Welcome to this music box programming tutorial.
This is a 30-note music box set,
and this is a 20-note music box set.
And when you program
longer songs on these music boxes,
like this one,
It is quite daunting sometimes.
And I've been doing this for
a lot of years now and developed
some tricks that makes it less daunting
and drives you less crazy.
So in this video, I want to share
my best tricks
on how to program these music boxes
with you!
Normally they come in C major,
the 20-note music boxes,
but I have retuned my music boxes
to different keys by adding
some soldering on some notes.
To join these two pieces, you will need
tape, a ruler and a knife.
(rip)
So we start with securing
one piece to the table.
And on this second piece
we're going to cut a little curve,
so we see all the lines,
(whoosh)
like that!
So now we can pair this grid
with this grid.
That looks good!
Put an extra tape
straight over the seam like this!
(rip)
And here's the magic.
So now you take the ruler
and you make a diagonal cut
through both pieces at the same time.
(cutting)
(rip)
(more cutting)
Clean the surfaces of the joint.
Good quality thin masking tape.
(cutting)
(peeling tape off)
And there's your perfect joint!
When I started making these
music box programming,
I made the joint
straight over the paper.
And look at them now.
When you do it right,
the joint should disappear.
(paper flipping)
The next step is to record
your song in MIDI.
That will make everything so much easier
at the later stage.
(Metronome plays at around 110 bpm in 3/4)
(Music starts)
(Music ends)
(spacebar)
So before starting programming
I always
give myself some help by
putting in these reference marks.
So this song is in
waltz tempo, 3/4
one, two, three, one, two, three
and the dotted line will be the division
and by adding these reference marks
it will be much easier later
when we start to punch the actual holes, to not get lost
but we can make it even more clear
by putting in the chords from the song
(spacebar)
so D minor starts
(Music)
do, do-do
(spacebar)
D minor
Remember this part that we cut off in the beginning?
So cut off a little piece like this
and drag it with you when you draw your notes
and then you have easy reference
on the vertical lines.
I always use the MIDI grid
and I have it right in front of me here
so I can see in the MIDI grid
what notes are coming and I can playback
and it helps a lot
from
to remember your arrangement.
So, first bar
do-do-do-do-do-do
D
minor
(writes notes)
Like that!
(time lapse)
And at this point
it can actually be smart to try to cut these holes
to try the tempo on the music box
to see if you've been thinking correctly
with the resolution of the timing,
and that you're heading in the right direction.
Instead of making the whole song
and then realize that you can't crank fast enough or
it's way too fast or something.
(Music Box hits the table)
(pudoh)
(wrrrp)
(Music box plays)
So now there's no contact microphone
recording the sound from the music box,
so we will have a lot of sound from the gears
(brrrrr)
(Music box plays)
So, the test told me that we are on our right way
and we can move on.
And in this next bar
I already see a problem with the MIDI.
This note, doesn't exist on the music box.
It's too low.
You can try to put it one octave higher.
As you can see I drew some mistakes
but then I just cross out those circles
and then when I start punching the holes
I know that I shouldn't punch those.
It's good to keep this song in mind.
Like here I know there's two notes at the same time.
I want the base note to be little earlier
so I put the hole a little bit in this direction
like a little bit before
and this melody I put a little bit that direction
to have that 'g-dang'
nice music box feeling
(click)
(continuous clicking)
so, that was half the holes
so here, where we are now
I want the song to repeat itself
I want to play what we have programmed so far, twice
And the goodnews is that there's a way of copying
what we have just done
If we take this note, where the song should repeat
and we align it with the first note that we already cut,
we can actually just use the holes that we cut
and copy them onto the new paper, like this.
But before I draw all these, I'm gonna check for mistakes on the first holes.
And note now that we don't have the real microphones in the music box now,
so it's going to be a lot of mechanical noise.
Slower...
What happened there?
The highest note didn't play.
I didn't hear any mistakes.
So this time I was lucky enough because there was no mistakes in this programming so far.
But I want to show you a trick on how to fix your mistakes.
It's actually no problem, because you will make a lot of mistakes.
So I'm gonna show you just for an example.
I put a hole here
this one
and I just realized that it should be on the line next to it.
So what I do is that I turn it around
and I tape that hole.
I make sure the tape has very nice edges
and then I re-punch the hole right next to it.
So now the right note will be played.
and the wrong note will be silent.
So, that's some comfort, in a way
If you put a note a little bit too early,
I think here, I put this note here
you can just keep on making a hole until you want the note
because the music box wont play until the hole ends.
Now I have repeated the whole song twice
but I want to end the song
with
repeating the first little part, also.
So, take the beginning
and you're just gonna draw that little part in as well.
Last hole!
Riiiiight there.
Okay.
When you cut for a long time, the paper edge is
tearing up your skin like this.
I just put a piece of masking tape on my hand
It works very good, actually.
So, this song is done.
I think if you were good with writing software
you could write a software that takes MIDI
and makes a laser
cutting template
and you can just put these papers into the laser cutter and have the laser cutter to
cut perfect holes with perfect timing
Annnnd . . .
if someone is interested in doing something like that with me, please let me know
because it would be quite cool, actually.
I know for a 30 note music box,
I have seen rolls
long rolls with paper so you don't have to join them.
If someone has seen
long rolls
for the 20 note music box paper
so you don't have to join them
I would be very interested for that link as well.
This song is done.
and, on the next video,
I'm gonna put the song onto the music box
and record it properly
so you can hear the result.
I hope you learned something today
and maybe you want to try this yourself.
I would love to see your version of a
music box like this.
It doesn't have to be motorized, it can be hand cranked.
That's sometimes even cooler.
And . . .
You can subscribe to Wintergatan here,
And . . .
Thanks so much for watching.
See you on the next video.