Black Friday? Cyber Monday? Who need them? The entire month of December seems to be on sale when it comes to music tech.

Christmas (and Hanukkah, for that matter) are nearly here. Whether it’s economic pressure or just some aggressive holiday pricing, there are some big deals out there that could make excellent gifts – or might just give you a nice list for shopping for yourself before or after the holidays. (Yes, it’s true: most of what readers suggested in our “gift guide” for the CDM Winter 08 special wasn’t really all that practical. But it does make a nice list of things you love.)

Here’s some of what’s on our radar screen:

Big Ticket Items Get a Break

$999 Tenori-On. In the US, at least, the Yamaha Tenori-On – the Lite Brite-style instrument tablet from innovator Toshio Iwai – gets a $200 discount. Based on reader feedback, that hardly moves it into impulse buy territory, but if you’ve been on the fence, your timing is right. Yamaha has also rolled out some very practical accessories (like a case and “survival kit” with stand), so if you know someone who owns one of these, accessories could make a nice last-minute gift.

And for the rest of us, there’s the US$20 t-shirt. You could mod that with LEDs and sensors and just let people play your chest. See the US store (curious to hear reports from The Rest of the World):

Tenori-On Store US

Moog bundles, Little Phatty break: The Moog Little Phatty is now available in Stage II Edition. (mmm, black!) It seems to have a slight street price break, down below US$1300 from a $1395 list. And to further sweeten the deal, the Moogs are presently bundled with a CP-251 control processor for feeding some analog control into your new synth. (See the video above. Really, an excuse to post this video is worth it.) In very much not a Recession Special, Moog also re-introduced the Taurus Bass Pedals.

Or, more fitting my budget at the moment, you can just get DVDs, books, and tasty apparel. Or perhaps a tattoo gift certificate; I hear the Moog fans love those.

Komplete, More Komplete – Komplete + Kore: For a limited time, AudioMIDI have bundled Kore 2 – Native Instruments’ software and controller – with the Komplete pack (basically everything NI makes on the producer/instrument side). US$895 for the total, which is what you’d normally pay for Komplete alone. You don’t need much justification here as Kore 2 doesn’t add any cost, but to me, having the physical controller and the ability to easily navigate all the NI sounds makes Komplete more manageable. (And we’re big fans of using Reaktor inside Kore, because you can easily assign controls to all your custom Reaktor creations.)

I just stumbled across AudioMIDI’s deal; we’ve heard other folks find bundles like this in stores. So it could be worth shopping around in your neck of the woods.

Cakewalk Holiday Bundles: Cakewalk is bundling extras with their software, including video tutorials and a download of pyro Audio Creator, an audio recording, editing, CD burning utility (which can itself make a nice software stocking stuffer for your Windows-using friends at $40). You can get a pretty full-blown version of their SONAR DAW for about US$299 (even though that looks more like the upgrade pricing of Pro Tools), and I see they also offer the E-MU Proteus Pack for lovers of the old E-MU racks.

Bundle pricing is different in different parts of the world, so if you’re interested in this offer, best to check your local store:

http://store.cakewalk.com/

Applied Acoustics Modeling Collection: AAS is having a sale on their lovely psychically-modeled products, so Tassman (modular environment) + Lounge Lizard (the electric piano) + Ultra Analog + String Studio (the terrific modeled string instrument) + Strum Acoustic = US$349. Check out the Modeling Collection in their store. Ableton users got treated to a couple of these instruments in Ableton-styled remakes, but if you haven’t bought those yet or don’t exclusively use Ableton or want the whole suite, this is worth a look.

Native Instruments sale: Native is offering upgrades 50% off, software bundles (including a free synth with their Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface), and other holiday deals through 12/31.

Bargain Buys

Steinway? Never heard of ‘em. The Steinway piano, photo (CC) madabandon.

