World’s First Programmable Music Box can play anything from Christmas Carols to the Latest Pop Hits

Nostalgia Upgraded – The Muro Box brings a fond childhood music instrument into the future with App Support and MIDI Connectivity

The second you hear a music box, your mind is taken to a fairytale land. Music box sounds have been used in cinemas to transition to dream sequences, showing exactly how rooted the sound of a music box is in childhood nostalgia. In the past, most of these mechanical musical instruments were found inside toys like snowglobes, jack-in-the-boxes, or other wind-up toys. You can still find music boxes today, although most of them just play fixed tunes like your odd nursery rhyme or Happy Birthday (some novelty stores even sell music boxes that play the Harry Potter or the Game of Thrones theme)… but the folks behind the Muro Box are doing something absolutely unusual. The Muro Box is the first customizable music box that can play pretty much any tune you want it to play, thanks to app connectivity and a MIDI interface. You can use Muro Box’s app to either compose your own tracks or browse through a library of pre-composed tracks… or better still, hook it to a MIDI synth and play music directly from your keyboard onto the Muro Box. The result is a charmingly nostalgic rendition of pretty much any song. Whether it’s a Christmas Carol or a Slipknot song, it’s sure to sound positively delightful and just incredibly dreamy!

Designer: Muro Box Global

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 (Ships Before Christmas) Hurry! Only 7 Days Left!

The way most music boxes worked was simple. Each box would come with a rotating cylinder that had studs on it, and a metal comb placed strategically near said cylinder. When the cylinder would rotate, the studs would ‘pluck’ against the comb, creating notes. Based on the cylinder’s pattern, you could play elements of any song. The problem with the music boxes of the past, however, was that A. You couldn’t change the song and B. The drum’s limited circumference meant you could only play a small portion of the song over and over again, which would become a little annoyingly repetitive after the first few times. The Muro Box solves both those problems thanks to a patented dynamic cylinder that can change while it rotates. This game-changing innovation allows the Muro Box to not just play different songs, but also play ENTIRE songs.

While the Muro Box is built to be a treat for one’s ears, its beauty starts with that gorgeously nostalgic design, echoing the steampunk aesthetic of the good old days. The mechanical parts of the box are surrounded by gorgeous brass detailing, sitting on top of a single-piece maple or acacia wood platform. Zinc-alloy components help create a warm, pleasant sound, while the acacia platform comes with an acoustic chamber that amplifies the music box’s sound. A glass enclosure seals the Muro Box’s internal components, preventing dust, dirt, or fidgety children from toying with the box’s delicate assemblies. Quite like the Muro Box’s sound transports you to a simpler time, its design is a hallmark of the simpler years before electronics, circuit boards, and internet connectivity.

That being said, the box itself has some seriously impressive tech underneath its hood. It’s designed to be entirely programmable, which means you can choose what to play, thanks to a variable cylinder design that can pluck on the resonating comb in a variety of ways. The box connects to an app that allows you to either choose from a library of songs, or design your own melodies using a MIDI-style interface (think Guitar Hero, but with more notes). A single-button interface lets you twist to toggle between songs in the app’s playlist (left for previous, right for next), and pressing the button toggles the play/pause feature. If you’re looking to push the Muro Box to its absolute limit, a MIDI port on the back lets you connect your Muro Box to a synth or a laptop running a DAW, so you can play more complex melodies directly off music production software.

Most users will be more than content with running the Muro Box off its app. The vast library contains user-submitted tunes from all around the world, featuring classics, latest hits, and even local/regional tunes. Pick a tune and the box begins emitting a gentle whirr that’s punctuated by the melodious clinks of the cylinder’s studs hitting the resonating comb. The Muro Box’s different variants come with single, double, and quadruple-comb arrangements, allowing you to play simple tunes or even incredibly layered musical compositions.

The Muro Box comes in three variants, ranging from simple to complex. The catalog starts with the N20 Lite, a redesign of the company’s first N20 music box from back in 2020. The N20 Lite comes outfitted with one 20-note music comb, limiting the number of notes you have to play with. Designed to be smaller than its siblings, it also ditches the MIDI feature for app-only control, and comes with a battery-powered design that lets you carry your music box with you, unlike the larger models that are wired.

