Turn a Kid's Toy Into a Real MIDI Instrument

The purpose of most kid's toys, aside from providing entertainment, is to help them better understand the world. That is why toys for infants are toddlers are simple shapes and colors. When they get a little bit older, they develop a desire to emulate adults. So you get toy kitchen sets, lawnmowers, and instruments. Toy instruments are cheap and don't do much more than make a sound when a kid presses a button. But they look pretty cool and Jason Webb's tutorial will show you how to convert those toys into real MIDI instruments.

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard for electronic music. It includes connectors, communications protocols, and interfaces. Thanks to this standard, you can plug any MIDI instrument, like a keyboard, into any MIDI synthesizer or computer and it will work. The MIDI instrument sends data describing each note and it is up to the synthesizer or computer to decide what sound to play. This means that a MIDI keyboard could sound like a piano, or guitar, or trombone—or all three. This conversion process results in a MIDI instrument that you can use with software to produce electronic music.

To follow along with Webb's guide you will need a toy instrument. Those are easy to find at any thrift store and the only requirement is that it have electronic buttons. It is a good idea to start with a model that has less than a dozen buttons, for the sake of simplicity. After cracking open the case, you need to follow the button traces and find a place to attach wires to each. You can then connect those to a microcontroller development board. Webb used a Teensy++ 2.0 board, because it can easily emulate a MIDI device.

Webb provides instructions on how to connect your wires and how to flash and configure the necessary code. From there, you can connect the Teensy to your computer via USB and it should work with whatever MIDI software you want to use, including both free and professional programs.