Music is a huge part of many of our daily lives here at Adafruit Industries. Here’s some gift ideas for all those people who are as inspired by music as we are. Special thanks to Adafruit employees Jon Baken of George and Jonathan and Brian Cooper, creator of monkfish records for their help contributing!
Gifts From Adafruit!
Music & sound add-on pack for Arduino – v1.1: Its a Wave shield party pack! Just add an Arduino to create your own iPod-killer, audio art, sound-effects box… Comes with the latest Wave shield kit, works with more SD cards and with older NG Arduinos! Unassembled 1 or 2 GB SD card (brand or size may change, but we test one of each kind to verify it works well). Speaker – 3″ diameter (77mm), 8 ohm impedence, good response between 200Hz to 10KHz (10KHz is the max frequency the Wave shield can make). The speaker is rated for 1W so if you want you can even stick a small amp between the shield and the speaker to boost up the volume. Read more.
Electret Microphone Amplifier – MAX4466 with Adjustable Gain: Add an ear to your project with this well-designed electret microphone amplifier. This fully assembled and tested board comes with a 20-20KHz electret microphone soldered on. For the amplification, we use the Maxim MAX4466, an op-amp specifically designed for this delicate task! The amplifier has excellent power supply noise rejection, so this amplifier sounds really good and isn’t nearly as noisy or scratchy as other mic amp breakouts we’ve tried! Read more.
Drawdio kit – v1.1: Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! It’s great project for beginners: An easy soldering kit with instant gratification. Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper. Read more.
VS1053 Codec + MicroSD Breakout – MP3/WAV/MIDI/OGG Play + Record – v2: This breakout board is the ultimate companion for the VLSI VS1053B DSP codec chip. The VS1053 can decode a wide variety of audio formats such as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, MIDI, FLAC, WAV (PCM and ADPCM). It can also be used to record audio in both PCM (WAV) and compressed Ogg Vorbis. You can do all sorts of stuff with the audio as well such as adjusting bass, treble, and volume digitally. There is also 8 GPIO pins that can be used for stuff like lighting up small LEDs or reading buttons. Read more.
Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit – v1.1: Adding quality audio to an electronic project is surprisingly difficult. Here is a shield for Arduinos that solves this problem. It can play up to 22KHz, 12bit uncompressed audio files of any length. It’s low cost, available as an easy-to-make kit. It has an onboard DAC, filter and op-amp for high quality output. Audio files are read off of an SD/MMC card, which are available at nearly any store. Volume can be controlled with the onboard thumbwheel potentiometer. Read more.
MaKey MaKey by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum – Made by JoyLabz: MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything in between. MaKey MaKey was invented by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum & Made by JoyLabz. Find out more details at makeymakey.com or watch the video at makeymakey.com.
Read more.
Gifts From Elsewhere!
littleBits Synth Kit: This is honestly one of the coolest gift ideas I have ever seen. Can someone get me this please? Check out the video below to see Reggie Watts playing around with the bits!
From the Beatles to Björk, legendary artists have used analog synthesizers to produce complex sounds and innovative music. For the first time ever, the littleBits Synth Kit will enable anyone to build their own sound machines with little to no engineering or musical knowledge. Included is a handy 35+ page booklet, with step-by-step instructions for 10 great projects like the Keytar and Synth Spin Table. You’ll also receive a 9V battery + cable, everything you need to get started right out of the box.
The TR-808 from create digital music is an awesome machine that lets you build your own part-by-part analog clone, plus sequencer.
An irony of the 808 is that it began as an everyman’s machine – a disliked relic that no-name musicians could acquire for prices approaching free. It helped that Keyboard infamously likened its sound to “marching anteaters.” (Note to self: idea for DJ name.) Yet now, the quirky Roland original commands high prices that have transformed it into an (often-unreliable) luxury item.
The fall and rise of the 808 isn’t just arbitrary, however. There is something distinctive about the sound design and usability of the original beast, the result of a twist of fate and history that compelled Roland engineers to bend their will into an instrument that was neither entirely synthetic nor entirely natural. People scoffed at violins and pianos when they were new, too, after all; while the TR-808 isn’t exactly on that level, it is a unique entity, one with a personality all its own.
The PEG kit from 4ms Pedals is a cool DIY kit for those music geeks out there that want to make their own pingable envelope generators. They have a great instruction manuel for it here as well! Read more.
Music Thing Modular Spring Reverb Kit from Thonk:
The Music Thing Spring Reverb is a flexible, easy-to-build voltage controlled DIY mono spring reverb module. Traditional guitar reverbs are tuned to the sound of the guitar and the amplifier it is played through. This circuit is different; designed to be relatively clean and high-fi, with a lot of bass response. It can also be abused and driven into (externally patched) feedback.
Kit includes everything you need to build a 6hp Eurorack module right down to knobs, rack screws and power cable.
SHIPPING DEADLINES
Here are your 2013 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.
UPS ground (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 13, 2013 – There is no guarantee that UPS Ground packages will arrive in time for Christmas.
UPS 3-day (USA orders): Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 19, 2013 – Arrive on 12/24/2013.
UPS 2-day (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 20, 2013 – Arrive on 12/24/2013.
UPS overnight (USA orders): Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 23, 2013 – Arrive on 12/24/2013.
UPS International: Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 16, 2013. Can take up extra time due to worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2013 or sooner.
Please note: We do not offer Saturday service for UPS.
Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013, Christmas, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014, New Year’s Day, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday – December 13, 2013 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.
USPS First class mail international (International orders): Place orders by Friday – November 22, 2013. Can take up to 30 days ore more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2013 or sooner, but not a trackable service cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/13.
USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 13, 2013. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2013 or sooner.
Gift Certificates are always available at any time.
When in doubt contact us!
