[sdiy] Salvagable keys from old keyboards, organs? (for Virtual Organ build)

[Tom Wiltshire]

Sorry Roman, I don't agree about point (2). In my experience, most home organs have two manuals of 44 keys. Good for making a couple of monosynths though!

I do completely agree that the old keybeds are *far* better than much that came later. There were some *terrible* Hammond organs made in the 1970s/80s after they stopped using tonewheels - the electronics are standard stuff for the era and completely uninteresting - but the keyboards are absolutely solid and reliable! (but weigh a ton!)


> On 7 Sep 2026, at 17:29, Roman Sowa via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
> 
> 1. yes, you can get dirt cheap organs, especially in Netherlands, that's what I heard the most. About 100 EUR might get you nice big organ with decent keyboards
> 
> 2. Typical old (20-40 years) organ has 61 or 56 keys. It must be very old or specificaly made for certain playing style if it has 4. You'd be surprised how those very old keyboards are excellent mechanically, but unfortunately they have poor contacts made of silvered springs.
> Basicaly all organs younger than 40 years use plastic keys and rubber contacts with diode matrix, sometimes spring contacts, but also matriced. And no, they were not made in "max cheap" mode ever. you may need to clean it, or replace contacts, but it's not comparable to today's definition of brand new cheap keyboard.
> 
> 3. There's no such thing as decent cheap keyboard. Either it needs a lot of work to restore it and install new contacts, or you buy new one especially made for organists. Good Fatar organ keyboard cost about 600 EUR. And I haven't mentioned yet the modern wooden keyboards made for MIDI organ consoles today, that's 2 to 8 kEUR.
> 
> A lot of organists just take off the shelf M-Audio keyboard and say it's just good for what they need.
> 
> Roman
> 
> 
> 
> W dniu 2026-09-07 o 17:43, Steve via Synth-diy pisze:
>> Howdy,
>> I met a very young fella who became enthusiastic about playing church organs, where I practise singing.
>> He is not averse to some tinkering, if not super experienced. He e.g. MIDI-fied the pedals he got used "cheap" using a MIDI-fying kit, I reckon like how Doepfer or similar sell them.
>> He has been looking for months now, for an affordable solution to get some manuals i.e. keyboards assembled to be able to play the GrandOrgue software on a computer at home.
>> I gave him the tip of looking for salvagable home organs of the 1970s or so... But those seem to have mostly 4 octaves per manual.
>> He says he needs 61 keys.
>> I am wondering now:
>> 1. were there ever home organs one might get for cheap or free today, made with modular-ish key assemblies, where you could use parts from more than one organ to assemle an octave more for each manual? I remember seeing some YT disassembly vids of 1980s or so keyboards where they had octave-wise panels.
>> 2. speaking of: are there any old mass-market keyboards one might get cheaply, from what ever decade, with 61 keys which one might salvage? Reasonable playable ones, too? :-D
>> I'd reckon they were made in a max cheap way that doesn't invite well the extraction of only the keys/matrix parts, but who knows.
>> - Steve
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