The £19.99 Lidl Synthesizer Is it any good and can we make music with it? 

A lot of people dont realize the big synth sound you can achieve by putting a few fx pedals on those keyboard tones. good vid!

If it will encourage kids or anyone to play and make music it's got to be worth 20 quid. These days basic recorders are this price in proper music shops - if you're lucky enough to have one that is - this little keyboard might lead someone to a grand piano one day. Thank you for posting this video and being positive despite the budget price

Poor parents who dont realise theres no headphone socket hahaa😂

I expected a truly cheesy keyboard, but your piece at the end shows that even a cheap piece of kit like this can produce something worthy of a soundtrack for a scene in a TBV Series or Film in the right hands. Well done, mate.

I work at Lidl and we’ve just got these in to my store. Was really intrigued to find out how these sounded and played.

You know you're still just starting on your musical journey when you realize a random person on RU-vid can make a better song in a $30 grocery store keyboard than I can on on my $800 Yamaha MX61. 😢

I love that it's called "Sheffield" - Northern home of electronic music! The naming puts me in mind of Look Around You's Bournemouth computer.. That piece of music is lovely, and wouldn't have been out of place on many early 80s electronica albums Nice video, thank you :-)

Last Christmas we were visited by a family from the Netherlands with a 8 yo girl. She was bored so I took her apart to my Yamaha DGX-640 and let her play with it. After one hour she was still playing (kind of). A product like this is ideal for children to start enjoy making music. If it does not work out it is no financial disaster...

Absolute genius Matthew! A thoroughly engaging video with the piece at the end being the icing on the synthy cake. Fabulous! Also - “the Clangers”!

Really Impressive! Art Of Noise would have saved a lot of money in equipment at that time. Lol

That was awesome! With the simple addition of an output jack, you transformed it from a toy into an actual tool :)

As someone with little knowledge of electronics or DAWs, I salute your skill, knowledge and ability.

Wonderful video. Makes me happy that there are blokes like you out there doing this. Reminds me of growing up in Mossley, Ashton Under Lyne etc... I am looking forward and recording the voices of now and wondering where it all went wrong.

Be great to see more manufacturers create more of these little beauties. Synths usually cost a fortune, but Lidl have proved I think that you can make something affordable, especially for the younger generation's. Hat's off to the little Sheffield !!! 😊

This randomly was recommended to me RU-vid is pushing your video through the algorithm and so it should be a very refreshing review I hope you keep this content going

Dude. This is awesome. So many commenters get this is a 30 dollar keyboard apparently and expect way too much from it and you. This is designed for kids and beginners, and because of the it wont be made of metal, have midi ins and out, and the features youd find in something that cost ten of these. Anything can be made to be usuable if youre creative enough. Every sound as a place. You can add effects or other things once you add an output. Which i have done on a ton of cheap kids keyboards and childrens toys. I have analog, digital synths, and samplers but if i want something a little different and unique these kinds of things with some minor tweaks can be good sounding instruments. I believe anyone can get a sound they like out of something if they spend enough time with a piece of gear. Price doesnt matter. If it sounds a little flat you can always add things and fx. Its basic. Its features are also basic. I feel these people complaining are either insanely spoiled or entitled. Maybe even lack the creativity to get a good sound out of something like this. With sound almost nothing is impossible. If youre musical and brain activity is limited then yeah you will probably hate it. I hate my one and only volca (an fm) but ive managed to use it in all sorts of stuff and tweak it to my liking. Literally anything that puts out sound can be used productively and sound good if you put the effort in. I get the feeling some of the "musicians" dont like effort. Best things in life is the reward you get struggling.

Great video and very inspiring for anyone who thinks they need expensive plugins or synths to make music. Thank you for sharing :)

Best thing I've watched on RU-vid for a long time - hooked from the beginning from the end, and as the music came together I was cracking the biggest smile! Very Art of Noise - liked and subscribed - thank you Matthew

What an interesting video! And your composition at the end was amazing! I actually picked up one of these keyboards the other day in my local Lidl. I gave the box a once over and put it back with a sneer. For £19.99 I reckoned it would sound like a Stylophone. Shame on me!

That was really impressive. Thank you so much for your efforts, showing the potential of this tiny mighty giant from Lidl's.

Love the way you use your new composition as the outro!!

Thanks for this sound journey. Worth to watch every second.

Definitely worth the price. Although the headphone upgrade is almost mandatory, to access its full potential. It is a hit-and-miss, but the good ones are really cool indeed. Would have killed to have something like this as a kid. I received my first Casio CTK-200 keyboard at my 13th birthday. It was 1994.

What a bargain! The sounds are really quite decent. Perfect for 80's pop, rock, and electro, hiphop, house and reggae :)

Your Song at the End really touched my heart, you are the magic Lidl-Composer🤩❣

Wonderful. I love this type of hacks... it's possible to make art with what you have; you don't need fancy/expensive stuff if you are creative! This is the first time I stumble into one of your videos... I am subscribing, I am sure you have more cool stuff. Keep up the awesome work! On a side note: LIDL (/Sheffield) never ceases to amaze: a few years ago they also had a DRUM Set .... which has really crappy internal sounds BUT it has even MIDI OUT support... so you can actually use those pads (altough they are very simple, implemented using a piezo, internally... converting the volume of the record noise into velocity...).

