Music Thing Christmas Gift Guide 2020
A paper pipe organ, chromatic desk bells and many noisy devices
A million years ago, I wrote a music gear blog called Music Thing. Each year I’d write a Christmas gift guide, because trying to buy presents for music geeks must be a nightmare.
In 2020, I want to support independent shops and makers, so here are many excellent gifts to buy yourself or someone else this year.
Of course, you could also buy (or ask for) a Music Thing Startup module or anything else from Thonk.
Synthesiser Evolution by Oli Freke £18
128 pages of line drawings and info about “every major synthesiser, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995” [link]Paper pipe organ kit £32.99
Plays sequences programmed onto punched paper tape (video here, woah!) [link]Nanoloop cartridge €49-69
Turns a GameBoy or GameBoy Advance into a sequencer/synth [link]Fort Processor Synth £95
Looks amazing, sounds amazing. Eats audio. [link]Buchla, Hordijk or Serge skype tutorials $35 and up
One-to-one esoteric synth tutorials from Todd Barton [link]Cigar Box Guitars £50 up
So many to choose from, I think I’d like a single string diddly bow [link]Women in Sound $20
Subscription to excellent zine [link]Anything from the 'Other' section of Elderly Instruments (US) [link]
Anything from the ‘Tuned Percussion’ section of Hobgoblin Music (UK) [link]
Korg Volca Modular £159
Almost a pocket Buchla Music Easel [link]A Patreon Annual Subscription to a wonderful person like…
A double-neck ukelele £315 [link]
4015 Shift Register t-shirt £15
Wear the most important chip in a Turing Machine [link]Neutral Labs Elmyra Kit £140
Chaotic touch-plate drone synth [link]Araya Instruments Peizothing €125
Beautiful tiny audio feedback instrument [link]Anything at all from Gijs Gieskes €3.5 and up
The most creative musical instrument designer in Europe [link]A Drumometer $139
Find out how fast you can drum [link]Dataton: The Early Synth Days $59
Super deep coffee-table book about the classy Swedish synth format [link]Swaroopini Electronic Swarmandal £240
So many treasures here [link]Landscape FM Soundwich $44 or $70
Does 16 things, none of them expected [link]Chromatic Desk Bells £42
Essential [link]Record Culture Magazine
Subscribe for $48 or buy something nice from the store [link]DIY electric guitar Kits £150 & up
Slightly dubious about the quality of these, but what a project! [link]Bastl x Caspar Omsynth DIY Lab £117.50
Learn to build noisy circuits [link]From Xenakis’s UPIC to Graphic Notation Today
Huge, deep book about music, graphics and computers (free PDF here) [link]Entomo Noise Synth £70
It’s small, it looks nice, it makes horrible noises [link]Ellitone patchable multi-synth £73.99
Tiny patchable synth full of mellow R2D2 tones [link]Hanan Cumbia $165
Intense and awesome-looking Mexican drum machine that evolved from… [link]Bleep Labs Bleep Drum $98
Tiny open-source drum machine [link]Support a local arts organisation. Mine include…
Cafe Oto membership £150/year [link]
Resonance FM support £120 [link]Boredbrain Terminal $95
A meta-effect pedal for people with lots of effects pedals [link]Engineer Solder Sucker £13.99
It really works! [link]Handmade Electronic Music by Nicholas Collins £34.99
The 3rd edition of the most influential DIY electronics book ever [link]Black Panels Only £5
Goth-friendly Eurorack Zine [link]Hakko Omnivise $61
If Porsche made PCB holders [link]Desert Plants by Walter Zimmermann €28
Charming interviews with avant-garde musicians in the seventies [link]Passarelle Bridge $65
Elegant handmade bronze object that turns a guitar into a koto [link] (suggested by Daniel in Sweden)Experimental 3D printed wind instruments £25 and up
Just amazing [link] (Suggested by Tom Bugs in Bristol)Loaded for Bear guitar cables £30 and up
They’re useful, they look nice, they’re hand made in Hebden Bridge [link]A song written for you by Imre Lodbrog $200
“A charismatic, ageing French rock star will compose and record an original song for you” [link]Submarine Pickup £79
A little secondary pickup for guitar — send two strings to a different amp. [link] (via Tom Bugs again)Analog Prints $30
Beautiful screen printed posters of vintage microphones, consoles and synths [link]
I’ll update this post (click the title at the top to see the web version) over the next few weeks. Please suggest things to add to this gift guide.
I hope you and your family are safe and well,
Tom
ps: The Control prototype auction that I mentioned last time raised £1,946 for Lambeth Food Bank Fund. Thank you.
Hi Tom, many thanks for the recommendation of my Synth Evolution book - much appreciated! For my part - that paper pipe-organ is mad/incredible, and might just go to the top of my wishlist!! Oli