Act II · the tune picker
Punch your own song strip
Choose an air, a case, a comb and a lid scene. The strip punches itself as you go, the price follows, and Odile pins your cylinder from exactly that strip.
Ode to Joy · Pewter Grand · 18 notes · Winter fair
№ 7 · Ode to Joy · song strip
Your box, pinned and tuned
£118
Ready in about three weeks · free UK delivery over £150
Running order
From your strip to a singing box
- Week 1Arrangement — Odile fits your air to the comb and emails you a short recording.
- Week 2Pinning — each hole on the strip becomes a steel pin set into the brass cylinder.
- Week 3Tuning — the comb is voiced tooth by tooth and the box plays itself in 50 times.
- CurtainPosting — wrapped in a printed playbill with the strip itself tucked inside the lid.
The prompt book
Questions about custom airs
Can any song become a music-box tune?
Almost any melody works. We trim it to the 20–40 seconds a cylinder holds and choose the most singable passage. For songs still in copyright we arrange a short private keepsake only.
What do I send you?
A title is enough for well-known tunes. For a family song, a phone recording of someone humming it is perfect — that is how most of our favourite commissions arrived.
Can I hear it before it is pinned?
Yes. After week one you get a recording of the arrangement on a test comb. Nothing is pinned, and nothing is charged for the arrangement, until you say it sounds right.
Can a cylinder be repinned later?
A new Repinned Cylinder for any of our 36-note boxes is £85, and it swaps in with two screws — so a christening box can learn a wedding waltz twenty years on.