Wintergatan is building another marble-based musical box – Marble Machine X (Video)
Martin Molin of Wintergatan has been uploading videos every few days showing the process of building a sequel to the Marble Machine.
Swedish band Wintergatan uploaded a video showing the completed Marble Machine in 2016, titled Wintergatan – Marble Machine (music instrument using 2000 marbles). If you’re not one of the 178 million people who watched the video, it shows the machine’s builder and composer Martin Molin operate the hand-crank, as thousands of steel marbles are raised through the machine and released from height to strike various instruments such as a vibraphone, bass guitar and drums.
Described by themselves as a mix of music, engineering and innovation, the Wintergatan YouTube channel has since pulled in over 2.2 million subscribers. After the success of The Marble Machine, Martin Molin and a team of people got to work on The Marble Machine X. Driven this time by motors, Molin is continuing to document the whole process every few days, showing testing and improving the machine, with hopes to one day take it on tour to play live gigs around the world. During the construction of the original machine, eight videos from Molin were released before the final demo. Wintergatan have so far posted 161 episodes of The Marble Machine X’s build. Find the full playlist here.
Watching those little marbles shoot through the machine with perfect timing and accuracy is hugely satisfying, just be careful not to get too lost in staring through hours of content, before realising a few day have passed without your knowing.