The next step in the Muro Box journey is the N40 Standard, with two 20-note combs, giving it a total of 40 notes. This allows the N40 to cover more notes and more octaves, allowing you to play more complicated songs with a lower baseline and upper melody. The final music box in the series is the N40 Sublime, a more complex version of its standard sibling with four 20-note combs instead of two. However, instead of offering 80 different notes, it sticks to 40 notes, but has duplicates for each note. This makes each individual note sound richer as it’s played twice, creating more resonance. The phenomenon is called Sublime Harmonizing, and the best way to understand the difference is to think of a solo singer versus a choir.

Both the N40 variants come with a DIN 5 and USB-C MIDI input, and there’s even a 6.5mm (1/4 inch) audio output with a transducer pickup system. The N40 Standard comes with a Maple box, but you can upgrade to the high-quality Acacia for an extra $90. The N40 Sublime, on the other hand, is outfitted with the acacia-wood box and even has a laser-engraved metal plaque that you can customize with a message of your own.

The Muro Box starts at a commendable $299 for the N20 Lite, going up to $996 for the N40 Standard or a hefty $1,826 for the N40 Sublime. It’s difficult to put a price on nostalgia but the Muro Box definitely doesn’t make things cheap! The music boxes are all made in Taiwan, and ship globally as early as December 2023.

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 (Ships Before Christmas) Hurry! Only 7 Days Left!

The post World’s First Programmable Music Box can play anything from Christmas Carols to the Latest Pop Hits first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Steampunk-Looking Gumball Machine from LOTTE Will Also Play Music for You

LOTTE chewing gum holds a special place in the hearts of many South Koreans, serving as more than just a minty delight. Its history is intertwined with the nation’s past, offering solace during the challenging aftermath of the 1960s war. While the candy itself has remained a cultural icon, the LOTTE brand has imprinted itself on South Koreans in an indelible way, etched into memory through a memorable TV commercial jingle that resonates with modern consumers even today. Enter the XYLITOL Music Box, a cleverly designed device that blends the humble chewing gumball dispenser with the nostalgic sound of the LOTTE theme.

Designed as a tabletop device, the XYLITOL is an entirely mechanical masterpiece that has a multi-sensorial appeal. It’s beautiful to look at, with an intricate, transparent & chrome design. Rotate the key at the bottom and the machine dispenses one singular ball of gum while playing the iconic LOTTE theme. The result is also an auditory and gustatory experience that ends with the sweet taste of candy!

Designer: LOTTE Corporation, Design and Management Center

Inspired by the sleek contours of XYLITOL chewing gum, the XYLITOL Music Box is a visual masterpiece. Its exterior radiates simplicity and minimalism, while a transparent cover unveils an intricately detailed structure, a delicate dance of gears and components that captivates the eye. The craftsmanship behind this device borders on something you’d expect from a Swiss horologist, with mechanical interactions that work like literal clockwork to deliver your sweet treat.

But don’t let its intricate steampunk-ish design fool you; the XYLITOL Music Box is user-friendly to the core. A simple turn of the bottom handle sets the music box in motion, delivering not just sweet tunes but also a chewy delight. For those moments when you prefer to savor the gum without the fanfare, a convenient dispensing lever is at your fingertips, letting you simply push to dispense a piece of gum… but honestly, where’s the fun in that?!

The XYLITOL Music Box is a Winner of the Red Dot Award: Design Concept for the year 2023.

The post This Steampunk-Looking Gumball Machine from LOTTE Will Also Play Music for You first appeared on Yanko Design.

DIY music box design lets users compose their own nostalgic melodies in three simple steps

The Make Your Own Music Box is a music box design from Kikkerland Design that lets users compose their own melodies for the music box to play.

There’s nothing quite so nostalgic as a music box. One look inside grandma’s old jewelry box that plays “Over The Rainbow,” or even at big coin-operated music boxes in train stations and bars can bring us back before our time. Music boxes have been around for centuries, but they’ve managed to hold onto their charm. Since 1922, Kikkerland Design has been producing toys and memorabilia to fascinate the masses and bring us back to simpler times. Today, they’ve released a music box that allows users to compose their own tune.

