Guitars, pianos, and electric tech of the music variety can make for a musical holiday season, so here are some ideas that sound great.
The holidays are time for a break, and depending on who you are, that can mean time to chill out doing something you love. It could be relaxing or going to the beach, but if you’re more of the creative variety — or you’re buying for someone who is — it could also be a time for a jam.
Pick up an instrument and play it, or even learn one, or just experiment and have some fun. It might even be a goal for the new year, with a new instrument and skill waiting around the corner.
If you’re considering a gift for someone who’s a musician (or who wants to be one), this holiday gift guide is worth checking out.
Roll-up Drum Kit
Price: $49
We’ll start with the basics, and a musical toy you can pick up from your local department or electronics store: a roll-up electronic drum kit.
A proper electronic drum kit tends to cost north of $600, but a roll-up model is more of a fun toy to get you in the spirit of drumming it up. You can find roll-up electronic drum kits for less than a hundred easy, making it a good option for someone who wants to bang their drum, but you don’t have a lot to spend on them.
Fender Squier with access to Fender Play
Price: from $349 for the guitar; Play access $150 USD per year
If you don’t have a guitar for someone to learn, consider grabbing a guitar or guitar and amp package, and maybe also access to an online training system designed to help them get into music.
There’s no one brand is better than the rest — it’s just what you prefer. This journalist has long played Fender bass guitars and has dabbled in the electric acoustic guitar variety, so he normally sticks to what he’s comfortable with, especially when looking for options for his kids later in life. They’ll probably get a variation of a Fender Squier when they’re old enough to pick one up, likely a Sonic Stratocaster or Mini Jazzmaster, largely because the design and colours are both equally classic, and the action good enough for learning on.
“Squier” is Fender’s beginner brand, but the guitars are typically great for adult enthusiasts, too, and they’re not alone. Gibson has Epiphone and ESP has LTD, and so forth. Guitar brands have their premium offerings, and then the models that are often just as good, but may not be the classic handmade approach the more expensive offerings gather.
Unless money is no object, we’d probably stick to the enthusiast guitars, since it’ll give that person a starting point to see where they go from there.
Consider grabbing access to Fender Play to push them over the line, a service that can teach them how to play electric guitar, bass, and even ukulele using both songs they know and instructors they probably don’t.
Fender Mustang Micro
Price: $289
Learning the guitar typically comes with a requirement: amplification. Electric guitars need it, as does a bass, while acoustics sound louder with an amp plugged in. The problem is that amps can be loud, making for not-so-neighbour-friendly practicing.
Fender’s fix to this comes in the form of a gadget you can plug your headphones into, the Fender Mustang Micro. Essentially, it’s an amp made small primarily for headphones, but with a secret power: an app connection so you can change the way the guitar sounds.
Think of the Mustang Micro app like a virtual pedal board, with 25 amp presets and 25 effects, tweaking the sound on a gadget with a four hour battery.
Yamaha EZ310 Keyboard with Light Guide Keys
Price: $499
Buying for someone who wants to learn how to play piano?
The good news is you don’t need to sit inside of Groundhog Day for several years going back to the same piano teacher until you break the cycle, and can instead find a gadget to help.
Yamaha’s keyboard isn’t quite a full stand-up piano, but it does have 61 keys to start, and comes with glowing keys to help instruct and assist beginning to learn built-in songs, with 152 found inside. It even works with six AA batteries, though at home, you’ll probably want to leave it plugged in.
Rode NT1 5th-Gen Microphone with Rode PSA1+ stand
Price: $439 for the microphone; $199 for the stand
Not everyone wants to play. Some just want to sing.
If you’re buying for someone in that category, consider something locally designed and engineered to be clever.
One of Australia’s success stories, Rode’s microphone expertise is very well known, and its latest studio microphone is one of the more interesting in the line-up.
Able to be connected to a standard studio microphone setup using the XLR connection, the Rode NT1 5th-gen goes nicely in a handmade studio for home, but even if you don’t have one, it also comes with a USB connection.
With one plug, you can turn the Rode NT1 5th-gen into a connected microphone, ready for someone to sing their little heart into. Grab a Rode PSA1+ desktop mic stand and make sure the shock cage from the NT1 is connected for a proper professional look and feel.
Roland TD-02K Electronic V-Drum Kit
Price: $599
If the idea of our little drum pad at the beginning of this gift guide was a touch offensive, we apologise. And if you’re instead looking for a proper electronic drum kit for someone starting out, you may want to consider something from Roland.
There are a few different brands out there, but Roland has been doing electronic instruments longer than most, and the V-Drums — virtual drums — give you a silent drum kit the neighbours will love. To the person playing, headphones on, it’ll sound like a full kit. Meanwhile, everyone else will just hear the sound of wooden sticks against plastic.
The TD-02K is a compact kit from Rolan, offering snare, three toms, three cymbals, and a kick pedal that kicks to a virtual bass drum. The whole thing comes together as a virtual drum kit only the player can hear, complete with 16 kits tuned and ready for use inside the system.
Sennheiser HD25
Price: $259
We’ll finish this guide with something every musician needs: a great set of properly balanced headphones. It’s a must have, largely because you want an untouched and uncoloured sound representative of what you’re going to be using or playing.
You can buy monitors — speakers that do the same thing — but headphones give you that approach in a portable way, as well as being noiseless for everyone else.
One of the best pairs in the music world to do this with is the Sennheiser HD25, a long-established champion in this regard, thanks in part to its flat sound and ability to be repaired, something most headphones struggle with.
We’re still using ours. They’re that good.