Gary Garritan has a bunch of his sampled instruments on sale for US$99.99: Personal Orchestra, Jazz Big Band, and Marching Band. The sale ends 12/21, so you’ll want to get on this quick. The nice thing about these instrument packs is that they’re fairly well-focused and lightweight, so you don’t need a massive hard drive and sample-playing machine to get them running. They’re ideal, for instance, if you’re working on a score and want a quick rendition. Garritan also has the lighter “Basic Edition” of the Steinway-authorized Virtual Concert Grand. It’s 1.3GB uncompressed, so you can download it, making a perfect last-minute gift for someone (or yourself). I’ve just grabbed it myself and hope to have a review for you next week. You don’t get all the multisamples, it’s 16-bit only, and you only get the classic audience view, but I imagine this is how a lot of people use their sampled piano a lot of the time anyway. It only officially comes out Wednesday, but that gives you time for a Christmas Eve install.

Garritan Order Page [includes Christmas special]

Steinway Comparison Chart

As always, the Garritan community has done a free Christmas album:

http://garritan.com/Xmas.html

And perhaps there’s a deal on a real Steinway somewhere, too, though that doesn’t quite fit into our budget category.

Costco Meg-bundle with Snowball Mic: Costco (the US-based discount club) is generally not a place to go buy music tech gear. But they have a pretty terrific deal running right now, if you can find it. Blue Microphones’ Snowball USB mic, a convention basic dual-capsule condenser with 16-bit digital converter, is bundled with some other extras. You get Koss UR40 headphones, and Mackie’s underrated music editing workstation Tracktion 3. Given that the mic and Tracktion usually sell for $100 or more on their own, US$99 for the three is quite nice.

Snowball Mic Bundle

It’s hard to beat this as a $100 gift for newcomers you know. The Snowball isn’t the best condenser mic around by any stretch, and lacks fully-adjustable gain, but it’s a nice little mic to toss in a backpack and plug in via USB.

[Update] Fantastic Image-Line sale: Whoops, meant to mention this and didn’t in the first draft of the story! Image-Line’s software always makes a fantastic discount buy (which is why it topped our software list in the CDM Holiday Guide). But it’s an even better deal now, thanks to discounts and a free time-manipulation effect. Adrian Anders writes in comments:

Maximus & Morphine – $99 each

Every order of $99 or more comes with their new upgrade to WaveTraveler, one of those plugs in FLStudio that made Mac-heads question their loyalty. It hasn’t been announced but there’s a good chance an OS X version is in the works :D

More deals to follow.

Image-Line Sale

Peak Pro 6 Sale

The Mac-only audio editor has gotten some major upgrades to its playlist, RAM-based editing, new DSP goodies, dither modeling, another UI upgrade, and additional delivery and dynamics processing. Correction: only the upgrade pricing gets you as low as US$99. But there is a DDP export extension and free mastering plug-in with Peak Pro 6, an upgrade sale, plus other discounts:

Peak Pro 6 sale

Of course, that still leaves the “everyday low price” of Wave Editor from Audiofile Engineering at US$79, which has earned big fans like CDM contributor and game sound designer W. Brent Latta. Wave Editor has added some delivery options of its own, meaning you could easily choose either one. That makes two terrific choices on the Mac, which had traditionally been a bit behind on straight-up audio editors when compared to Windows’ Sound Forge and Audition.

Cash Back on Live

Ableton has a Holiday Special with up to $150 cash back on Live 7, Live LE, and Ableton Suite. There are some other promotions on, so well worth checking.

No promotional fees were collected in the making of this article. I do accept candy canes from readers if you happen to run into me. 

Deals by You

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here. Seen any great deals / discounts yourself? Picked up anything you want to share?

If you haven’t yet, do check out all we stuck in our Holiday Guide:

On Demand: CDM Winter 2008, with Gift Guide, Bending and Slicing Tutorials, More

Feeling a warm, holiday glow – or is that just nostalgia for simpler times, times when less digital information was needed to capture sound? Bits were real bits; sampling rates were low enough you could count to the top of them. Kids walked uphill through the snow both ways to buy a new Casio keyboard, and they didn’t yet believe Nintendo’s R.O.B. was a gimmick. They had none of your Grand Theft Audio nonsense: they hummed along to annoying tunes and watched sprites dance across the screen like a derezzed Sugar Plum Fairy.

These should put you even more in the mood, then.

