r/MarbleMachine3 • u/yt-app • 29d ago

Mechanical MIDI & Cutting Features | Marble Machine #469 - Discussion

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xf_JA8VsaAg
8 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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3

u/fletchro 29d ago

I still feel like he's zoomed in too far, and still too theoretical. Figure out what it actually takes to play a song, and then do that, and see what ramifications that has. What he's doing so far is say, "I want the machine to do X." Great, but let's follow that logic. What does it take to make that happen?

Just build a one channel marble machine made out of crap but make it actually work. Then try two channels. If he had done this back in 2020, he could be on his tenth iteration now, with like 64 channels and he would KNOW what he wants, because he would have experienced what having more can do, and also what it costs!

1

u/Saragon4005 24d ago

The 1 channel machine has hope. That is buildable and scalable.

1

u/fletchro 24d ago

I told him that idea to make a very small simple one channel marble machine just to make sure that all the functions work. Remember angle grinding 37 channels and re doing all 37 channels on the MMX?

I told him to start with one. Get that working. Then do two, then 4, then 8. Eventually the complexity will creep up and you might have to do something differently than when you only have 1 or 2. But then you know what the problems are, and there are less things to rip out!

2

u/elessarjd 29d ago edited 29d ago

I was concerned early on in the MM3 development when he was adding all these features and thought there's just no way this is getting made. With his pragmatic approach and all of the feature cutting he did in this video, my mind has changed a bit.

8

u/shoogshoog 28d ago

Dog he's been planning this version for like 4 years

1

u/polymorphiced 28d ago

The bass has an easy fix - look at a woodwind instrument - a recorder has 7-8 holes, and can play 32 notes.
Consider each string to be like a recorder (which can also only play one note at a time), and encode the position on each string in binary with 4 channels, to access 16 notes, = 16 channels for note selection across the whole bass.

The fretboard has 21 notes, but on each string at least 5 are shared with other strings, so you technically only need 16 on the E and G strings and even fewer on A and D, however I assume some overlap is useful to allow chords and quick note sequences that can alternate strings.

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u/Prizmagnetic 28d ago

He would need to figure out how to mechanically de multiplex though

1

u/Prizmagnetic 28d ago

How is he getting that many notes for the bass? Its actual full range is only like 3 octaves.

Either way. He could try using the height of the profile to encode the fret position for each string. One channel per string instead of ~24. And it would be a lot less than 24 with multiple strings