode that we're losing our minds about. So hopefully it lives up to the expectations I've just set. I hope you enjoy this one and even if you're a premium listener and you've already heard this one, please listen to the end because we received a message from Astrid herself with an update about the font from the episode Little by little. We will see you very soon and we really appreciate you listening and we are very excited for the stuff that's coming up, including the episode that we had to scuttle for this week because we weren't ready. Okay, enjoy. Talk to you soon. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by HelloFresh. Fresh air, sunshine and good food. That's what spring is all about. I mean, it's also about allergies, but for the purposes of this advertisement, we'll focus on the good food part. 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That's hellofresh.com hyperfix10fm one box per active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. This episode of Hyperfix is brought to you by mood.com Look, I'll be honest, things are pretty bad out there right now. The world is unpleasant. Dealing with reality is, frankly, not where I'm at at the mom. So can you blame me for wanting to find some THC gummies to help turn my brain off so that I don't have to think about it for a couple hours at the end of the day? And did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to target nearly every mood and health concern you can think of. Not just deep depression at the way late stage capitalism keeps us working all the time, even when we're not actually at our jobs. I'm talking about Mood.com's incredible line of functional gummies. And you can get 20% off your first [e-mail] with promo code hyperfixed. Forget one size fits all supplements that only get you high. Mood's functional gummies are optimized to kick in in as little as 15 minutes and take you to the mood you're looking for, which in my case is complete catatonia. Best of all, not only is every Mood product backed by a 100 day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code hyperfixed. So head to mood.com to find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for and let Mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use the promo code hyperfixed when you check out to save 20% on your first order. So last week on the show, we met Astrid. And Astrid was on a quest to find a font. But not just any font. It was a font that she, and perhaps only she, considered to be a work of art. And together, we somehow dug that font up from the depths of. Of history, little by little. And if you don't get that reference, you just gotta go back and listen to the episode. It's a fun one. They're all fun. Come on, let's be honest. They're all fun, right?

[Alex]

We're all.

[Astrid]

That's why you're paying for this. They're all fun. Now, when we first talked to Astrid, I was struck by how sort of deeply she observes the world. Like she doesn't just notice what the font looks like, whether she likes it aesthetically, she really sees it for how it functions in the world. World. And for who it serves and why she broke down that font. Like someone analyzing, I don't know, a symphony or an ancient language or Something. But the more we talked, the more I realized, like, this skill of hers is not just limited to fonts. Astra just sees the world in a way that I do not. I mean, at least not the visual world. Her brain is tuned to some frequency that my brain will not catch. And I'm sure some of that is because she's a designer. Like, she helped found this company called Bella, which is a platform for building interactive audio tools, including a tool or two that I now use to help score the show. But, like, even how she talks about her job is telling. Like, on her professional website, she describes her work as exploring the poetry in everyday things and the connections between people and their environments. That sounds like the smart version of what I do on a dumb level every day on the show. Like, I'm trying to understand the connection between people and the world and each other. But, like, I do that through their stories. I don't do that through their objects. That is, like, beautiful to me. And I don't even know fully how one would do that, but it's how I want to live. So this week, I wanted to share more of our conversation, because I came to find out it wasn't just this font that she fixates on. It wasn't just this font that she enjoyed the design of and wanted to interrogate further. Astrid has been on a similar quest before. Just a few years earlier.

[Alex]

Okay, during the pandemic, I watched a shitload of Star Trek because there was nothing else to do.

[Astrid]

Which series specifically? All of them.

[Alex]

We started at tng.

[Astrid]

That, of course, is Astrid. The TNG she's talking about is Star the Next Generation, which was the second live action Star Trek franchise, which aired from 1987 to 1994.

[Alex]

I do not care for the original series. So we started at tng, and I, you know, I make musical instruments. I research musical instruments. Musical instruments is what I do. So I started tracking the musical instruments in Star Trek, and all of them are horrible. Like, just ridiculous.

