MB&F releases Music Machine 1 Reloaded, a music box featuring songs from Star Trek and Star Wars

In 2013, MB&F collaborated for the first time with music box maker Reuge to release the Music Machine 1.

This new chapter in MB&F's collaboration with external creators beyond the scope of watches sparked a small revolution in the world of watches. Now, nearly 10 years later, Maximilian Büsser and Friends have updated this music box and released it as the Music Machine 1 Reloaded.

Like its predecessor, this is the result of a collaboration between MB&F and Reuge, a world-renowned manufacturer of luxury music boxes with a 155-year history.

A special music box that plays a total of six songs selected by Maximilian Büsser

　The previous Music Machine 1 was designed by young Chinese designer Xin Wang, while the Music Machine 1 Reloaded was designed by German designer Maximilian Martens. It features a streamlined, open exterior. The entire spaceship-like body is made of aluminum oxide (rather than wood, as in the previous model), and the manufacturing process is more complex.

Star Trek and Star Wars music plays

　Music Machine 1 Reloaded not only looks like a spaceship straight out of a sci-fi movie, but also plays discreet melodies from that genre. It features two music box mechanisms, and the left cylinder plays three songs: the Star Trek theme by Jerry Goldsmith, the Star Wars main title by film music maestro John Williams, and "The Imperial March" from "The Empire Strikes Back."

　MB&F goes beyond the realm of science fiction. Compared to other luxury watch brands, their creations are bold and iconoclastic. Their rock attitude is symbolized by the three melodies that flow from the right cylinder: John Lennon's "Imagine," a eulogy for peace; Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water," with its brilliant riff; and Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall," with its memorable social message.

　When selecting the songs for "Music Machine 1," Maximilian Büsser dug deep into his youthful memories, which, as he said at the time, was no easy task: "Besides the sci-fi theme, I wanted to include three songs that had a strong influence on me before I was 20. It was a real challenge to choose only three songs from such a long list. These were my first collaborations and periods that are strongly associated with my youth and childhood."

　And even though time has passed, his reasons for his choices haven't changed much: "I still have the desire to create things that I would want to own. I simply wanted to listen to the theme songs of Star Trek and Star Wars, since I worked in a movie theater when I was young. I also thought Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" was very cool. It was really fun to ask the traditional Reuge workshop to create a music box with Deep Purple."

Requires perfectly symmetrical structure

　The Music Machine 1 Reloaded is equipped with two movements, a winding lever, a barrel, a regulator, a cylinder with a pin that plays three tunes, and hand-tuned oscillating valves.

　It would have been much easier to create two identical movements with only the melody changed, but MB&F demanded a perfectly symmetrical construction, so Reuge took the unprecedented step of creating two mirror-image movements, completely reversing the movement's construction and design.

　On both sides of the hull structure are comb-like vibrating valves, each of which plucks 72 notes carefully selected by the luge craftsman, producing three melodies each.

　The vibrating valves are made from a special steel alloy with excellent acoustic properties and are hand-tuned. The bass notes are weighted using the traditional method of adding lead to the back of the tines. A machine then checks the frequency of each tine and gradually removes the lead to achieve the correct pitch. The tools used for this process are Reuge's own in-house developed.

　To recreate a melody in Reuge, the workshop's music specialist first studies the melody and identifies its most representative part. Then, this is applied to the music box, with 72 pins on each cylinder vibrating 72 notes on the vibrating valves. One box plays three sci-fi pieces, and the other plays three rock pieces.

　The careful construction of these arrangements for these two sets of three pieces—some appearing in all three pieces, others in only one—within a time limit of approximately 35 seconds each, is a remarkable technical and artistic exploration, surpassing any computer in intelligence, expressiveness, and ability to elicit emotions from musicians.

　A transparent artificial feather is attached behind the bass tine to cushion the impact and ensure the tone resonates perfectly. Finally, the oscillating valve is fastened to a brass "diaphragm" that penetrates the body with six blued screws. This plate transmits the sound to the case, further amplifying it. Once the oscillating valve is installed, a music engineer listens to it and makes final adjustments.

Cylinders handcrafted by artisans

　The hand-finished cylinder resembles a jet engine attached to the fuselage of an aircraft. Approximately 1400 pins are meticulously attached, and as the cylinder rotates, the teeth of the vibrating valve vibrate.

　Each pin is precisely positioned by a luge craftsman, then individually sanded and polished, and finally, hot resin is poured into the cylinder and allowed to harden, securing the pins in place and optimizing the tone.

　After each song is played, the cylinder moves slightly along its longitudinal axis to align the pins and teeth for the next song. Each song lasts approximately 35 seconds, which corresponds to one rotation of the cylinder. The cylinder is connected to the barrel at the rear of the watch via a gear train.

　On either side of the propeller-shaped winding lever are vertical disks. They resemble radar parabolic antennas and are the cylinder's speed regulator. When the barrel spring is fully wound, it tends to rotate the cylinder faster than when it is unwound. To compensate for this, a regulator uses air resistance to increase resistance when the rotation is fast and decrease resistance when the rotation is slow, thereby keeping the speed constant.

　Made from red, blue, and black aluminum oxide, Music Machine 1 Reloaded's sound is amplified by an internal brass diaphragm, which transmits vibrations to curved sides and an external aluminum oxide landing sled, which transmits the vibrations to the Machine's platform.

　The new "Unidentified Flying Object" music box is limited to 33 pieces in each of three colors. The music boxes are currently being delivered to retailers, with some available on the brand's e-shop.