Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter
91 comments
·November 12, 2025mttch
This is great, i’d kickstart it, my 5 year old would love it.
yzydserd
I was too fascinated by the different thumb nail lengths to concentrate much on the video.
random_moonwalk
I trained as a classical guitarist, so I maintain some longer nails on my right hand :)
giancarlostoro
Would love something like this for my daughter, but with a max volume option she can't tamper with LOL
solfox
Looks amazing! Reminds me of a funny reddit thread about a man who built a fiber optic star ceiling for his daughter. The top comment was "First child?". :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/8g8pce/fiberoptic_star...
Brajeshwar
And then the things you do to redeem your guilt for the second child is a whole interesting area.
random_moonwalk
That's what the drum machine module is for.
gwbas1c
Don't assume: Could be an only child, or the spouse is stay-at-home, or the author has family wealth and doesn't need a full time job.
giancarlostoro
or literally none of those options
fainpul
> A 3D-printed enclosure is fine for a prototype, but a real product likely needs injection-molded parts, which require expensive tooling.
For kid-friendly toys, yes. But for older users not necessarily:
NoSalt
How are these, are they worth the money? I have seen these before, but thought they might be crappy "jokes". However, if they are decent, I would love to play around with them.
mlyle
They -are- decent modular chunks. They have a bit of opinion pushing you in certain directions as far as sound goes.
Each one does a pretty limited set of things and combining them can be annoying.
But you get a lot for the money you spend on them.
mock-possum
It’s pretty capable hardware, but in my personal opinion the UI sucks. It falls into the category of “why did you make this hard on purpose” and I resent it.
elric
Wood is also pretty child friendly.
But neither injection molding nor carpentry will protect a synth from a child dunking it in a puddle of water.
analog31
That's what backing up the design is for. ;-)
speedgoose
I have two of those. They are great additions to my drawers.
One has a silicon case and is nicer to use though.
NoSalt
You say "they are great additions to my drawers". Is that because they suck, or is it that you don't have the time to enjoy them? (which I totally understand) I have seen these before and didn't know if they were worth the money. What is your opinion on them?
PaulHoule
Kinda funny but my adult son has taken an interest in guitars and keyboard and that has me working on MIDI routers with AVR-8 and building an ESP32 based synth module.
woolion
Were you aware of the Dato Duo (https://dato.mu/)? It's very cool for kids, except for the fairly steep price point.
The advantage is that it's limited, so it greatly reduces the wall of difficulty to manage to get some 'nice-sounding' music (mostly the restriction to the pentatonic scale). However, kids still manage to find the most horrible-sounding settings, and insist on keeping them as is...
afandian
Amazing the things we do for our little ones. I built a toddler-friendly keyboard for my son. He's still playing some form of piano 6 years later, no longer with his fists.
helsontaveras18
Wow, what an amazing demo for such a simple synth. Great work! If you ever start a Kickstarter, I’d be happy to donate. If it inspires some kid out there to get into music production, it’s a win for me :)
BigTTYGothGF
The traditional approach is you give noisemaking toys to your niblings, not your own children.
random_moonwalk
This sounds like a lesson I’m going to be learning the hard way
NoSalt
This is absolutely FANTASTIC, and I am humbled by your mad skillz!
My son and I are also fascinated by the sweet, sweet synth sound, but as I have no discernible talent, we went this route:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Nts1Mk2--korg-nutekt...
Which, unfortunately, has a HUGE learning curve in terms of operation.
What I love about this is how physical it is. So yeah, there's some board running DSP. but the design is amazing. It really relates to some recent posts also in HN about many objects loosing their physical UX. from an age of having buttons and tactical interfaces, everything became more touch based / app based which indeed cut price and allows easier updating. but also lacks some romance which is exactly what this device shows.