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.

I absolutely loved this product. Perfect for the gift I wanted it for, and was probably the best gift I’ve ever given. Easy to use if you can write or transfer sheet music, and if not you can follow tutorials on YouTube like I did. Would definitely recommend!

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!

Lovely sound and build quality, and very enjoyable to use. Unfortunately, it is not in the key listed in the images on the listing, or in the instructions in the box. It isn't in the key of C, and is rather in Ab. This has unfortunately made it useless for the specific project I bought it for. A shame that it has been advertised and labelled incorrectly, as it is a lovely and sweet product in its own right.

Brilliant! Very easy to use with clear instructions. I got this so I could study how it works and then build my own version of a wurlitzer... as you do. This music makes a lovely sound and comes with a pre punched music sheet ready to play out of the box as well as spares. To make the sound louder, just place it on a table, box, tin... (acts as a sound resonator /amplifier).

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.

A good novelty present for those who like Music Box sounds and composing their own music. A little fidgety to operate but great fun. No doubt there will be more expensive and better models on the market, but in the final analysis, you get what you pay for.

It sounds cute, but it's awfully flimsy, and comes with too little to make music with. It doesn't have very many notes either.

If any of you have tried to make a custom music movement before, you know how time consuming/expensive it can be! I didn't know how well this thing would work, but I figured it would be much cheaper and easier to do, and I was right! Actually, it works very smoothly and sounds beautiful. The hand crank can be a little annoying, but once you mount it (wood works best for amplifying the sound), it's not half bad! But let me also give you a cheat if you don't want to waste time fixing errors on your punching and trying to figure out what it will all sound like when you're finished: There's this WONDERFUL app I found called: "Music Box Composer" for Android and Google. It sucks they don't have it for PC because that would be SO much easier to work, but my boyfriend has an Android phone and I stole it from him to find this app. It is an exact replica (on the 15 note setting) of your music strips! You can move the notes around easily and play the song through your phone until you are content with how it sounds. Then you can easily copy the note placement from your phone to your music strip using the hole punch without making unnecessary mistakes. I'm so glad I found both this contraption as well as the app, and I look forward to buying more for my friends to enjoy! :)

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).