[Astrid]

Okay, so one more thing. So I've told you that Astrid works for a company that makes digital sounds and instruments. And so when she goes on her Star Trek rewatch journey, she's been designing instruments for more than 10 years. And because of her work, she's someone who's really focused on the subtleties of how things function, and as a result, sound. And that's what got her so frustrated while watching Star Trek, is that it's clear to her that the people designing the instruments on the show didn't consider the if or how These devices would even work. For example, they would play tiny little instruments, but out of them would come huge bellowing sounds. Just things that seem to defy the laws of physics. But just when she thought the designers had totally lost her trust, she watches season one, episode seven of the Next Generation. When the bow breaks and a new instrument is introduced, you ended up recreating it in physical space. Do you have it handy?

[Alex]

No, not on me. It's in a. It's in a box under my bed.

[Astrid]

Can you tell me what the name of the instrument is so I can look it up?

[Alex]

It's called the Aldean instrument.

[Astrid]

Aldean. A L, D E, A N. Yes. Instrument. All I'm getting is Jason Aldean. Who the fuck is that? Star Trek. Is it this rainbow thing?

[Alex]

Yes.

[Astrid]

It looks like a frisbee with a grip on it, and then it's got sort of like rainbow keys on either side. Is it like a piano style instrument?

[Alex]

No. You play it with your mind. No, actually. No, of course you do. That's actually another. I'm mixing them up. You don't play it with your mind, you play it with your mood.

[Astrid]

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. You play it with your mood.

[Alex]

Did exactly what I thought. And you felt. Yes. It's a direct reflection of the music within. Now we just have to teach you.

[Astrid]

To structure that feeling.

[Alex]

Try it again.

[Astrid]

It was beautiful. Now play something happy.

[Alex]

It's also when I started researching it and I started, like, looking around. It's the only one that has a design credit. And it's this production designer who worked on Star Trek and he's still working. He designed the DeLorean and back to the Future. Like, he's done a lot of stuff. And I got ahold of him because he's still working. And I was like, I'm a musical instrument researcher. I'm really interested in this. Can you tell me anything about this instrument? And he went, no, I don't remember anything. But I did find my production sketches and he sent me the production sketches. So I ended up recreating it. But I was so excited to find this guy. And, like, his work is so beautiful. And I was so jazzed about this. And he was like, I don't remember anything. But he did send me the production sketches, which are beautiful. They're amazing.

[Astrid]

So Astrid gets these sketches, which. She's right. Are like, totally awesome, but they only show a couple angles of the rainbow frisbee thing. There's a sketch with a hand holding it to show how it should be used and some indications where lights and buttons should go, but that's about it. I mean, it leaves a lot up to interpretation. And so Astrid starts trying to make this thing, this instrument in the real world and actually make it work. And based on everything that you know about Astrid, I'm sure it's no surprise to hear that she does it for the most part. Did you make it functional?

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Astrid]

How does it work? I assume that it doesn't play off based off your mood.

[Alex]

No, I used a Bella. And basically what I did was I recreated what was in the show and which is just. It plays as, like, various parts of a G major chord, I believe in this kind of, like, sparkly sort of sound. And what I did was I thought about, how could it read your mood? Because in the show, they kind of lay their hand across the middle, and then it starts to play, and if you get angry, then it makes a horrible noise and stops. So I had a touch sensor underneath the grip, and depending on how hard you grip the touch sensor and how many fingers you had on would rise in intensity. And if you moved it really quickly, it had an accelerometer that can detect sudden motion, and then it would just, like, descend into noise.

[Astrid]

Oh, my God. You're from the fucking future, dude.

[Alex]

It's really simple, actually.

[Astrid]

It's not that I understand, but, like, I do have a question, which is, like, why was it important to you to try and redesign this instrument? And, like, what did you learn from it? Like, what did you as a designer learn from doing this?

