Martin Molin of the band Wintergatan began building the Marble Machine — an instrument that makes its sounds with 2,000 marbles — in 2014, and in 2016 published a video on YouTube showing the machine in action.
The video quickly went viral and now has more than 225 million views. The great goal was to take the Marble Machine on a world tour.
As the first machine could not meet the demands of such a tour, Martin built a second, the Marble Machine X (MMX). But the successor, too, did not live up to his hopes. Both machines are now part of the Musikkabinett — though not necessarily on view inside the museum itself: the Marble Machine X can be seen on request, outside the main visitor route, while the original Marble Machine is not currently exhibited. Martin is still working on a third version to this day.
Marble Machine
A visit to the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht (Netherlands) inspired Martin to build the Marble Machine. It was built by hand without precise preparatory planning, so many parts were improvised. The choice of tools and machinery was limited — the gear wheels, for instance, were cut out with a band saw. Building the machine took 14 months; the video then added 60 days of filming and another 60 days of post-production before it could be shown to the public.
Before the first Marble Machine arrived at the Musikkabinett it had stood for around five years in a shelter open on one side. That did the wood and the other materials no good. The aim is to preserve the machine and possibly make it playable again. It may yet visit the museums of the world and reach its original destination after all.
“The Marble Machine X is not only one of our newest instruments — it is also being actively finished by the community.”
Get involved!Marble Machine X
Construction of the successor, Marble Machine X (MMX), began in 2017, and its progress was recorded in weekly videos. A community grew around those YouTube videos, which Martin soon involved in the process. Wintergatan community members contributed both to the design and to the craftsmanship — some elements and parts of the MMX came from their hands.
Four years later the new version still showed so many problems that Martin Molin decided not to finish it: despite many difficulties solved, new ones kept appearing that made a world tour impossible. As the community was already involved and still interested, the decision was quickly made — to work together and at least reach the state where all of the MMX’s instruments can be played.