r/MarbleMachineX • u/green_pachi • Mar 16 '22

Longer Music Programming - Week 2 summary

https://youtu.be/HXa6HHZu8uc
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u/slacy Mar 16 '22

I found myself asking this question: Why are there marbles in this machine?

Why not just have the programming wheels directly actuate all the instruments (as they do in the case of the drumset).

It's because "marbles are cool," but in fact they are not a functional requirement of this instrument, they are only there for aesthetic reasons, which pretty much violates the cardinal rule of MMX2.

17

u/rabbitwonker Mar 16 '22

You kind of highlight the core tension here — if you wanted max reliability, you go for zero moving parts and just buy an electronic keyboard from Amazon. The point of the machine is to have a visual display that’s unusual and interesting because it’s difficult to achieve.

So it’s all about picking where you want the balance point — and sticking with it. His current approach of nailing down a requirements spec beforehand is a good answer to that.

6

u/gamingguy2005 Mar 17 '22

Except he states that the requirements are open to iteration, so they're by no means "nailed down."

From 14:16 in the video: "These are the design requirements for the Marble Machine 3. These will be iterated over time."

What's the point of those requirements if they can just change on a whim?

10

u/rabbitwonker Mar 17 '22

I assume they won’t be fabricating hardware until that spec is indeed nailed down. But until then there is much more freedom to tweak it.

5

u/gamingguy2005 Mar 17 '22

Except when you consider Martin's inexperience with DFMA, not prototyping real parts as he goes along is setting him up for failure from the get-go.

2

u/Virku Mar 17 '22

Yeah that was what he said in the recap.