[Alex]

I think that. I mean, I've made a lot of digital instruments, and one of the things that is a real struggle with digital instruments is what should they sound like? Because if a computer's making the sound, then there's no physical reason that an instrument should sound like anything. Like, you just, like, make up some sounds and it doesn't always make sense. And so it's very hard to sort of give yourself something to hold onto. Like, why would it sound like this? Like, give yourself a reason. Like, anchor it somewhere. And when I started looking at these Star Trek instruments, what I found really interesting about them was, like, if I'm going to recreate it, it doesn't matter what I want it to sound like. I need it to embody the vibe that it was intended to have as a storytelling device, which is a very different way to think about an instrument, because usually you're like, oh, a musician needs this, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whereas the only purpose of those instruments was vibes. And so that's a very interesting and different way to think about instrument design.

[Astrid]

Hmm. You are a type of person who I think is not a me type of person, which is, like, you look at things and are constantly wondering at why they were built the way they were.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Astrid]

The only time I ever have that feeling is when I come up against something that doesn't work properly for me. Other than that, like, I'm not thinking about the way things are designed. I'm not thinking about the way my audio interface was designed or my microphone or anything, or the way that applications I use on the computer look visually. But, like, that is. You're definitely always thinking about that stuff.

[Alex]

Yeah. There's a reason for all of this.

[Astrid]

What does it feel like navigating the world, constantly interrogating all the choices that have been made for everything that you're using? I'm like, I understand that it's like your default state. It's hard to figure out what. What it's like to do that. But, like, do you feel, like, dissatisfied with just about everything you're using?

[Alex]

No, I think I feel fascinated with things.

[Astrid]

That's great. I'm envious. Extremely envious. Because I'm usually just like, wow, it's time to fire up the thing. Okay. The thing is running the way it's supposed to. You know, like, every once in a while, I get called into meetings where they're like, do you have design suggestions for how to make the website that you guys use at Hyper Fixed more useful? And I'm like, no. I don't know. You know, make more people sign up for premium. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. What? Like, can you get a guy who goes to people's houses and bullies them into signing up for the premium accounts? I just. I'm like, honestly a little jealous because I don't think about that stuff at all. I mean, that's not entirely true, but, like, I have never once thought, why is a font designed the way it is? I have never once thought, why is a fictional instrument designed the way it is? Like, that's a level of granularity that I'm not thinking about.

[Alex]

I love it. I love it.

[Astrid]

But because Astrid is someone who thinks in that way and can articulate it so well, the group behind the Audio Developers Conference reached out to her and asked her to tell her story about this instrument at their annual event in 2022. So, thanks to the folks at ADC, here is Astrid's keynote speech at The Audio Developers Conference 2022 in the UK about this star Trek instrument. Stick around to the end for an audio demonstration of Astrid's version of the Aldean instrument.

[Alex]

I'm here today to present where a few designs have gone before, lessons I've learned in digital instrument design from Star Trek. And first off, I'd like to say thank you very much to ADC for inviting me and even more for saying yes to this topic. I do appreciate, appreciate it. So for those of you that don't know me, my name's Astrid and I'm a designer, a developer, and an instrument maker. I tried to make this, like, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. I couldn't do it, so that's the best I can do. I'm also a music technology researcher at Ableton in Berlin, and I'm also a founding member of the team at built Bella IO and continues to build Bella IO, which is an embedded hardware platform. And in this talk I'm going to. The talk is in four parts. First of all, I'm going to talk about Star Trek instruments, because there's a lot of them and how I got interested in them and what really grabbed me about these things and what I found out about one instrument in particular that really grabbed me. And then the process of prototyping that instrument and then some of the things I learned through that whole process. So part one is discovering Trek instruments. Now, my doctoral research was on digital musical instruments, building digital musical instruments. And as a result, I pay really close attention to musical instruments whenever I see them. And there's a lot of instruments in science fiction because there's a general assumption that making music is an integral part of all culture, not just human culture. And sometimes these are kind of believable. You're like, all right, yeah, I can see how that's an instrument. And sometimes they're really ridiculous. But something happened in March 2020. Now, I don't know if you remember where you were in March 2020, but I sure do, because as we all know, that was the beginning of the pandemic and everything was canceled. We were all stuck at home, and nobody knew how long it would last. And I remember having a conversation with my partner, and I said to him, we should probably find something on Netflix that's consistently fun to watch, that has a ton of episodes and isn't too depressing because we could be here for two months. Adorable. And what has lots of episodes is consistently fun to watch and not too depressing.