Designer: Kikkerland Design

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Kikkerland Design’s Make Your Own Music Box Kit comes with everything you might need to compose your own tune and listen back to it. Complete with strips of lined music paper, each user has the opportunity to make their own music by hole punching the music paper with melodies and harmonies for the music box to capture and reproduce. Describing the process, Kikkerland design notes, “The easy to use Music Box hole puncher allows you to create your own melodies on lined paper strips and play them on the mechanism provided.”

To help get the ball rolling, Kikkerland Design provides the sheet music for “Happy Birthday,” allowing users to get a feel for what melodies look and sound like on the sheet music and music box. Along with that, the Make Your Own Music Box comes with a music box hole punch, sheet music strips, and a music box mechanism that works together to play newly composed music. Users simply hole punch a sheet music strip with a melody and insert the strip into the music box before winding it up and hearing it in real-time.

The post DIY music box design lets users compose their own nostalgic melodies in three simple steps first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Outer Space Music Box Is Out of This World

Do you love all things outer space? Enjoy a trip to the heavens every time you wind up this interplanetary music box, currently available from Coolthings Australia for $100. At its center is a wooden model of Saturn, surrounded by tiny space shuttles, astronauts, and satellites.

I didn’t know we had any satellites in orbit around Saturn, but hey, the aliens on the ringed planet need their DirecTV and Dish Network shows too! Each music box is handcrafted, and plays the tune Emperor (Concerto, Op 73 No. 5), which I can only imagine is a reference to Emperor Palpatine and his quest for interplanetary domination. Check it out in action in the video clip below:

That was delightful and soothing. But who’s gonna clean up all that space junk when we’re done with it?

World’s first mechanical music box to play any song using your smartphone!

Music boxes bring the tunes of nostalgia back and how! Back in the day they were considered a thoughtful gift and played one song over and over. The intricate details of the music box made it a collectible for years, it came in so many playful themes like horses on a carousel or a piano and I always loved watching the strings pop up and down when it played songs. While music boxes have gathered dust and music streaming apps have taken over, we don’t have to choose between the past and the present – Muro Box, the first app-controlled music box, brings the best of both back to you!

Not only does Muro Box play any song you like, but you can also make your own songs. Think of it as a cross between a speaker and a music box that can be synced to your playlists to give you a unique experience that will bring back memories (and make new ones!). It is the world’s first mechanical music box that can be controlled via your smartphone. All you have to do is upload your playlists to the Muro Box app and the music box will turn it up. Compose your own tunes or get guided lessons by musicians on the app. Apart from helping you compose music and store your playlists in an unlimited free cloud service, Muro Box also serves as an alarm clock and who wouldn’t like to be woken up by the soothing string chimes instead of your blaring smartphone?

It can play as fast as 4 beats per second for the same note, which is consecutive eight notes at BPM 120. The basic unit of notes in Muro Box is an eighth note (quaver). Muro Box allows 7 notes to be plucked at the same time as the maximum. According to the Music Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), the scale of Muro Box is between C3 to A5 (C4-A6 in American standard), so it includes about 2.5 octaves and currently features a 20-note version using a diatonic scale which will be upgraded to a 40-note version with more semitones for professional musicians.

“We invented the world’s first app-controlled cylinder for Muro Box to make your dream come true: one music box that plays all of your favorite songs. Our patented design breaks the limitation of a traditional music box but still preserves the resonance and sound generated from a mechanical movement,” says the design team. You can also access 30,000+ music box melodies shared by the 22500+ music box fans around the world, on your Muro Box! The compact form and the warm wooden aesthetic is a timeless look for this nostalgia-inducing music player and I can continue staring at those dancing strings all day. I do wonder how Cardi B’s songs will sound on this.

Designer: Chen-Hsiang Feng & Shiao-Chen Tsai of Muro Box

Click Here to Buy Now: $330 $535 (38% off). Hurry, only 90/500 left! Raised over $251,137!

Continous music

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Imagine if you could connect your Spotify to a music box

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Music players are pretty straightforward. You’ve got pre-recorded music files that are stored either offline or online, and all the music player does is decodes those files and plays the pre-recorded music via a speaker. Barring differences in playback and speaker hardware, one song sounds pretty much the same on each music player… but the Murobox is different. The Murobox, a portmanteau of the words Music Robot Box, literally plays or rather, performs the music for you.

