I’ve collected toy synthesizers and toy wood pianos over the years, and occasionally brought them to gigs to use as solo instruments, but for the most part they lived in a drawer in my studio, making an appearance now and then to be used. I always wanted to put them all together, using a common power source, and to have them in a portable form to take them wherever I want. The result was the Toybox Synthesizer.
First I started by trying different layouts for the keyboards and mixer to better understand how I should put them together.
The above two photos revealed that my ‘church organ’ layout would be too deep an high. I eventually measured out my Korg M50 (88 key) keyboard body and drew up a layout with keyboards on either side of the mixer. In the end, the measurements were similar to the M50 just narrower – 4 foot width which worked really well on an A frame keyboard stand.
Next, get the wood pieces cut and put them together.
Then, like with car customization, I placed all the pieces in place to see how they all laid out.
Then began the verathane application to add some rigidity to the plywood and protect it from minor dings when moving it about.
Sanded, body filler, etc. done, I then spray painted the case.
Then it was time to start laying everything out on the painted case.
Mounting in the stereo 1/4″ jacks and power plug as well as power bar inside went in.
Then, finishing up by wiring up all the keyboards with power and audio cables into the mixer and then out to the 1/4″ jacks.
And plugging it in and trying it out.
Last but not least, painting the keyboard label on the body.
Final component list:
Realistic Concertmate 300 (Casio PT-1)
Casio SA-1 (circuit bent)
Realistic Concertmate 800 (Casio SK-8)
Korg Monotron
Nintendo DSi with Korg DS-10 +
Location and connection for iPod touch for music software
Behringer Xenyx 1204FX mixer (with effects)
