From Toys to Tools

What I once thought were toys, I no longer do.

For a long time, I associated small keyboards with novelty. Cheap. Limited. Something meant for beginners or kids—certainly not serious instruments. As someone whose professional life revolves around teaching piano, that bias came naturally.

Small keyboards usually meant compromised action. Narrower keys. Shorter key length. Less room for proper hand position. Play a simple C major chord and everything feels fine. Move to an F-sharp major chord and suddenly your fingers are colliding with the tops of the keys.

In my mind, that settled it: small keyboards were toys.

At least, that was my thinking before I started getting into synthesizers.

An Uninformed Opinion

At the time, I wasn’t particularly interested in synths, so my opinion was uninformed. I was judging these instruments by piano-centric standards—imagining them as tools for playing Beethoven sonatas rather than what they were actually designed for.

Once I understood that many of these keyboards weren’t built for classical repertoire—but instead for sound design, bass lines, lead parts, pads, and sequencing—everything changed.

Context matters.

The First Shift

My first smaller keyboard was the Arturia MiniBrute 2. While it only has a two-octave keyboard, the keys themselves are essentially full-sized. And of course, octave up/down buttons extend the range far beyond what’s physically there.

Then came the Korg Minilogue. Its keys are narrower, but longer, and for my hands they actually felt better than expected. Those mini keys fit me surprisingly well.

At that point, I stopped comparing these instruments to large performance keyboards like the Yamaha Montage or Roland Fantom. I started judging them on their own terms.

Space, Sound, and Perspective

As more compact keyboards entered my studio, I noticed a few things:

• They took up far less space
  
• They sounded excellent
  
• They looked fantastic
  

And most importantly, they did exactly what they were designed to do.

Lately, there’s been a clear trend among manufacturers: mini versions of flagship synths.

Modal released the Cobalt 8, followed by the mini-key Cobalt 5S.
ASM did the same with the Hydrasynth, introducing the Hydrasynth Explorer.
Arturia followed suit with the AstroLab 37, a compact counterpart to the larger AstroLab models.

These aren’t “cheap” instruments by any stretch—most land in the $500–$1000 CAD range—but they offer a genuine entry point into a synth’s sound and workflow at a reduced cost and footprint.

The ones I own, I genuinely enjoy.

What About the “Actual” Toys?

Then there are devices that really look like toys—things like the Korg Volcas.

I have four of them.

And while I’ll freely admit I don’t yet have the skill to use them to their full potential, I’ve heard what people who do know what they’re doing can achieve with them. In the right hands, they’re anything but toys.

Rethinking the Label

I’m sure I’m not alone in having once viewed smaller or less expensive instruments as novelties. Looking back, that judgment was misguided.

If size and price are the only criteria, then everything becomes a toy when compared to something like the now-discontinued Moog One.

I’ve since realized that tools don’t scale linearly with price or dimensions.

In the right hands, even a pair of salad spoons can become a musical instrument.

So while it’s still tempting at times, I’m far less likely now to judge a piece of gear by its size or price tag. What matters is what it’s designed to do—and how it’s used.

And that’s a much more interesting way to look at things.