The legendary Marble Machine
I dont' know how it came to my mind, but I recently remembered the legendary Marble Machine video by the swedish band Wintergatan. I decided to watch the video once again to see if it still amazes me like back in the days. And damn yes, it did!
→ If you don't know what I am talking about, please stop reading and watch the video now.
Of course, the video was already several years old. But I couldn't remember exactly when it was released. So I looked it up and saw that it happened to be almost exactly 10 years ago. A perfect opportunity to write about it and publish the blog post on its 10th anniversary*. I am pretty sure, many of you remember it and hopefully the rest is as impressed as I was back in the days.
* Depending on your time zone, YouTube will show a different date, but in one of the videos Martin mentions March 1, 2016, as the date of publication.
It's perfectly imperfect
I find it incredible how much work and perseverance went into this machine. I love how you can hear the jerking and how the timing after the pause in the middle section isn't perfect because the machine has to pick up speed again. Or how it slowly comes to a stop at the end. It's so beautifully authentic. Especially in this age of AI, a little authenticity and craftsmanship really does a world of good. It's the playful details and the many little things that make the Marble Machine so special in my opinion.
„The heart of the project is playfulness“
There's even more …
I usually spend almost no time on YouTube. That's probably why I didn't notice how much there is to see in the Marble Machine universe over the years. There's a playlist with videos showing how it was built, as well as an extensive series about the successor model, Marble Machine X, which, to my knowledge, was never actually completed. Instead, Marble Machine 3 seems to be in the works. The latest videos provide insights into the technical planning. Let's see what else is coming in the future...
Move fast as fast or slow as you like and break build things!
Links
Inspiration Music #DIY #Video
Replies
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@flokosiol Amazing that it was 10 years ago already. I have followed Marble Machine X and Marble Machine 3 since and it has been a rollercoaster. Still not confident there will ever be a functioning machine, but there are many engineering learnings to be had and it’s overall still worth following. Unfortunately the musical side kind of suffers. Wintergatan has many more awesome tracks, but this is currently all paused…
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