Music box strip maker

What it makes

A punched music strip for a hand-crank paper-strip music box movement. The SVG is drawn in millimetres with red cut circles for every hole at the movement's hole diameter, a red cut outline with a tapered lead-in, blue score lines for the note lines and beats, and piece numbers and a feed arrow engraved as vector strokes. Long tunes are split into pieces that fit the chosen bed (600 × 305 mm xTool P2 by default), each with a join tab that glues under the next piece. The PDF is the same strip at 1:1, tiled across Letter or A4 pages with hatched overlaps and a 50 mm check square, for printing on card and punching by hand.

How to use it

1. Pick the 15, 20 or 30-note movement and compare its note list, strip width and line spacing with the chart that came with it; edit any value that differs.
2. Load a demo tune, tap holes into the piano roll, paste text notation such as C5/4 D5/8, or import a MIDI file and read the import report.
3. Press Play to hear it and watch the strip scroll past the comb.
4. Work through the Checks: fix repeats closer than the minimum re-strike spacing, holes near the edge and notes off the comb.
5. Download the SVG for the laser (red cut, blue score, black engrave), or the PDF to print at 100% and punch by hand.
6. Join pieces by gluing each tab under the next piece, then feed the arrow end into the movement first.

Build notes

• Movement layouts vary between makers; the presets are the best-known ones, so cut a short test strip before a long tune.
• Beats are quarter notes; each beat uses the movement's travel per beat of strip, and hole positions only mark when each note starts.
• The minimum repeat spacing (7.5 mm by default) is a rule of thumb; raise it if repeated notes buzz or skip on your movement.
• Card between about 160 and 250 gsm works for most movements; thicker card may not feed.
• Works fully offline once opened; nothing is fetched.