22 thoughts on “Battery-Powered Synth Studio In A Box”

1. Cool! Thanks for featuring it, Synthtopia. I created this project. If anyone has questions, shoot.

   1. Great idea! Inspiring stuff. Keep up the good work.. curious how much battery life you get out a charge? Cheers. D

      1. Well, the battery times vary from device to device. The Joyo pack that’s powering the guitar pedals says it gets up 36 hours but we’ll see about that.

         So far, I’ve put about 8-10 hours on it with still plenty of battery left.

   2. Hey Matt, it’s Darren, from nashvilles synth meet, this thing was pretty cool in person

2. i think its a good idea. in the same respects if these companies made eurorack gear would be a better solution. but considering that is not the reality thus far its a great solution well done.

   if everything dosent eventually go eurorack it could be some kinda suitcase format would be just as cool.

3. This is great to see. I am currently building my mobile battery powered fun station.
   So far
   Bass bot TT-303
   Korg Volca sample
   Roland Jx-03
   Need to add some fx boxes and find a good mixer still
   Any mixer and case recommendations would be appreciated

   1. Novation circuit, Behringer mixer and MXR distortion should be here this week. Now to find a cass

4. Korg Volca sample
   Korg Volca bass
   Korg Volca keys
   iPhone through Korg Monotron delay and Monotron
   http://youtu.be/x6Pqr2MOgaY

5. Great work!
   Seems the Behringer is the only battery powered mixer that is useful for a project such as this. Hopefully there will be more?
   This setup reminds me of the rig I built back in 2001 using Korg Electribes and the first version of the Behringer battery mixer. I put my rig into an old Bass Guitar case and only needed to connect to the house mixer on one channel and one power point.

6. I use zoom r16 recorder as a batterymixer too, plus the benefit of 8track rec in 24bit!
   Could get it for less then 200€

7. Everything can be battery powered. They don’t have to be that out of the box. Modifying things for external battery isn’t that difficult. It just depends either you can find suitable Li-Ion batteries or would have to choose Lead-acid ones which are quite heavy. My recording rig runs on Lead-acid batteries and can last for days.

   1. Everything?

      Can you make me Battery powered?

      1. Especially you

8. Novation XStation, Novation XioSynth are C battery powered & from USB battery charger 5V 2.1A
   Novation Bass Station2 and Roland Aira TB3 from USB battery charger 5V 2.1A

   1. Yep. And bonus: the xstation has two audio inputs and an effects processing. Will not solve all of your mixing or effects needs but it can work well for small setups or extending a packed mixer.

9. Cool! I have been collecting gear to have a portable setup as well.

   So far I have:
   Virus Snow
   Octatrack
   Boss RE-20
   Some DIY noise modules.
   Think that alone could come a long way, a portable mixer with a few sends would be great for some hands on experience… Started to build one for the purpose of being portable for tabletop electronics, but never had time to really develop it.

   Been trying to find a battery that would work for 6V, any ideas are welcome! Maybe there is something for guitarpedals that will led me split one voltage to several types in an elegant way. (6, 9, 12 needed in the end)

10. Rad. My set up is similar. I use the beats, bass and keys with KPMINI on bass and KPMINIs2 on keys. I use a boss looper that has one stereo input, one aux and one xlr. That’s my mix down. All goes out to Zoom R8 and I have (now) roland micro cube! Add an Art battery powered stereo pre amp and I have a complete mobile set up with mic and guitar input . Aside from tbe micro cube everything fits in an aluminum ‘tool’ case. Fun times making music and bouldering here in Squamish.

    The circuit looks amazing. … I’m torn between it , the volca fm and the minlogue as my next piece of kit…..

    1. if you can find one cheap you should add an E2, for all of the complaints people have of it not being electribey enough it actually makes an awesome battery powered rig addition – I plug a midi 1>4 thru box and send midi out to a volca beats and keys on 2 different midi channels, run the pulse sync out to the pocket operators and return them to the e2 as an audio oscillator in, use the channel and master fx on them and then spit it out to a portable bluetooth speaker. via the line in..

       1. Sounds like a cool set up. In addition to this set up above, I’ve got another set up that I gig with that the E2 is the central brain of. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to last near as long on batteries as the Circuit does but I must conceded that the Electribe is a more powerful synth/drum machine.

          On that other set up, I’ve got the E2, a Bass Station II, a Roland AIRA TB-3, 3 pedals, a larger mixer, a Kenton Thru-5 for midi and power conditioner (rack style). All of it strapped down to a large metal shelf with zip ties and pre-wired. I just sit it on top of a keyboard stand and go.

11. Thank you for bringing the 1002B mixer to my attention! I’ve been looking for a decent battery powered mixer for ages, and this is helluva lot cheaper than a K-mix.

    1. No prob. Hope it works out for you. I’ve been pretty darn pleased with mine. They’re dirt cheap second hand. Usually around $50.

12. 100% Battery Operated:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MgI97NV7G4&t=5s