All About That Bass – Marble Machine X Keeps Growing:
If you play a string instrument and ever used a capo — the clamping little helper device to smack the pitch up — you may have found yourself wishing that you could use it on any arbitrary fret on each string. Sure, there are partial capos and the spider capo to select individual strings, but you're still limited to transpose along a single fret. Well, [Martin]'s Cyber Capos, a mechanical construct of four arms sliding along the neck, serve exactly that purpose, which allows him to free up his hands for other things while the marbles keep bouncing.
But you don't have to be a bass player, or any musician really, to appreciate [Martin]'s build videos. We praised his general attitude and hacker-like spirit already the first time we mentioned the Marble Machine, and just watching him getting excited about his work and the appreciation for people supporting and assisting in the project, while embracing his mistakes, is a genuine delight.
Cyber Bass - YouTube Video #1
Cyber Bass - YouTube Video #2
Previously:
(2016-03-02) Wintergatan - a Programmable Music Box With 2,000 Marbles
Related Stories
Wired writes on the just finished Wintergatan Marble Machine (Javascript required) — hear and watch it in action on YouTube:
The Wintergartan Marble Machine, built by Swedish musician Martin Molin and filmed by Hannes Knutsson, is a hand-made music box that powers a kick drum, bass, vibraphone and other instruments using a hand crank and 2,000 marbles.
The machine has to be seen to be appreciated: with dozens of beautifully carved wooden parts, tracks, pulleys and funnels for collecting and rerouting spent marbles, it's a true work of art. And though marble machines as an art form of their own have a long and complex history, this might be one of the best.
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The machine itself is -- as intended -- programmable. Its central wheel is a 32 bar loop, and the key of the song can be adjusted while playing -- in the published video, it starts in E minor and runs into C major for its second wheel. "In theory you could go on forever," Molin said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @11:27AM (1 child)
Fun guy! But, as built, it can't bend notes. Isn't that part of the point of using fingers on fretboard?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @11:59AM
Easy fix, just add something to vary the tension of the string.
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Sunday May 17 2020, @11:48AM
There's a huge number of other performances of the Marble Machine song on Youtube, everything from full orchestras to the Domtoren carillon.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Sunday May 17 2020, @03:44PM (1 child)
I first heard about this guy at the Museum of Autonomous Design in Stratford Upon Avon (the Shakespeare place). They have a whole load of other crazy stuff there. This one seems appropriate to the SN crowd (kafka's head):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7ZMWuNYD0Y [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @10:24PM
Cool, thanks for bringing that to our attention!!!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday May 17 2020, @05:55PM (10 children)
This is very interesting, but seriously reminds me of Rube Goldberg. If you want to make a "player piano" for a bass guitar, it seems like there has to be a much simpler and more direct way of doing it that would also be more versatile and allow you to play any bassline (maybe not with bending notes though) with an Arduino controller.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @06:46PM
Um, isn't that called "midi"?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday May 17 2020, @09:54PM (8 children)
Yep way too much over engineering. As they might say in the Islands, "Mo beata use beer bottal":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_guitar [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_guitar [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMvf7NyvSz4 [youtube.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 18 2020, @12:30AM (7 children)
I think you're missing my point. A slide guitar isn't going to let you have a machine playing an arbitrary bassline automatically. This guy built a very complicated mechanical contraption that plays limited riffs on a bass using adjustable capos (they aren't really capos, since they fret only one string at a time), and some machine that drops marbles on the strings to make them vibrate, rather than plucking them. My point is that, with all that effort (or probably less), you could engineer a machine with some motors that can arbitrarily fret string on a bass guitar and play anything you want (minus note bending, etc.). You'd need an Arduino or something like that to control it, and you'd need some kind of motorized thing that frets the strings individually, but once you're done the whole thing could play a bass completely automatically.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday May 18 2020, @11:47AM (6 children)
An Arduino or a "plucking device' though would defeat the purpose. It's supposed to be mechanical and use the marbles to create the music. It doesn't matter if it's more limited than an actual performer would be, it's art and engineering, combined in a psychotic delirium of beauty and sound.
It isn't supposed to be efficient or electronic, it's supposed to be odd and amazing.
A patchwork of ideas and creative design, created more or less on the fly.
After all, it's called the Marble Machine, not the Arduino mechanical robot machine.
Appreciate it for it's complex beauty.
He's quite insane.
But he hasn't lost his marbles....
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 18 2020, @07:05PM (5 children)
Hence my comparison with Rube Goldberg: pointlessly complicated mechanical machines. It's interesting, of course, but as an engineer I simply would never build something like this because it's so inefficient and I can accomplish the task in a better, simpler way with available technology.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday May 18 2020, @11:37PM (4 children)
Oh your point is well taken and overall I agree.
However I think I see where our differences lie.
You are an engineer, and see the over-complexity as a detriment.
I am an artist, and see it as beauty.
After all the idea is to do it without available technology. If you use that why not just make a MIDI?
The psychotic beauty of it's primitive form is the point, well, at least in my opinion.
There is something very unique and beautiful about building a primitive machine of cogs, gears and marbles, designed on the fly, mistakes and all, that transcends doing it with efficiency. I see it as art first.
I see this as art as well, but much more soul-less, as it uses so much modern tech, but still employs a lot of over-engineering. (I've no idea of it's efficiency! I'm a mechanic as well but not an engineer!)
I am curious as to your take on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0DyYLLf3m8 [youtube.com]
Don't worry, it's not a troll link....your viewpoint I find quite interesting, as we see the same thing from very disparate views.
As t is Compressor and Z Machines, you may already be familiar and have an opinion.
A very good day to you!
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:13PM (3 children)
That's actually a really cool video, thanks for the link!
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:50AM (2 children)
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
It is pretty freaking insane.
They play better than I ever did....
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:14PM (1 child)
I will say, though, the way these robots were set up is actually how I was thinking when I saw the earlier video with the weird per-string-capo mechanism. The robots here have separate actuators in different places on the strings, plus separate pluckers for each string, so they can play just about any note readily (though the actuators didn't cover the entire fretboard, so there is limitation there).
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:59PM
I tried to find some video of the construction, but could only find one of the tracks for the vocalist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYSCJWDUKXc [youtube.com]
Too bad there doesn't appear to be a complete construction video set. It would be fascinating. Perhaps they don't want to reveal their unique or possibly patented designs. Sigh.
The Vocalist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZY-if4810Q [youtube.com]
What their is from the creators:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0YxDJBJTMGQE8e2uzg7Ctw [youtube.com]
Have a great day, hope you find these interesting as well.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.