[Astrid]

A.

[Alex]

It's Star Trek. So we decided to Rewatch Star Trek starting from the beginning. And I hadn't mainlined that much Star Trek in many years. And because of this orientation I have towards musical instruments, I could not get over how many musical instruments there were in the show. And the more I watched, the more I realized that these musical instruments served an important storytelling purpose. They are all sometimes different, but there was always a storytelling purpose. And in the original series, the musical instruments are a bit silly, a bit of light hearted entertainment. But it seems that the musical instruments are used to say something about humans as well as about the aliens the humans encounter. In the original series, most instruments show us something about Vulcan culture. These are Vulcan bells. And there was this really sweet part in, I don't know if anyone's seen Strange New Worlds. It's so good, you should watch it. The brand new series, it involves a young Spock and he has one of these on his bedroom wall. I thought that was really adorable. But mostly these instruments look a lot like human folk instruments and that draws a parallel between Vulcan culture and human culture. And ultimately the instruments start out as giving us this larger cultural context for Vulcans, mostly that they like ritual and apparently they like a good folk jam. And I also like how Spock's Vulcan harp has little knobs on it. It's an old antique, but it's also high tech, which says something about how long Vulcans have had sophisticated technology. But the musical instruments really come into their own during the Next Generation. It started in 87, went till 94, and they also feature in Voyager, which ran from 95 to 2001. There's also a bunch in Deep Space Nine, best track. But they're mostly Bajoran instruments, so I mean their own thing. So I'm going to talk mostly about TNG instruments with a little bit of Voyager. And like the original series, this music is used as like light hearted sort of comic relief. But there's also this notion that music symbolizes intelligence and that certain humans are very intelligent because they play music. And many of the characters in Starfleet play instruments which may, I think, is an effort to communicate this, well, roundedness. They're genius scientists, but they're also musical. And weirdly, the repertoire of highbrow music, like worthy, good, valuable music in the 25th century, seems to mirror pretty perfectly highbrow, high value worthy music in the late 20th century. But that's a whole other talk. On Voyager, Harry Kim plays this ancient thing. We all know that Riker loves a trombone. Even Picard plays the penny whistle. And there's this really interesting part in tng. It's in the. It's at the end he gets a girlfriend. And the way that they kind of communicate that she's on his intellectual level is that she has this rubber roll up piano and they go and she like unrolls it in the Jeffrey's tube and they're gonna like play together. And I was a little kid when I saw this, I was obsessed with this roll up piano. Obsessed with. And they. But she's definitely on his level because they play together in the Jeffries tube. Very romantic. And there's also this idea that music equals humanity. It's used to communicate that non humans are in fact have human nature. Data is the ultimate example of this. He's an Android. He's constantly subjecting his fellow crew members to concerts. I mean, everyone looks really bored. But music is one of many ways that he uses to try to understand human nature and try to incorporate it somehow. And again, the ancient instrument playing like ancient instruments playing ancient repertoire is a strong cultural signifier. And it's interesting still again how humanity's. It's an interesting vision of humanity's future. That there's really been no progress in what we consider to be really important canonical music in a good 500 years. But also most importantly, there is this idea of music showing. Actually this is second most important. I'll catch the most important afterwards. Got ahead of myself. It shows a futuristic human culture. What happens to human culture as it evolves. And what is recognizable is music. This is one of my favorite episodes. And in this episode, Picard visits the Parisian cafe and there's a wandering accordion player. And this is what an accordion looks like in 500 years. This thing for real? I'm serious. Yeah. Uh huh. This is an accordion. It sounds exactly like an accordion. The sound hasn't evolved at all, but now it's tubes attached to like some sort of car grill I think, I guess to suggest that it's like somehow acoustic and air moves through it. I've got a really. I didn't have time to put the good story in this talk, but if you're interested in this history of this instrument, catch me later. So in this scene, Picard looks out in this futuristic Paris and there's like a, you know, a hyperloop going underneath the Eiffel Tower and it's all like future, future, future. So this is like a vision of how humanity still stays consistent, yet evolves