Traditional music boxes have a spring-loaded cylinder with notches that rotate, plucking at a steel comb to create music. You were limited by the size of the cylinder, which was small enough to store just a fraction of a song (like a verse of Happy Birthday, Swan Lake, or more modern versions with the Harry Potter theme). The Murobox has no such limitation. Replacing the cylinder with sever computer-controlled rings, the Murobox can add or remove the notches that pluck against the steel comb, effectively changing with time and playing entire songs rather than just a bar or two. While the Murobox can’t literally translate your mp3 files into playable music (although that would be incredible if you could just connect your music subscription to the Murobox!), the companion app can tap into cloud-based libraries of tunes, while you can even add MIDI files to the Murobox to have it play it back with its signature calming sound… so technically, you can have the Murobox play literally any music you get your hands on. Yes, even Sandstorm by Darude.

Designer: Tevofy Technology

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Images via Engadget

Orpheus Sad Music Machine Robot

Build your own robot. Not the evil killer kind that scientists like building, but a cool robot buddy for your desk. You can assemble this DIY robot from a kit from laser-cut wood pieces. He looks super cool.

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His name is Orpheus and he even plays a sad tune when you crank the handle. He measures 7″ tall x 8 1/2″ wide x 4″ deep.

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As a bonus, when you build a robot yourself, you can trust it not to kill you. I think. I hope.

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This little guy is going to look awesome sitting on your desk. And when you need to take a break from work, he will always be there for you. You can order one over at ThinkGeek for $29.99(USD).

3D Print your own music!

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I just adore the Prinpl. You know why? Let’s first take a look at the name. It’s a lovely amalgamation of PRINt and PLay. It also sounds like Pimple, which does make sense once you get to know what the Prinpl does. That’s the second reason why I adore the Prinpl. It takes one of my favorite toys and gives it a modern twist. Designed as a New-Age MusicBox, the Prinpl actually reads 3d printed discs with braille-like bumps on them. The bumps then interfere with prongs on a fabricated piece of sheet metal, plucking at it to generate a tune. The cool thing about Prinpl is that you can now effectively 3D print your own tunes and play them on the Prinpl’s hypnotically soothing inbuilt-instrument. The catch is that this phenomenon only plays short, looped pieces of musical data, but the ability to print your own tunes means you can generate your own mini-library of music. Prinpl doesn’t however limit itself to just 3D printed discs. It also reads conventional data and mp3 CDs, making it an instrument at some times, and a music player at others. Versatile!

It also comes with an app, allowing you to remote-control the playback features. Color me impressed!

Designer: Jeongdae Kim

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TIE Fighter Music Box: The Empire Strikes Chords

Watchmakers MB&F created this TIE fighter-themed music box with an an amazing eye toward craftsmanship – and debt. You see, it will cost you almost $20,000.

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On each side of this mechanical marvel, there is a roller dotted with over 1,400 tiny pins that have each been assembled by hand into 1,400 tiny drill holes. It also sports a precision-tuned 72-tooth comb made from a special steel alloy that plays six tunes, including the themes from Star Wars, James Bond, Mission Impossible, The Godfather, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and The Persuaders. It seems like an odd combination of tunes for sure.

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These custom music boxes were made to celebrate the company’s tenth anniversary in 2015. MB&F only issued 99 of these music boxes in all. It is lovely, but I would rather spend that sum on Star Wars toys myself.

[via Gizmodo via Nerd Approved]

Musical Drink-dispensing Machine Serves Southern Comfort

David Cranmer is a mechanical sculpture artist. You might remember him from such projects as theremin in a stuffed badger. He is always busy creating new projects. This is his latest.

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You may or may not know that Southern Comfort originated in New Orleans. And so a marketing company working on behalf of the brand hired David to create some sculptures to promote The beverage. The result is two machines built around instruments that are reminiscent of New Orleans’s jazz history. Just insert a bottle and press a trumpet key.

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What happens next is magical. Alcohol is delivered. That’s real magic, unlike that fake Harry Potter stuff. Give me a drink any day over an invisibility cloak. Music and alcohol. What could be better?

[via Yababoon via Neatorama]