3D Print your own music!

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I just adore the Prinpl. You know why? Let’s first take a look at the name. It’s a lovely amalgamation of PRINt and PLay. It also sounds like Pimple, which does make sense once you get to know what the Prinpl does. That’s the second reason why I adore the Prinpl. It takes one of my favorite toys and gives it a modern twist. Designed as a New-Age MusicBox, the Prinpl actually reads 3d printed discs with braille-like bumps on them. The bumps then interfere with prongs on a fabricated piece of sheet metal, plucking at it to generate a tune. The cool thing about Prinpl is that you can now effectively 3D print your own tunes and play them on the Prinpl’s hypnotically soothing inbuilt-instrument. The catch is that this phenomenon only plays short, looped pieces of musical data, but the ability to print your own tunes means you can generate your own mini-library of music. Prinpl doesn’t however limit itself to just 3D printed discs. It also reads conventional data and mp3 CDs, making it an instrument at some times, and a music player at others. Versatile!

It also comes with an app, allowing you to remote-control the playback features. Color me impressed!

Designer: Jeongdae Kim

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author avatar
Sarang Sheth
Sarang is the co-editor in chief of Yanko Design. He is a former industrial designer at a Bangalore-based multidisciplinary design studio, working in areas including appliances, FMCG, packaging, technology, luxury, etc. Sarang has written about design and technology for over a decade and has been a jury member on international design awards. He occasionally works on tech concepts featured on Forbes, The Verge, Hypebeast, Digital Trends, SlashGear, Tom's Guide, LetsGoDigital, and Unbox Therapy. Sarang graduated from MIT Institute of Design, Pune.