somehow, I guess. And there's also this, the most important function we got there eventually is how music symbolizes culture. That's human ish. And other alien species. If they have music, this is how we. How the writers kind of symbolize. This is sophisticated alien culture that doesn't just want to kill everybody. They have. You know, they're cultured, they have music. So there's a lot of examples of this. The Betazoid chime played by one of the greatest bit players in Trek history, Mr. Homme, who. And it's this weird tiny glass chime that he barely touches. It makes this enormous noise that everybody hates. So Beta zeds give thanks for the food that they eat. There is also this Algolian percussion instrument which is like these chains of bones hanging down, and this guy hits them with little hammers. How those resonate? No idea. I guess physics evolves too. But it's a good thing they did, because otherwise, how was Riker going to signal to the Enterprise when he was kidnapped by the Ferengis? But you gotta watch season three, episode 24. And there's also this good one. This one is amazing from Voyager. It's an Inarin musical instrument. Inarans are like this telepathic kind of people, and the Inarans play this musical instrument. They play it with their minds. And to be honest, I don't understand why they have to wave their hand over this weird orb if they're telepathic and they're playing it with their mind. Makes no sense. But a lot of these, they don't make any sense. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They're just storytelling devices. And so there was one instrument, and this is part two, the instrument that I really got into and that I found really exciting. And it's this one. There is no instrument that is quite as good as the Aldean. It's an unnamed Eldean instrument, and it's from season one, episode 16, called when the Bough Breaks. And what happens is all the children on the Enterprise are kidnapped by this. These Aldeans, who are all pretty old because they don't have any young people. They haven't been able to reproduce for a long time, so they just steal the Enterprise's children. But they're really nice to them, and they kind of distribute the children among all of these different families. And this little girl ends up with this family of musicians and they teach her to play this instrument. And spoiler alert, it was an environmental toxin all along. They're fine now. But also, I don't know if you noticed what's in the background here. Of this LDM musician. Oh, it's a Vulcan harp. So that's also symbolizing. The Eldians, obviously are very sophisticated. They have contact with other alien races for a long time. They can incorporate other alien cultures. Fascinating. But anyway, this instrument, and it's on screen for a total of about four seconds. It's this weird kind of disc thing that you put your hand on and then it reads your moods. It reads. Your thoughts are translated through this instrument. And it makes sparkly noises. Makes noises that reflect the nature of your thoughts. And I found this interesting for a bunch of reasons. First of all, it looks really cool. I was just like, that thing is really exciting to look at. Secondly, it's on camera for four seconds, so you don't even get a good look at it. So that was interesting. I was like, ooh, you'd have to make up all kinds of stuff. It reads moods. How does one do that? But this is also the only instrument in the entirety of Star Trek that has a design credit. And I found this out by reason because I was like, I need to know who designed these instruments. Nobody has any idea except this one. And this was designed by a guy called Andrew Probert. Who. Has anyone heard of Andrew Probert? That's what I thought, but I guarantee you've seen his work. He's a production designer through the late 70s till he's still working now. He designed the bridge for the Next Generation. He worked on Battlestar galactica in the 70s and the reboot in the early thousands. He designed the DeLorean for back to the Future. He did most of the production design on Airwolf. He's done basically any kind of mainstream science fiction he seems to have had something to do with. And I found his website, so I sent him an email and I was like, so, Mr. Probert, what do you know about this instrument? Do you remember it? Can you tell me anything about it? I really want to know. And very kindly he replied to me and said, can't remember a thing, but I've attached. I found, scanned and attached my production design sketch. And I was like, whoa, you need to go to his website. Don't look at your phones right now. I'll put a link at the end of the talk. And this is. His drawings are so beautiful. And this got me really excited because I was like, oh, that is such a cool looking thing. How would you achieve that shape? What would you make that out of? Oh, look at the lights on the side. So cool. So that's when I got really, really super, super into it. And I realized that there was something happening here that usually, and I'm an instrument designer that tries to build unusual instruments, unusual