Musicmachine 3 by MB&F and Reuge

MB&F and Reuge celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2015 with the motto "a creative adult is a child who survived." One film that children (and many adults) of all ages love is Star Wars, and who could forget the frantic swarms of the Imperial fleet's TIE fighters as they battle the Alliance? The TIE fighter-inspired MusicMachine 3 (MM3) is proof positive that both the child and the Force are still going strong within MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser — who was 10 years old when he first saw Star Wars in 1977. MM3 may appear to come from a galaxy far, far away in the future; however, its origins are much older and much closer to home. MusicMachine 3 features all of the traditional elements of a beautifully arranged, high-end mechanical music box, developed and crafted according to MB&F's design by Reuge, the Swiss music box manufacturer with 150 years of expertise and experience.

While MusicMachine 3 may look as though it is more at home darting around in the silent vacuum of space, it is in the sound-propagating, air-rich atmosphere of Earth in which MM3 really displays its mettle. Those lattice-like vertical wings support and protect the dual music cylinders, each playing three melodies: the theme tunes from Star Wars, Mission Impossible, and James Bond on the right and The Godfather, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, and The Persuaders on the left. Those side wings also play a vital role in propagating sound vibrations down from the combs to the naturally amplifying resonant base, manufactured by JMC Lutherie. The music in MusicMachine 3 is powered by two independent movements mounted on the two tail sections. Each movement has its own winding key (disguised as thrusters), a mainspring barrel, horizontal cylinder with pins, and comb with hand-tuned teeth sounding each note. The cylinders play three melodies each. An air regulator in the form of a circular fan (resembling a rotating radar dish) governs the unwinding speed/music tempo of each cylinder.

To ensure the lateral symmetry of MM3, Reuge broke with music box convention to configure the two movements as mirror images of one another. This required a complete inversion of the design of the movement components and the movement architecture so that one cylinder rotates clockwise and the other counterclockwise. MusicMachine 3 doesn't just look as though it has flown in from a more advanced civilization, it sounds like it as well. The majority of music boxes amplify sound through their wooden cases, much like guitars and violins do. MM3 is carefully designed to transmit the musical vibrations from the combs down through the two vertical side wings to its resonance base. This natural timber amplifier was developed by Jeanmichel Capt of JMC Lutherie, based in the Vallée de Joux, in the heart of Switzerland's horological landscape.