WEBVTT

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Welcome to this music box programming tutorial.

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This is a 30-note music box set,

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and this is a 20-note music box set.

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And when you program

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longer songs on these music boxes,

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like this one,

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It is quite daunting sometimes.

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And I've been doing this for

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a lot of years now and developed

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some tricks that makes it less daunting

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and drives you less crazy.

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So in this video, I want to share

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my best tricks

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on how to program these music boxes

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with you!

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Normally they come in C major,

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the 20-note music boxes,

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but I have retuned my music boxes

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to different keys by adding

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some soldering on some notes.

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To join these two pieces, you will need

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tape, a ruler and a knife.

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(rip)

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So we start with securing

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one piece to the table.

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And on this second piece

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we're going to cut a little curve,

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so we see all the lines,

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(whoosh)

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like that!

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So now we can pair this grid

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with this grid.

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That looks good!

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Put an extra tape

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straight over the seam like this!

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(rip)

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And here's the magic.

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So now you take the ruler

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and you make a diagonal cut

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through both pieces at the same time.

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(cutting)

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(rip)

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(more cutting)

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Clean the surfaces of the joint.

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Good quality thin masking tape.

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(cutting)

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(peeling tape off)

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And there's your perfect joint!

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When I started making these

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music box programming,

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I made the joint

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straight over the paper.

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And look at them now.

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When you do it right,

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the joint should disappear.

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(paper flipping)

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The next step is to record

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your song in MIDI.

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That will make everything so much easier

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at the later stage.

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(Metronome plays at around 110 bpm in 3/4)

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(Music starts)

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(Music ends)

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(spacebar)

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So before starting programming

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I always

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give myself some help by

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putting in these reference marks.

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So this song is in

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waltz tempo, 3/4

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one, two, three, one, two, three

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and the dotted line will be the division

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and by adding these reference marks

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it will be much easier later

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when we start to punch the actual holes, to not get lost

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but we can make it even more clear

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by putting in the chords from the song

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(spacebar)

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so D minor starts

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(Music)

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do, do-do

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(spacebar)

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D minor

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Remember this part that we cut off in the beginning?

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So cut off a little piece like this

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and drag it with you when you draw your notes

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and then you have easy reference

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on the vertical lines.

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I always use the MIDI grid

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and I have it right in front of me here

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so I can see in the MIDI grid

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what notes are coming and I can playback

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and it helps a lot

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from

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to remember your arrangement.

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So, first bar

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do-do-do-do-do-do

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D

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minor

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(writes notes)

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Like that!

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(time lapse)

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And at this point

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it can actually be smart to try to cut these holes

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to try the tempo on the music box

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to see if you've been thinking correctly

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with the resolution of the timing,

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and that you're heading in the right direction.

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Instead of making the whole song

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and then realize that you can't crank fast enough or

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it's way too fast or something.

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(Music Box hits the table)

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(pudoh)

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(wrrrp)

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(Music box plays)

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So now there's no contact microphone

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recording the sound from the music box,

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so we will have a lot of sound from the gears

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(brrrrr)

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(Music box plays)

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So, the test told me that we are on our right way

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and we can move on.

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And in this next bar

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I already see a problem with the MIDI.

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This note, doesn't exist on the music box.

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It's too low.

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You can try to put it one octave higher.

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As you can see I drew some mistakes

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but then I just cross out those circles

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and then when I start punching the holes

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I know that I shouldn't punch those.

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It's good to keep this song in mind.

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Like here I know there's two notes at the same time.

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I want the base note to be little earlier

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so I put the hole a little bit in this direction

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like a little bit before

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and this melody I put a little bit that direction

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to have that 'g-dang'

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nice music box feeling

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(click)

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(click)

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(continuous clicking)

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so, that was half the holes

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so here, where we are now

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I want the song to repeat itself

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I want to play what we have programmed so far, twice

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And the goodnews is that there's a way of copying

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what we have just done

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If we take this note, where the song should repeat

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and we align it with the first note that we already cut,

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we can actually just use the holes that we cut

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and copy them onto the new paper, like this.

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But before I draw all these, I'm gonna check for mistakes on the first holes.

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And note now that we don't have the real microphones in the music box now,

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so it's going to be a lot of mechanical noise.

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Slower...

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What happened there?

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The highest note didn't play.

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I didn't hear any mistakes.

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So this time I was lucky enough because there was no mistakes in this programming so far.

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But I want to show you a trick on how to fix your mistakes.

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It's actually no problem, because you will make a lot of mistakes.

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So I'm gonna show you just for an example.

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I put a hole here

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this one

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and I just realized that it should be on the line next to it.

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So what I do is that I turn it around

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and I tape that hole.

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I make sure the tape has very nice edges

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and then I re-punch the hole right next to it.

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So now the right note will be played.

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and the wrong note will be silent.

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So, that's some comfort, in a way

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If you put a note a little bit too early,

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I think here, I put this note here

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you can just keep on making a hole until you want the note

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because the music box wont play until the hole ends.

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Now I have repeated the whole song twice

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but I want to end the song

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with

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repeating the first little part, also.

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So, take the beginning

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and you're just gonna draw that little part in as well.

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Last hole!

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Riiiiight there.

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Okay.

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When you cut for a long time, the paper edge is

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tearing up your skin like this.

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I just put a piece of masking tape on my hand

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It works very good, actually.

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So, this song is done.

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I think if you were good with writing software

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you could write a software that takes MIDI

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and makes a laser

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cutting template

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and you can just put these papers into the laser cutter and have the laser cutter to

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cut perfect holes with perfect timing

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Annnnd . . .

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if someone is interested in doing something like that with me, please let me know

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because it would be quite cool, actually.

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I know for a 30 note music box,

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I have seen rolls

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long rolls with paper so you don't have to join them.

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If someone has seen

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long rolls

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for the 20 note music box paper

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so you don't have to join them

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I would be very interested for that link as well.

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This song is done.

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and, on the next video,

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I'm gonna put the song onto the music box

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and record it properly

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so you can hear the result.

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I hope you learned something today

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and maybe you want to try this yourself.

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I would love to see your version of a

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music box like this.

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It doesn't have to be motorized, it can be hand cranked.

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That's sometimes even cooler.

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And . . .

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You can subscribe to Wintergatan here,

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And . . .

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Thanks so much for watching.

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See you on the next video.