In the world of music technology, what we do is so darn fun that it’s easy to forget that we’re in the business of creating tools that help creatives create! I’ll always be the first to defend the fact that creating instruments is an art in itself. It always will be. But our creations aren’t meant to hang on a wall, admired for their beautiful execution alone.
Our creations—our instruments—are judged by their ability to enable other creators. When the product launch hype has faded, the Reddit threads have quieted and Superbooth has ended, our products sit in a studio and enter the difficult competition just like Woody vs Buzz in Toy Story—who will Andy pick today?
Just like Woody & Buzz are vehicles for Andy’s imaginary adventures, our instruments are tools for our beloved musicians. When the hype-ridden 1% subsides, the remaining 99% of an instrument’s lifespan is spent in this space. This is why, in my opinion, it makes sense to design for that 99% of the lifespan, not the hype-train. Like Dieter Rams said, good design is invisible.
You know what I’m talking about—some instruments are designed to be works of art in themselves, which is fine, as long as it’s not at the expense of the musician’s art. Unfortunately, it often is at the expense of usability, cognitive load and ergonomics, rendering the device easy to look at but hard to use.
That’s not to say that design and usability are at odds—it’s very much the opposite. But I believe that the true measure of success for an instrument is how much it gets used; how good it is at getting out of the way for it’s user, becoming little more than a sketchpad to their creative intentions.
Also published on Medium