8-bit Jesus is a work-in-progress by Doctor Octoroc, applying the style of an NES game to each Christmas favorite – think “Super Jingle Bros.” Unfortunately, the good Doctor’s server has been overwhelmed by holiday cheer, or his server admin has been drinking too much Egg Nog. Anyone got an alternative link? Found at:

8-bit Jesus, the NES themed chiptune holiday album [boing boing Offworld]

8-bit collective, the all-powerful assemblage of chip artists, has their own holiday creation: a virtual musical advent calendar, in which each day is a new tune. Best title yet: “Joy is all up in this B*****.”

8-bit Advent Calendar [8bitcollective]

Fans of 8-bit or newcomers wondering what the fuss is about, Weekend America did a story on the Blip Festival that just concluded here in New York:

Blip Festival Radio Story

Lastly, Bohus Blahut at Retro Thing points to the album Kasio Kristmas, as seen in the video at top. It’s not free, but it does feature freaky-looking fellows dressed as coneheaded aliens. Bohus’ copy is ready for them to add to their press clippings:

With more than a touch of Devo (and that’s a good thing), vintage electronics, and oodles of out and out weirdness, these AA battery powered tunes re-electrify the holiday classics.

Enjoy!

And just to round this out, I’m running this photo by Scott Beale of laughingsquid, because I didn’t photograph my bottle, and because it seems somehow appropriate, and will likely inspire someone’s own 8-bit (or 64-bit) album.

Americans are busy getting ready for Thanksgiving and … everyone is busy, anyway. But there’s still time to:

1. Tell us what makes you musically thankful – we’ll feature your responses on CDM.

2. Tell us if you’d like to get handcrafted, human-written exclusive notes in your inbox occasionally from CDM (totally optional).

3. Get a chance to win the deluxe edition of T-rackS 3, the tasty mixing and mastering suite, with lots of new routing, models, and metering.

I’m actually working on a way to visualize all of these “reasons we’re thankful” in Processing, so I’d love lots of responses! Keep them coming!

You have until the end of the day Friday, November 28 NYC time.

Answer below (takes about a minute), or head to:

http://cdm.thanksgiving.sgizmo.com/

If you’re interested in advertising in the guide, your ad will be exposed online in the main site feed for all of our online readers plus will get additional exposure in the online / downloadable / printable version that people will hang onto. We can send you details, but you need to contact us and ads do close end of day Wednesday New York time.

It’s nearly the holiday season, and as CDM has just completed its fourth birthday, I want to give all of us a present. The idea: a holiday guide that’s a bit different.

• The first CDM treeware. We’ll have PDF and print-on demand versions. And part of the reason we’re doing this:
• Something you can share. CDM certainly has its share of (sometimes frighteningly) advanced readers. But we believe in what we’re doing enough to share it with people with less experience. So we’ll include content you can share with nieces, cousins, strangers on the street. And, of course, it’ll be Creative Commons-licensed.
• Gifts of knowledge as well as objects. You’ve seen the countless lists of “stuff to buy” in other holiday guides. But we believe in DIY tech, and that knowledge can be priceless. So we’ll include information from the best of CDM in 2008 and special guides for the occasion.
• Designed by you. This time, we want to know what you would want to receive, what you would give to newcomers, and what you would want to read. So we need your help – fill out the survey below and this will really be a grassroots effort by the CDM community.

It’s a really tough economy out there. But that’s all the more reason to invest in things that really matter, to look for value, and to look for things that can be shared freely with one another. So, in my mind, I could think of no better time to do this. Give the survey a go.

If you complete the survey, you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive another gift: a free copy of the new, cross-platform T-RackS 3 mastering and mixing suite donated by IK Multimedia. (We’ll have one other opportunity to put your name in the hat later this week, too.)

Fill out the survey below or head straight to:
http://cdm.holiday08.sgizmo.com

And watch for the guide by the beginning of December.

Advertisers: We need your support to help bring this guide to CDM readers free of charge. If you’ve got a message you’d like to get out and want to support our community, do get in touch. (We have some creative possibilities to offer, too.) Use the contact form or email ads (at) createdigitalmusic (dot) com.

