3D-Printed Music Box Is Playing Your Song

You have a favorite pop song or a little tune stuck in your head? Well now you can have it forever by your side, and for free.

Left Field Labs has a new service that lets you create a small music box, called Music Drop, via 3D printing. You create a tune by manually arranging notes on a 14x16 grid that has a range of seemingly two octaves that goes on for 16 beats. You then choose either a red, blue or purple color scheme and receive the Music Drop that plays the tune for free.

The music box itself uses simple mechanics including a crank, like old music boxes or clocks, to generate the sounds. It has a bulbous shape to help amplify the sound back toward you while you play it.

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The tricky part is coming up with your own song. There's a gallery of hundreds of songs from other users that will help you compose that tune in your head or give you an idea of how to recreate the notes of your favorite song in the note grid. These series of beats will then be translated into the little nubs on the disc inside the music box, which flick at metal bars to play each note.

You have to register with the Music Drop site to create your own music box. You can save any number of songs to your account, but Left Field Labs will send you only one free Music Drop.

Left Field Labs is a digital creative agency and originally created the Music Drop for a client. The company then decided to bring the concept to the public.

Source: Left Field Labs via 3Ders

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Kelly Ohannessian is a freelance writer and editor. With more than 15 years of experience, she works with a focus on covering the creative aspects of the gaming industry. Her articles have appeared on Medium, Fast Company, Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Gamespot, and many more. Currently, she works as a manager at Brooklyn Game Lab.