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How the Muting System Works - Marble Machine X #112
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Welcome everyone to Wintergatan Wednesdays problem-solving episode 400 million.
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If you listen to this mechanical noise...
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[sharp noises]
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You hear it's quite agressive.
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[cranking and slamming noises]
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Today I'm gonna try to get rid of that mechanical noise. It will arrive far after the instruments are playing so—
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DZSH— [registrator slams], it will be a little bit annoying mechanical noise.
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You see this one has a bolt here:
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[bolt clicks]
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This is the guiding bolt that runs in this slot,
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to keep this lined up and it's also these bolts that makes this big sound.
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[bolt clicks louder]
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Because the 3D-print is stopped by this bolt.
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So these bolts are super important for the lining up of the grey sliding parts.
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I have to find a solution to keep the gray parts
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straight, lined up over the hole underneath them.
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And I need to find a stop that stops them without making this huge bang.
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[bolt bangs]
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I actually have room underneath here to put this massive flat bar...
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and have that as acting as a stop for all the gray parts at once.
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[♪ Wintergatan - Work Music In F Major (Unreleased) ♪ ]
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[angle grinder buzz]
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[high-pitched buzz]
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Oh, I also see some boston screws not being loctited here.
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See, this one is coming off. That's... not good.
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[registrator clicks]
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[registrator clicks]
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So, good, these are aligned perfectly over the openings, so no marble will get stuck underneath them.
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I need to open each and one of these boston screws and I need to dab some
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permanent Loctite in here. And I'm gonna make it world tour safe and safe to record albums on.
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Putting Loctite in 38 bolts...
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sounds so much faster than what it actually is.
[laughs]
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Okay, so now when we've started on this Loctite mission
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I thought I should just walk the line all the way and also take care of these screws.
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Per channel I have... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six places to add a dab of Loctite.
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First I put a tiny dab of Loctite in here...
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And then I have this boston screw.
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And then I'm putting a dab on top here.
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And then we have an M3 set screw. It's clamping down on the boston screw.
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A little dab inside the boston screw. This link goes on...
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This set screw is clamping the boston screw.
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Just make sure the links are loose so they're not loctited in place.
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So a short M4 hex bolt,
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a tiny click of Loctite on the threads.
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Now I can tighten this really tight.
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Repeat, thirty-eight.
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[♪ Wintergatan - Work Music In F Major (Unreleased) ♪ ]
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[angle grinder whirrs]
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Okay, I did a quick sound check with this felt.
[muted knocking on metal]
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And it's just too hard.
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Then I put this felt on, and I started to run out of space and I was like: "Argh..."
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I constantly had the idea that I should be able to make a simpler solution, and I think I might have found it.
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Okay!
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Here's our savior.
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[Martin sings a single note]
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So instead of this...
This.
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[bolt clicks]
[screw rattles]
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Then I'm gonna take this small little piece of foam right in there.
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And listen now...
[screw rattles]
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"Et voilá!"
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This is just a simplest solution ever,
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because this part doesn't even need to be glued in — its held in place automatically.
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[muted bolt clicks]
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So compare that to:
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[sharp bolt clicks]
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Now I just have to cut 38 of these.
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So this solution has, like, zero impact on any part. There's no glue,
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completely reversible if this would turn out to not work somehow.
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All channels are padded,
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and before testing, I thought that I take the opportunity to explain to you exactly
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how this muting system works, because once the marble divider is on here,
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you won't be able to see this like this ever again.
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Here we have six levers:
vibraphone, kick drum, snare drum...
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hihat, cymbal, bass guitar.
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The movement is transmitted from my lever here, both to this row here and onto this row up here.
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So when the vibraphone is activated when it's playing, we have a physical connection...
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going on over here. So when this is lifted...
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Now you can see the channel is moving.
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As soon as I let go of the lever, that connection is broken. So now I can move this...
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But nothing is happening.
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Same here for the kick drum channel.
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Now it's not activated, as soon as I let go of this...
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The channel starts moving.
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I'm really proud of the fact that I've managed to have one lever control both this and this row.
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And I put so much effort into the muting system,
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just because it was the muting system that failed on the first machine.
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This system has actually worked since the very beginning. I never had to change...
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any of the designs for this.
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So, all the channels are now in a muted position,
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which means we will only see the registrators move, but none of the channels are activated.
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Look in the back:
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So, only the registrations were moving — nothing else.
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Let's activate the big vibraphone, and this channel.
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Uh... this channel.
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Let's do the opposite!
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Here you can see the hooks that is the breaking and activation of the mechanical connection.
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[metallic slam]
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So that's what happens when we mute an instrument group, and that's what happens when we activate it.
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You can see if a programming pin activated this, it will pull the channel.
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And when it goes down, it will not pull the channel.
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This system is also designed to handle the following edge case:
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Let's say the instrument loop is muted [metallic slam] like that.
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But this is still moving due to the registrators being hit by the programming pins.
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So imagine a pin is just hitting this, and at the same time I'm unmuting this instrument group.
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Then we have this situation, but when the pin let's go
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Everything sort out itself.
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That's why we have these diagonals on these hooks. It's basically only for that specific edge case.
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Let's try to cut some registrators, shall we?
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I'm super nervous to mess up this expensive PUM Delrin material.
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[♪ Wintergatan - Helping Out In Eb Major (Unreleased) ♪ ]
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[CNC machine whirrs]
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[muffled speaking]
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[Delrin blocks fall onto wood]
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[CNC machine whirrs]
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[CNC machine whirrs]
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So Toby came in and saw me cutting and asked: "Do you have a fence?" and I was like: "Yeah!"
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And then he said: "I think you're gonna get some safety comments if you don't use a fence."
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And I'm gonna be totally honest, I never thought about using the [blows away dust]
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fence for safety like this.
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Yeah, being the stupidest person in the room is the best situation you can find yourself in,
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'cause that's where you're learning.
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[♪ Wintergatan - Helping Out In Eb Major (Unreleased) ♪]
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[Martin humming a melody]
[♪ PewDiePie - B*tch Lasagna ♪]
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I have all my registrators, and I have all my fingers. Thanks Toby.
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I am attaching the registrators here and they have the same
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color code as the droplet knobs on the front of the machine.
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[cranking noise]
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[registrators clicking]
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So all this work started with some few channels being stuck, and me wanting to fix this mechanical sound.
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We have loctited every single screw in this whole assembly, also back there. And...
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we have fixed the sound, and it's time to put the marble divider back in place.
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So everything you have seen me done so far is, like, work that is un... invisible from the outside. So,
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there's so much... problem solving going on...
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in this project, that is really not visible on the finished product.
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[ ♪ Wintergatan - Proof Of Concept ♪ ]
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These videos are brought to you by our backers through youtube channel memberships or Patreon.
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Thank you so much everyone who are supporting, and thank you for believing in this crazy dream,
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that is the Marble Machine X, and thank you so much for watching. See you on the next one!