Some readers on this site — wisely, perhaps — cautioned last year against doing a second "Create Digital …" site for interactive visuals, live visuals, and VJing. But to us, the connection between musical performance and technology and visual performance and technology is really essential. I’m pleased to announce that now, following a two-week sojourn on the Australian content, we’re finally kicking createdigitalmotion.com into high gear and lining up what we want the mature site to be. If you haven’t been reading lately, here’s a bit of what you’ve missed:

• Video scratching with Serato: At long last, one of the leaders in digital control vinyl has added video scratching as well as audio via a new plug-in called VIDEO-SL, now in beta; we’re planning our own test but already have one hands-on.
• We’ve got a big list of video and visual goodies we like. Is it a practical holiday shopping guide? Erm … bits of it are. It’s all drool-worthy, at least. And you’ll really want vintage, gigantic planetarium projections. Lay out some cots, and play that four hour ambient electronic set you’ve been working up.
• Want to learn this stuff yourself? vade has some nice online workshops and tutorials for working with visuals in Pure Data (Pd) and Processing. Both also work well for music, so if you want to dabble in custom-programmed audiovisuals (I swear, anyone can do it with some dedication!) this could be a good place to start. We’ve also got tips for inexpensive high-speed photography and not one but two CDMo tutorials on the free Quartz Composer tool in OS X Tiger and Leopard. See Keith’s report on what’s new in the Leopard release of Quartz Composer, plus a beginner-friendly tutorial for driving 3D cubes with audio courtesy VJ Kung Fu’s momo the monster. The latter should be ideal for whipping up some quick sound-driven visuals for your band; you can even host those visuals in the live music host Rax. Incidentally, our CDMo New Years’ Resolution: make more work, post more tutorials.
• Open jamming for visualists: Just as with music, the best way to practice your chops and share your work is to get out of your bedroom/studio and out to an open jam. We’ve got a full report on the Perth, Australia Plug and Play, an ideal example of how such an event could work, as part of their Byte Me! Festival I attended earlier this month. See the video below, and watch for more video soon – Jaymis and I are editing hours of video footage now.

Plug N Play – ByteMe Festival – Perth from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

If you want to keep up-to-date on Create Digital Motion, you can add the feeds for the site:

RSS Feed (or subscribe via email)

Create Digital Motion Flickr pool

We’re also posting weekend inspiration each week, back next weekend post-holiday break.

From the whole CDM team, very happy holidays. (Yep, New Year’s Eve is among them — we’ll be cracking on 2007-in-review!)

Cheryl writes us:

interested in your dj11.My son who has the gifted ear for music has it on his x-mas list.Wondering if this is too much tecno for a precussor to a it guy with a great ipod at partiesand playing around at home

Is it too much techno? If you have the gifted ear for music, please share your advice, if you can think back to those innocent, young days when you were but a wee precursor to an IT guy.

In other news: what’s a dj11? Think I might want one, too.

Mike Una

Michael Una is an informant and writer for CDM on bent circuits, sound art, and electronic goodness; check out his interview last week with Beatrix*Jar and the results of the Circuit Bending Challenge.

Hip fashion for music geeks:

Moogs Not Missiles T-shirt, $20 from Etsy.com (above)

Synthi Blue Green T-shirt, $21.99 from Gear Addict @ Cafe Press

Bootsy Collins T-Shirts, $20.99 from rocktshirtspunk.com

Sun Ra Helios Tee, $15 from mrdwab.com (above)

Generate visuals for while you’re bleeping out:
Critter and Guitari Cellular Automata Video Kit $49.95 direct

Killin’ that hum during the staticky winter months:

Scosche Eso34 Ground Loop Isolator $17.61 from Amazon.com (above)

For turning your pad into the ultimate Space Disco haven:

K12 Audio to Light Modulator $13.25 direct from PAiA Corporation (above)

What’s that?

"This circuit controls the intensity of a light (incandescent bulb only, 200W max, not included) in response to the level of the audio input."

Still not sold?

"This kit should not be built by or for children!"

And the ultimate holiday gift for that person still seeking audio euphoria:

modPod Egg Chair $1899 direct from inmod

It vibrates the chair along with the Hi-Fi stereo output, and has .mp3 input. How can you go wrong?

