Kikkerland 1200 Mechanical Music Box Set

I bought this as an experiment, as I'm looking to make a music box with a tune I can't find on standard music boxes, and I've been very pleasantly surprised at how good it is. The quality of the sound is excellent - much clearer and louder than I expected. For my project I was considering using a normal music box and making a customised barrel for the tune I need. But having watched a couple of YouTube videos of people who'd tried that (and they were far more skilled craftsmen than me) this product seems much easier to use, and the sound quality is much better than they achieved. I would definitely recommend using this if you need a music box with a rare tune, rather than trying to make your own drum/barrel. The unit itself is pretty solidly constructed, not as fragile / plasticky as it looks in some photos, and the mechanism that translates the holes in the paper into plucks of the comb is more substantial than I thought too. It will serve as a long-term mechanism and I imagine the punched paper could easily be replaced with something stronger like a thin strip of metal if you needed something permanent.

This is a lovely little instrument, stretching across two whole octaves up a major scale - A-flat3 to A-flat5 (excluding chromatic notes!). I saw in the Questions & Answers that someone said the range was C to C, but it is actually A-flat to A-flat (unless I got a faulty music box. Nevertheless, it still sounds great!), so keep an eye out. The box comes with 3 blank strips, and a hole puncher for you to punch holes into the blank strips. The hole puncher is a little tricky to use (more so than the instrument!) but after getting used to it, hole punching becomes far simpler. The box also comes with a 4th strip which is already punched - a 'Happy Birthday' strip which you can use to play the instrument if you don't want to punch holes into a strip yourself. It also comes with 3 small screws, which you can attach to the music box if you intend to fix the music box in place to something (e.g. if you want to mount it inside a little box for extra amplification). There is also an instruction booklet in English and French, although it is rather brief. See the video for a recording excerpt of this 'Happy Birthday' strip and to hear how the music box sounds.

Bought this as a gift, but I wanted to include a custom song (the included "Happy Birthday" strip seemed a little inappropriate for a Christmas present). Other reviews have mentioned this but the music box isn't quite tuned correctly, it's still a 2-octave major scale but starts on Ab rather than C as written in the description. It's a good idea to use an arrangement app if you're not too musically inclined (I used Chrome Music Lab song maker, free from google), but once you've an arrangement you're happy with it's straightforward (if a little tedious) to punch the notes onto the strip. You just need to bear in mind when arranging that you can't have 2 identical notes too close together, due to the way the mechanism reads the strip. The secondary divisions on the strip are really as dense as you can make it. The box itself comes with some screws for mounting it onto a surface, which I recommend as it's a little fiddly trying to play a strip while holding the box down. Overall I had a lot of fun designing an arrangement and committing it to a punch strip, and the present was a big success with the recipient. P.S. included is a video of the arrangement I made -- guess the tune!

After tears of this product collecting dust in my drawer I finally took it out and made a sheet to use with it. I had to adapt the song I wanted as there is only two octaves on the sheet, but it managed to sound fantastic regardless. My partner helped me install the device into a box and cut out holes for the sheet music to be fed through and come out of. I absolutely love this, I plan to make many more sheets. Thanks for making a product like this, I feel so creative and accomplished making my own songs to play. :)

I bought this as a gift for my girlfriend. She loved it and spend hours picking out her first song. Unfortunately it can't do sharps or flats so it had to be a specific tune. If you make a mistake then you can tape over the error and simply punch another hole. We then found out that the box isn't tuned correctly. But it still sounds lovely when she plays her piece. Overall I reccomend as a fun gift if they won't mind tediously punching holes in the correct location for a while!

This is probably the best thing I've ever bought. Its such a daft hobby that other people don't seem impressed with but I've discovered there is a huge amount of fun and satisfaction when you painstakingly mark, punch out, and delicately playback a song. Genuinely love this product. It's great quality, has good sound - I highly recommend mounting it to a music box (or sitting it on the cardboard box it comes in) when playing as it amplifies the sound massively. Would definitely recommend!

This little device formed the basis of the main present I gave to my GF last year. She loved it! I have no musical composing background or understanding, but, by trial and error and a lot of sellotape, I managed to construct a tiny music box that played one of her favourite pieces of music. Overall the device is well made and the principle of making music for it ridiculously simple to grasp, I can definitely recommend this product.

I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the song I wanted it to play - the lack of sharps is a little forgivable gripe, but the main issue I had was that it struggled to repeat notes; you have to leave at least a rest in between the same note. This was the biggest challenge to overcome but didn't detract from the overall experience. Well made, intuitive and easy enough to fit into a hand made music box. Hands down the best Valentines gift my partner had ever received!

J’ai été séduit par le concept, et pas déçu ! Nous avons passé 1 heure avec mon fils à composer chacun notre morceau... Ca marche vraiment bien, et c’est excellent pour la pédagogie musicale ! A recommander aux musiciens en herbe (en revanche : non musiciens, s’absetenir, des bases musicales sont nécessaires)

Ich habe dieses Produkt als Zeitvertreib gekauft. Persönlich habe ich keine musikalische Erfahrung, aber zur Rumprobieren schien es mir ansprechend. Nach ein paar Versuchen kam ich zum folgenden Schluss: Positives: - Die Papierstreifen für die Noten sind wunderbar. Die Darstellung mit Notenlinien macht die Übertragung von Noten ein Kinderspiel. - Es liegen Schrauben mit Kreuzkopf dabei, falls man die Spieluhr irgendwo anbringen möchte. Neutral: - Das beigelegte Anleitung ist nur in englisch und französisch. Es gibt keine deutsche Anleitung. - Die mitgelieferten Streifen sind etwas aufgerollt. Sie sind daher etwas unhandlicher beim Stanzen und Abspielen. - Der mitgelieferte "Birthday Song"-Streifen scheint etwas verändert zu sein. Das Anfang und Ende klingt anders, aber der Mittelteil ist was man erwartet. > Achtung: Die Uhr kann keine Noten spielen, die nebeneinander gestanzt sind. Noten müssen bei gleicher Tonlage eine Achtelnote voneinander entfernt sein. Ansonsten werden sie übersprungen. Am Ende bin ich zufrieden mit dem Produkt. Das Problem mit dem Nichtspielen nebeneinander gestanzter Noten ist zwar ärgerlich, aber technisch unvermeidlich. Aber für einem Einstieg ins Selbstkomponieren von Spieluhren finde ich es absolut ausreichend. (Zum Einstieg eignet sich das Video "How to program a Music Box" vom Youtuber Wintergatan)

L’ho comprato per un amico e non nascondo che prima di regalarlo…diciamo che ci ho giocato un po’ 😁…ero scettico ma è perfettamente funzionante e molto semplice e divertente…regalo piaciuto molto

Muy buen producto, le realicé una melodía especial a mi novio. Si no tienes conocimientos de música es un poco complejo entenderle al inicio. Hay que pasar las partiruras a Do mayor (pueden usar la versión de prueba de musescore, muy buena app con la que puedes convertir las partiruras).

I bought this for my husband as a birthday gift and tried to punch in "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas, as well as "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica....he couldn't even guess the songs (hahaha)... but regardless, the sound that did come out was very crisp and clear. The product itself is nicely build (felt nice and solid) and the music strips that came with it was nice and thick. I would maybe go for simpler songs since it's quite hard to get sharps and flats (if that's even possible, but I knew that when I bought it). Also, it only can do one octave (so no concerto pieces lol).