The Main Drum Machine

Hello here today in this post is my work so far on creating this final piece, and sadly things have not been going very well.

In short, the main drum machine works nearly perfectly every time but sadly trying to keep the two in time with each other is proving very difficult due to all manner of things such as marble speed, velocity, motor speed, whether the elevator will pick up the marbles properly and not drop them etc. etc.

There was a lot which went into trying to make this piece of the machine (the main blooming piece!) work but it seems that I am going to have to go with my Plan B option.

This plan B option is that I myself will play drums and have the machine/marble run pieces working around me whilst I play.

There are a lot of benefits to myself playing this part of the music as being a drummer, I can mentally keep the beat and adjust should it need it, I can alter and change the beat to make it more interesting and also I can have direct control over how the piece works and moves from one instrument to the other in time.

This seems a very easy transition but the amount of work that has gone into this main piece is making it very upsetting to just dismantle it all and recycle it for other pieces. It's lucky I can recycle it in the first place otherwise this would be much much harder!

The worst part of all of this however has to be that I have wasted precious time I needed to make this piece properly before my Grandparents are back so fingers crossed I can advance quickly and get back on track. :)

Never the less it's all a learning curve and I've learnt a lot from just this hiccup so I am ready to move on tomorrow and get back up to speed with it all.

Before I move on however, here are some photos of the piece before it was dismantled (and also my sleepy helper Eden Peskett who agreed to help then fell asleep under the table bless her!).

I did have a video explaining how the pieces worked but unfortunately it will not upload due to being a uncommon file format so instead I will explain now what happens with this piece of the machine.

Basically, a marble is released down a cardboard tube (not seen in these pictures but it was by the Tom Drum) at the back to turn on the Tom and Snare's elevator motor. Once this is turned on the marbles start going round and as the elevator turns, one of the marble holders has a piece of string attached to it.

This piece of string is attached at the other end to a piece of card which, once the marble run has pulled the string tight enough, moves out of the way as the marble run pulls it and releases a ball bearing down the run to hit on the CD player.

Meanwhile, I hadn't sorted out how to turn on the Hi-Hat machine but the motor simply lifted up the marbles to drop onto the Hi-Hats and then they were caught by a small hammock type piece which stopped them missing the run and then went down the run back to the bottom of the elevator to repeat the process.

As you can tell, it took a lot to get this machine working but onwards and upwards as they say so check back soon to see how the project is carrying on. :)

Take care,

Joe.