Terrific! Thanks, mate! Now I somehow want "Promenade" from "Pictures at an Exhibition" done with the "t52" setting. ❤❤❤

Very very good Matthew. Thank you for that. Most impressive.

Like others below my first, maybe only requirement for something which calls itself a 'synthesiser' is that it should allow the user to create new sounds either by directly working with the oscillators, VCF, VCA and ADSR envelope shaping, or at least by mixing several base sounds (samples and / or waveforms) together in a controlled way to make new sounds - what Roland used to call 'Linear Additive' synthesis. Since this has none of those I think it would be more correct to call it a 'Keyboard'. Thanks for the comprehensive review, but having seen it I would suggest that anyone considering spending £20 on one of these should instead put it towards the purchase of an old Yamaha PSS-795 - although essentially also just a a 'keyboard' that has full MIDI / multitimbral capability plus a built in multitrack recorder, the ability to blend 4 of its normal sounds together via its 'Vector sound' joystick and a pretty hefty sampled drumkit as well. I bought one for exactly the price of this LIDL keyboard a few years back. Of course the difference is that you can just go around the corner and buy one of these (while stocks last?) and you may have to wait a while to find a reasonably priced PSS-795.

I'm impressed. Even though it needs some mods for proper "work" - and a multitrack recorder. But the sounding is absolutely nice. Thanks for sharing !

Never seen any of your videos before but totally loved the Lidl keyboard video. Have now subscribed. Brilliant track! Inspirational. I've recently bought NI64 midi controller and am very slowly learning it.

Hook it up with a Big Sky and you can probably use it to record a full length album

thanks for your review

Love this video absolutely love recording music the mod give me loads of ideas 👍🏻 cheers for this .

Thanks, Matthew, really interesting, and really helpful to see that it isn't too hard to fit a headphone socket etc.

sounds class, plenty of atmosphere

I like the lo-fi sounds this little machine produces. The neat thing is, it reminds me of some of those sounds you hear from early 90s Tracker software. Some of those strings and pads, especially the brass instruments sound synthetic. I think it would make a potential synth if it was patched through a few effects pedals. The drum machine isn't too bad either. Very 80's sounding. Not a bad sounding little toy for what it is. It's definitely a mass produced chassis. Kinda like the Yamaha PSS series, or the Meledi model keyboards you see on the market. Nice review.

BRILLIANT!!! SPOT ON!!! BRavo!!! And congrats on the music piece... WONDERFULLY DONE!!! Blessings!!

SUPERB THANK YOU ❤

Brilliant video, the first one of yours that I have watched. I'll definitely check out the others.

Very nice surprise. Quite a few usable or even good sounds, esp. once you add effects. Even if you don't modify it for jack output, place a pair of mics over the speakers, and you can even have some more 'character' out of it ;)

excellent, fun and learning, thank you, subscribed

Been following you for ages! Glad to see these numbers on your vid!

Really impressed by this, thanks for the demo.

Very much enjoyed this! Great work! 👏🏽

This was a quite brilliant vid mate, thx for it.Very informative.

don't know why this popped up on my feed, but glad it did, shame it didn't have a headphone jack & power option as standard or I would try 1 out.Thanks Matthew.

Would be cool to make a sample pack out of it. Some of the sounds are pretty cool. Nice job on the song too, amazing what you got out of it.

Brilliant Matthew! Particularly worth waiting for the tune you composed!!

Great vid. I think having access to an almost unlimited amount of sounds nowadays, through VSTs etc, has killed creativity. Sometimes limitations fuel invention...keeping it simple makes you concentrate more on the music, than on the sounds alone.

Well this was enjoyable whilst on my treadmill, cheers!

That was good and your compilation sounded great...

Brilliant demo. Many thanks. Mike

The way you toss the instructions to one side (2:45) earned you a sub. :)

Fantastic video, thank you sir.

Woke up this morning expecting WW3 in the feed, got a £20 Lidl synth with a Sisters of Mercy drumbeat built. Very suave, mucho appreciado nuevo amigo 👍

Bought one for my 1 year old grandson. At some point he might upgrade to the large Roland organ I play! It's got some good sounds for £20!

I love it! Last week I bought a Joyo AC TONE (Vox AC30 emulator) pedal in Cash Converters for £21.99. These two would make a fantastic pairing for under forty five quid, especially with the beefy AC30 amp sim drive cranked!

I saw this keyboard before Xmas in my local supermkt .wondered about buying it ,i was put off by the cheap price, as i play guitar and dont like any cheap sound jobs . I was pleasantly suprised at the good sounds you found on there .Loved it .I am not handy with wiring or puting jacks in though ..Im still looking for a keyboard as ive always wanted to play piano .So this is the year i will do .Thank you for the Video Mathew .

