I’ve definitely ironed out some mechanical issues I was having in music box tape making, and made a couple 30 note tracks I’m really pleased with:
I’m also though trying out making pretty short and loopable ones back on the 15-note box; sounding something like a mini box with cylinder you might buy.
These are a lot quicker to make, obviously because they’re shorter and lesser in scope, but also specifically because it’s 15 notes all the diatonic ones of 2 octaves, it’s not too hard to write notes straight on and get a feel for where the notes are. (The 30 note box has a wider range with some chromatics, but only a few notes, all the chromatics in the middle, only tones towards the top etc — so it’s hard to glance at the grid and appreciate where a note might be. Though I’m sure you can learn it too…) But yeah, even though the tone of the bigger box is… mwah, beautiful… the smaller one is actually still very sweet and idiomatic and we can do things with it.