Liz "Quantazelle" McLean Knight

Liz is a laptopist, producer, and independent businesswoman extraordinaire, as well as CDM’s Marketing Manager. Don’t miss her conversation with alternative controller-making Gustavo Bravetti, or tips on making demo discs and getting gigs.

For all those times you’ve shown up at a gig without the right (xx):

Electronic Musicians’ Emergency Adapters, $65 from FractalSpin

Ed.: I think this means you’re meant to slow down, or apply the emergency brake, or get some earplugs ready for some insane signal processing. Or something.

"Digital Signal Processing Ahead" Tshirt, $25 from FractalSpin.com (available as men’s, women’s, and tank)

This DJ: Does Not Take Requests.

DJ Request Policy T-Shirt, $25 from FractalSpin.com

I love these little things for keeping earbug cables and firewire cable out of jumbled mess:

Cable Turtle, $10 from Amazon.com; see cableturtles.co.uk for the full line and free UK delivery (above)

I love this bag-it has a nice padded laptop sleeve inside that’s removable as well as a padded strap. And there’s a lot of room inside for extra hard drives, a pair of headphones, some demo cds, vinyl if you need analog…etc. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

UDG CourierBag Deluxe, EUR59.99 direct from Ultimate-DJ-Gear.com or $59.99 from DJDeals.com (above)

And here are some nice, inexpensive VSTs. There are so many gems there.

Ohmforce Plug-ins, various, from ohmforce.com (above)

Daevlmakr Plug-ins, $36 from daevlmakr.com (see our previous review)

James Grahame

James Grahame runs the incredible Retro Thing blog, and aside from keeping us up to date on all things hardware did a terrific interview with Solaris creator John Bowen. I’m guessing these wishes are more practical than the DIY satellite, James?

My list is centered around building your own analog synth.

First up, the synthesizers.com ‘module a month’ system. $120 per month gets you a 22 space modular rack case, 8 modules and accessories. Receiving one part every 30 days gives you ample time to assemble and test the beast over the course of a year.

Entry System Purchase Plan, $120/mo from Synthesizers.com

The PAiA Fatman analog monosynth remains an unbeatable value. The kit is offered in rack-mount or table top versions for under $250. It has earned the honor of becoming the world’s most modded synth, and dozens of useful tweaks are available online for intrepid builders, including VCO hard sync and a subharmonic generator.

FatMan Analog MIDI Synth, $200.95 and up from PAiA Corporation

The Sound Lab Mini-Synth is a great bare-bones unit. You can purchase the PC Board for a mere $30, although you’ll need to scrounge up another $70 or so in parts to build your very own cv/gate controlled analog noisemaker.

Sound Lab Mini-Synth, ca. $100 from musicfromouterspace.com and self-bought from vendors

And, on the off chance that I win the lottery, here’s my dream synth for 2008…

John Bowen’s brand new Solaris keyboard synth offers a multitude of sound design possibilities. It’s now available for pre-order at $3399, with delivery starting in early 2008. The Solaris features vector synthesis, multiple filter models (Mini Moog ladder style, Prophet 5 SSM & Curtis emulations, comb filter), looping envelopes, six DADSRs per voice, effects unit, programmable espresso maker and so on. The initial production run will be a mere 100 units.

Solaris, $3399 direct from John Bowen Synth Design

And one more practical software selection…

How about Reaper 2? This little Windows sequencer is beginning to really grow on me. A non-commercial license costs only $50 and it even runs on Linux boxes using wineasio.

Reaper multitrack audio tool, $50 from Cockos Incorporated

W. Brent Latta

Brent does sound and music for games himself, but also stays on top of all things gaming for CDM. See his review of Audiofile Engineering’s Wave Editor, a tool he uses in his own work.

My wishlist, in no particular order…

Whether the $199 upgrade, or the $499 full version, this is bar-none my best value in high-end DAWs right now, and I’m dying to check out that new multi-delay!

Logic Pro Studio 8, $479 from Amazon.com, as seen regularly here on CDM

I wouldn’t have heard about this gizmo without Peter’s coverage, but now I totally want one…or four!

Mandala 2.0 Drum Pad, $349 direct from Synesthesia Corporation

When you want to play guitar without actually having a guitar … Check out the ‘No Surprises’ video on YouTube, shown above!