I love stumbling on stuff like this. Brilliant pal💯👍

Great sound for the price a take away curry ! Thank you for going through all the sounds they were fun. I see from your T shirt and vids you are a Marrilion fan for that alone you have my sub !

Hi Matthew That was interesting. Thank you.

Great video, and great Dennis the Menace jumper 😂😂

It's a great video ,Matthew. Yes .I'm of the thinking too that you can make anything out of anything ,and this keyboard proves just that. Also there is this philosophy that there is no such thing as a bad sound when its used in a certain context. what I mean is that a sound may sound bad on its own, but when its used in an arrangement and a recording alongside orher stuff ,then its sounds really different and works. keep up the good work

Hey, thanks for showing us this, it’s not bad for the price eh? I think with a bit of creative effects work some decent lo-fi hip hop or synth-wave could be squeezed out of it. Great starter kit for any aspiring bedroom artist, nice one Aldi.

Cool video 😎 Great way to start the day 😁

LOVE yourT-shirt ❤

best shirt ive seen on this platform you now what good music is

Good stuff mate. Sending love and best wishes from your Scottish brother. 🤟😉🤘

Good presentation, & nice bit of music at the end, thx

Wow you sir are a very gifted man. Thank you for the experience.

oh this is really cool!! didn't expect to run into another cakewalk user with an interest in sounds like this, but this is exactly the kind of video I'm interested in!! subscribed :)

Nice video,reminded me of my old Casio Mt keyboard in the early 90s,also my first Yamaha PSR one,I think it was the PSR 4000, certainly good value for just twenty quid!

I've dabbled with composing original tunes and re-creating favourite hits over the years. I love finding sounds and using them as a springboard to make something. I had a Commodore Amiga and that was so good in the 80s/90s for sound synthesizing and track building that people were using it to make records and get charted. You can now do everything 90s computers could do on a £30 single board computer and more. Even then I am impressed with what this £20 keyboard can do. It wasn't that long ago that a keyboard for that price would only be suitable for five year-olds to muck about on. This thing is actually useful. Yes it works better as a tool when plugged into music editing software, but even at the highest level of music making that's what you do anyway. It's just a difference of scale and cost. Surprisingly nice bit of kit. Reminds me that I must make time to flex my atrophied music muscles again this year.

I am loving the Paul Daniels and lovely Debbie McGee signed photo!

That's actually quite a lot of keyboard for a penny under £20. I still can't imagine Mark Kelly adding this to his touring rig. Also, Fugazi, cracking album, and one of my all time favourites.

Really impressed with this, would love to see how you went about composing and producing the tune. I thought it was really impressive and inspiring.

Great video. It would be interesting to see a demo video of how a beginner might use this as a keyboard learning tool, out of the box without any modifications. I’m sure the people at Lidl would share and promote that over this video of how to take apart and modify.

You've proved it to be fantastic value for money...................great analysis.............

Fugazi T-shirt, Sisters mouse mat, Dennis the Menace jumper, had to hit the like even before the tune 🙂 Deffo a nice price for something to noodle about on without the distractions of loading up a DAW & VST's

This is giving me an almost identical vibe to Super Nintendo game soundtracks, especially Japanese RPGs, when in a dungeon.❤

Fantastic, Matt.

love this mate

Lidl Richard will want one.

It reminds me of the Yamaha A-50, at least in the form factor and the fact that its also multi timbral, although this keyboard has more tones. The A-50 also has sustain and if you manage to use an USB MIDI HOST and connect a MIDI keyboard with a mod wheel, you can access the vibrato effect. Very nice composition at the end.

Amazing and impressive.

Really interesting. Great stuff.

Thanks for taking the trouble to do this. The sounds feel very 80s to me - reminds me of late classic Doctor Who music!

Love the pics in your workshop. I once saw an absolute to die for picture in a pub in brighton. It was Nik Nak and Scaramanga as a magic duo. Can't even find that image online.

I guess inexpensive commodity chips pretty much can handle the Creative Labs (Audigy?) soundfont? (The samples sound familiar.) In the 90's you could do this on a budget with one of the Sound Blaster audio cards in a PC handling some MIDI input. But this comes down to less than a 10th of that, and that fraction is likely somewhat smaller if you consider inflation.

Great that he's been able to modify it using a few sockets and plugs. His composition at the end has a quality you would get from a fairlight CMI. Really good!

All over Facebook marketplace for a fiver! Great to get them early sisters "doctor' sounds for the win!

Good interesting video cheers Mathew 🎉

That was an excellent video! Thank you.

I like that!! Well done & Thanks.

Impressive! Subscribed

Great video Matthew!

enjoyed that ! Twin Peaks'esque tune at the end :)

Great tune. Love the Marillion t-shirt.

Halfway the vid i was about to toss the towel and declare it factory made E-waste... but scanning the comments i got curious about the end of the video. Still i cant see anyone doin a live gig with it but as a component synth keyboard to make a multitrack record that did pleasantly surprise me. Well done!