materials, shapes, dimensions, that sort of thing, really push the material and physical aspects. But I realized that my design thinking is always guided by this question. What are the affordances of the technology that I have available? Luckily, today, we have a lot of small, embeddable, very powerful computers that you can do the sensor and sound processing on. But still, it's about, like, well, what sensors do I have? And increasingly, it's about, what can I get my hands on? Because we're all familiar with the chip shortage. And so this I realized, even though I tried to buck these trends, I'm always kind of thinking about this, whereas this was not the point of this exercise. I realized that if I was going to do something with this instrument, I had to think about how do I achieve the vibe that the designer imagined that they intended, because they didn't even design the sound. They had no regard for whether it would actually work. They didn't care what it sounded like. These are storytelling visual devices. They're props, but they do make sound. They did, like, weird, sort of. I think the best adjective is vague. Sound design for all of these instruments. Go back and listen to them. You'll know what I mean. And so that got me really interested because I was like, this is kind of flipping all this on its head. I need to forget about the technology, because the designers forgot about the technology. They didn't care. So then focus on what is it doing as an object? What life does it have in the world? So now I'm going to tell you what I did to build it. And I feel like I need disclaimers all over this talk, because we all know what Trek fans are like, don't we? Don't we, fellow nerds? Yes, I know. And so I thought, okay, here I need to tell you that this is a design exploration. I wasn't looking to perfectly recreate this. That's not the point. The point was, how do I achieve this vibe? What can I do for the vibe? So if you want to come at me in discord later, my Bobby Lombardian. I'm joking. You'll find me. So this is a design exploration. This is a prototypical kind of thing. So the goal was build an instrument that reflects the player's mood, that kind of looks like the original design. That's what I wanted to do. And so I had to ask myself, well, what does it mean to read someone's Moods. And I kept having people say, are you gonna use like brainwave processing or are you going to like, I don't know, how are you going to read somebody's mind? And it kind of started to make me worried. Cause I was thinking, well, oh, am I underthinking this? And I was like, well, doesn't the body sort of express moods in all kinds of ways? And this whole kind of like, read minds. I was like, meh. They also don't say that in the episode. They say it reflects your thoughts. They don't say it reads your mind. So I was like, meh. And then something very interesting happened. And I'm not on social media much anymore, but somebody messaged me on Instagram. So I wanted to check the message. And I do not install any social media app of any kind on my phone. I only use it through the browser. So I'm looking at the message and as I was trying to reply to the person, I dropped my phone on the sofa and I got this error message. Rage Shake. Want to report a bug? Don't forget to take a screenshot. Oh, I took a screenshot. I couldn't believe this. I was like, what am I? It was like, you know what? Amazing. Cause I guess, like Instagram thinks that I'm doing this when I use their product, which I guess in many ways is true, but. But it occurred to me that maybe my instinct here that sensing mood could be done in various ways. There's other things that we can sense instead of somebody's mood, but maybe a little more elegantly than Instagram. So I started off with a Bella, which is a Bella mini, which is a tiny, little embedded, very powerful processor for sensors and sound. And I also explored using an analog accelerometer. The reason I really like analog accelerometers is, and this is not a plug for Bell, it's just something that I find really powerful in instrument designs. I to tell you, analog accelerometers, you're kind of limited what you can do with them if you use kind of like Arduino stuff like that. However, if you have really high resolution analog sensing and a powerful enough computer, you can start doing really interesting filtering. And that's where I think analog accelerometers get really, really powerful for gesture recognition, all kinds of stuff like that. So try it out with the high performance sensing system of your choice. But that I think there's a lot more to accelerometers than the way they're usually applied. And I also used a Trill bar, which is a capacitive touch sensor also made by Bello. And the reason I used it was not because. Only because I had a bunch around the house, I guess that was part of it. But also it detects multi touch and it also reports touch size. And I was like, so that can tell you how hard you're gripping something interesting. So that was kind of what I did. And so I made a digital mock up that was really just messing around with the circle