Marble Machine
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Between December 2014 and March 2016, the band Wintergatan uploaded several YouTube videos featuring Martin Molin documenting the construction of a music box that uses marbles to play instruments. The machine is powered by hand, and works by raising steel marbles through the machine into multiple feeder tubes, where they are then released from height via programmable release gates, falling and striking a musical instrument below. Instruments played by marbles striking them include a vibraphone, bass guitar, cymbal, and emulated kick drum, high hat and snare drum sounds using contact microphones. The music score is stored on two programmable wheels that utilise Lego Technic beams and stud connectors to trigger armatures to release the marbles. A final music video showing the machine in use was released in 2016.
Ten months after the debut of the original Marble Machine, the band disassembled it and announced their plans to make a new marble machine for the purpose of touring. The new machine, to be called “Marble Machine X,” would solve a multitude of mechanical functionality problems with the original marble machine. Martin Molin, the builder of the original marble machine, is collaborating with Karin and Olof Eneroth as well as fans for the design of the Marble Machine X and has transported the original marble machine to Museum Speelklok in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
