The character arc of Martin Molin
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 24 January 1983 and raised at Kronoparken in Karlstad, Sweden. Between then and now sit music studied at a songwriters' academy, a group co-founded with his brother in 2005 and disbanded in 2010, the band Wintergatan formed in 2011, more than fourteen months spent building an instrument of three thousand components, a video released in 2016 that has been watched over 270 million times, years of building its successor in public, the abandonment of that machine, a third design begun on 2 March 2022, and a move home to Sweden in April 2022. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Martin Molin?
Six years on the machine, and he scrapped it.
He grew up at Kronoparken in Karlstad and studied music at a songwriters' academy in northern Sweden. In 2005 he and his brother started a group after he heard a piece by the French composer Yann Tiersen, and it ran until 2010. In 2011 he formed the band Wintergatan with three others.
What made his name was not a song. After a visit to a museum of automatic music machines he set about building one himself: a marble machine, three thousand components, two thousand metal marbles falling through it to play a tune. It took over fourteen months. He released a video of it in 2016, and by September 2025 it had been watched more than two hundred and seventy million times, which makes it one of the most seen pieces of music-making ever posted.
Then came the hard part, and he filmed all of it. He began a bigger, more robust version, meant to be recorded with and taken on a world tour, and documented the build week by week on the same channel, for years, in public. Engineering problems piled up. Eventually he abandoned the project altogether, and on 2 March 2022 he started designing a third machine from scratch, livestreaming the whole computer-aided design process. A month and a half later he moved back from France to Sweden. Almost nobody films the years when a project is failing. He did, every week, and that record is the most useful thing on the whole line.
The moments
Martin Molin's timeline.
The 1980s
Born in Karlstad
Everyday. A housing estate in Karlstad, which is where the workshop habit started.
The 2000s
A songwriters' academy
Milestone. A school for writing songs, which is not where most engineers begin.
A band with his brother
Milestone, and it changed his direction. One piece of music heard, and a band started because of it.
The 2010s
Wintergatan
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A second band, after the first one ended.
Fourteen months of building
Milestone, and it changed everything. Three thousand parts, two thousand marbles, and over a year of evenings.
The video
Milestone, and it changed everything. One video of one machine, and a quarter of a billion people watched it.
Building the next one in public
Milestone, and it changed everything. Every week, on camera, for years, showing the parts that did not work.
The 2020s
A second channel
Milestone. He tried a different way of showing the work, and then changed back.
Finish it, or start again
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: scrap it and redesign, taken, or push it over the line. He began the third design the same day and livestreamed the whole process.
He abandons the machine
Setback, and it changed everything. Years of work, given up in public, and a blank screen started the same day.
Home to Sweden
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The French workshop closed, and he went home to start again.
The workshop has moved twice and the third machine is still being drawn. What it has set moving is rarer than the invention: hundreds of thousands of people watched somebody spend years on something, fail at it, say so plainly, and start again, which is the part of making that almost nobody shows.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His has years of a project going wrong filmed and published, week by week. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Martin Molin: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Martin Molin's character arc?
What is Martin Molin's Marble Machine?
Why did Martin Molin abandon the Marble Machine X?
What bands has Martin Molin been in?
How popular is Martin Molin's marble machine video?
Where does Martin Molin work?
Where does this timeline of Martin Molin's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Martin Molin, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Wintergatan channel records for the Marble Machine video and build series.
- Speelklok Museum, the collection that prompted the first machine.