How To Program a Music Box - Hole Punch Tutorial

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 [paper rustling noises] longer songs on these music boxes, like this one, It will drive you crazy in no time. [chuckles] It is quite daunting sometimes. Eh... 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 t

hese 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 t

he seam like this! [rip] And here's the magic. So now you take the ruler and you make a diagonal cut, [squeaking sound] through both pieces at the same time. [cutting sounds] [tearing and cutting sounds] Clean the surfaces of the joint. Good quality thin masking tape. [cutting sounds] [tape peeling sounds] 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 dis

appear. [paper flipping sounds] 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] [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] [♫] [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] ends [keystroke] 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. [beatboxes notes

] 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. [keystroke] So D minor starts [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] F [♫] do, do-do [keystroke] [♫] two, three, two [♫] D minor [♫] Dun [♫] Remember this part that we cut off in the beginning? This is gold. So cut off a little piece like this and drag it with you when you draw your notes, and then you ha

ve 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, I can play it back [keystroke] [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] and it helps a lot from, to remember your arrangement. So, first bar do-do-do-do-do-do D minor Like that! [sped-up music and dialog] 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 correct

ly 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... too fast or something. [wood sliding sound] [winding sound] [music box notes] 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 [motor whirring] [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] [static noise] So, the test told me that we are on our right w

ay and we can move on. And then this next bar I already see a problem with the MIDI. [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] This note, doesn't exist on the music box. It's too low. [♫] So then you have to alter it. You can try to put it one octave higher. [♫] As you can see I drew some mistakes but then I just cross out that circles and then when I start to punch the holes I know that I shouldn't punch those. It's good to keep the song in mind. Like here I know there's two notes at the same time. I wan

t the base note to be little earlier, so I put the hole a little bit in this direction, like a little bit before. [clip] And this melody I put a little bit that direction [clip] to have that 'g-dang' nice music box feeling. [clip] [clip] [clip] [sped-up clipping] [clipping sounds] So, that was half the holes. So here, where we are now I want the song to repeat itself. I wanna play what we have programmed so far, twice. And the good news is that there's a way of copying what we just have 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. [musixbox notes] [motor whirring sounds] 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. [motor whirring] [♪ Wintergatan: All Was Well ♪] [static noi

se] 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. [clip] 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, [rip]

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 li

ttle part, also. So, take the beginning... [paper rustling noises] and you're just gonna draw that little part in as well. [silence] [clip] [clipping sounds] Last hole! Riiiiight there. [clip] Okay. [exhales heavily] 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. [chuckles] I know for the 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 woul

d 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 wanna 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. [snip][snip] [clipping spunds] [music box notes] [♪ Wintergatan: Wintergatan Wednesdays Music Box ♪] // Subtitled by Wintergatan Writers. Join our team on discord. // [silence]