and going, well, what I guess would this kind of thing sort of look like? And I did this at Exhain, which is a hack space in Berlin. If you are in Berlin, please visit. It's fabulous. It's a really, really good place. And I will tell you this interesting story. Every time somebody came into the hack space over the last few weeks I've been working on this, they go, oh, cool, what is that? And I found that the younger they were, I would say, do you watch much Star Trek? And the younger they were, the more likely they were to say, I've never heard of that show. So I take you live to how that made me feel. And now you can feel that way too, and join me in that. And please, if you have children, please tell them about Star Trek. Anyway, so what I did with this was I laser cut layers and layers of paper and glued it together. And now I will show you the prototype. So it's not an Ableton push. How good a troll would that be? It was just the best box that I had. It's a great box. So this is the instrument here, which looks something like the original. Let me just turn it on. Look at it. It's really prototypey. Look at that. So much hot glue, you're not gonna believe it. So while this boots up. So this is just layers of. I find paper to be a very versatile material for prototyping instruments because you can laser cut it very, very nicely. Would you like me to hold it up? Yes, I'm afraid it's going to fall apart. So is this high enough? All right, so what I do with this, a very common technique is using layers and layers of paper and then sandwiching them together. You can get nice curves. You can sort of get a prototypey feel for it. It's also really cheap, so if you mess it up, it's not a tragedy. And on the side, these just acrylic panels that I covered with little bits of tissue paper to kind of mimic that, the colored sections. So. Oh, it's on now. So let me get my. Let me get my business in order. Okay. So what it does, what I really prototyped was the. I started off, I have it like, I think there's a lot more to do on this instrument. But at this point I was thinking, well, what does it mean to grip something? What does, like, even your hands on an instrument mean? And so I kind of did this thing where it would make a sound for each finger that you put on it, and if you laid them on very gently, it sounds lovely. Sam, foreign crew, it's your good friend Astrid here. I just wanted to give you a little bit of an update about where the font is at. The response has been really, really amazing since your episode came out. A lot of people have reached out, a lot of type designers talking about this font. Some people have made their own versions over the years, and it's been great to just dork out with other people about how great this font is. Also, Klaus Schmeidinger, who's the original developer of Eagle, reached out to me to talk about it, and I've continued to see this font everywhere. I recently took a DJ rig apart for parts, and inside the circuit boards were printed with this font. They were obviously made in Eagle, except they had used capital O's instead of the zeros. Yeah, I noticed. And also my partner was watching an episode of max headroom from 1987 just this evening, and the final credits, guess what font they were in? Litt. Chr. So this little font has apparently been everywhere, and it's really been an amazing thing to be able to give it a name and to be able to put it somewhere where people can see it. And I released it on GitHub for free, where people can download it and use it themselves. And last week, one of the developers from Google Fonts got hold of me through GitHub and asked if I would be willing to let Google release it within the Google Fonts catalog, which is amazing. And so that will be hopefully coming soon to Google Fonts. I've got to complete the character set first, which is enormous, but I'm getting there. So thank you so much for helping me to breathe new life into this little forgotten font. Thanks.

[Astrid]

Special thanks this week to the folks at the Audio Developers Conference. And if you want to share Astra's talk with someone else or check out other videos from adc, there's a link to the video in the show notes. Check them out at audio.dev hyperfixed is produced by Amor Yates, Emma Cortland, Seri Safra Sukanek and Tony Williams. It was engineered by Tony Williams. Music in this episode was by me. I figured since this was a Star Trek themed episode, I'd give you a piece of fun Star Trek themed trivia for the end of the episode because the theme song's too damn long. If you watch Star Trek the Next Generation, Commander Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, nine times out of 10, when he goes to sit down in a chair, rather than pulling the chair out and sitting down, he will swing his leg over top of the back of the chair and then sit down on it. It's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen and I've never seen anybody else do it except him in that show. I'll put a link to a video of it in the show notes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next. Radiotopia.

[Alex]

From PRX.