Jam Sessions, $19.99 from Amazon.com for Nintendo DS

Okay – it isn’t a musical instrument, but with a ‘Blade Runner’ inspired soundtrack, this is going to be one of my favorite games of the year!

Mass Effect, $59.99 from Amazon.com for Xbox 360

Designed by one of my college professors, Terry Setter, I had the chance to check out the TS-1 microphones during an orchestral recording not long ago, and they held their own against a matched pair of vintage B and K microphones. The TS-2 looks like a GREAT vocal mic for the studio.

Chameleon Labs TS-2, $799 list and available from lots of folks

Heck, as long as we’re going BIG: One of the finest audio interfaces available for Mac/Logic users, this thing is dripping with class…

Apogee Ensemble, $1995; various, for Mac only (see previously on CDM)

I’ve wanted a Prophet ever since I found out that it was a primary instrument on Peter Gabriel’s ‘Passion’. Now I can get one at an affordable price, and not have to worry about tracking down the MIDI-mod, or pay through the nose to get a vintage unit brought back to spec.

Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ‘08, $1999 (see Prophet coverage on CDM)

Lee Sherman

We haven’t heard from Lee Sherman as recently here on CDM, as he’s been busy with other tech journalism gigs, but he was one of our first contributors and is particularly dedicated to soft synths.

With Bob Moog sadly departed, someone has to fly the flag for analog and who better than co-traveler Dave Smith? It’s not surprising that it sounds amazing and offers tons of hands-on control. But a full-featured poly analog synth at a price comparable to a digital one? Priceless.

Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ‘08

As emulations go, this sample collection stands out for its comprehensive collection of Moog sounds, which includes nearly every product ever to bear the Moog moniker, not just lesser known synths like my beloved Rogue but the Moog Vocoder, and Etherwave Theremin, all the way up to the most recent Moog, the Little Phatty, over 1,700 basses, leads, pads and effects.

IK Multimedia SampleMoog, $239 from Amazon.com (see our coverage of the announcement and comparison with Arturia’s offering)

What could be more fun than a battery-powered synth that fits in a pocket and combines the touch interface of the Kaoss Pad with Korg synth sounds and effects? I’ll take this over a Nintendo DS any day. (Ed.: Wait a minute, Lee. Kaossilator is cool, but uh, don’t take away my DS!)

Korg Kaossilator, $235 est. (not yet shipping in the US; video above)

There are other digital emulations that accurately model the lovely tape flutter and crunchy magnetic head saturation of vintage tape echos, but you’d be hard pressed to find one that looks this cool. And the 70s nostalgia goes just far enough. The Space Echo has been reborn as a more stage-worthy pedal.

"Roland Space Echo" on eBay

… and Stylophones

mrMark came up with this groovy montage on Flickr.

Not entirely sure how it got started, but it seems all of us want a classic Dubreq Stylophone, the  vintage miniature, stylus-controlled instrument popularized by the likes of Kraftwerk ("Pocket Calculator") and Bowie ("Space Oddity").

As it happens, there are several ways to get one:

Stylophone.com has reconditioned 60s- and 70s-era Stylophones, though the price is rather steep: GBP55 / USD119.

Firebox.com has the original Stylophone for GBP14.95, though you’ll have to put an IOU in a Christmas box, etc.: they’re sold out until the beginning of 2008. (I’ll wait.)

And there’s always eBay.

"Stylophone" on eBay

Got Wishes of Your Own?

Practical or impractical, we’d love to hear them. Let us know in comments.

Finding a way to put this into musical form is not always easy. So what better way than a chorus of beeping, blipping, glitching 8-bit chiptune instruments, singing in sweet harmony. Yes, following up last month’s Mother’s Day edition, here’s an MP3 EP release for Dear Old Dad. (Dear Old Dad probably knows what “EP” stands for and where it came from, as opposed to us crazy kids today with our Zunes and our Last.fm groups.)

2A03 DAD EP [Free music downloads]

Send it to your father and let us know what he thinks. And if you’ve got some other music you’d like to dedicate to your Dad or Dads everywhere, say so in comments.

A group of chiptune musicians decided they wanted to honor their mothers this holiday with a full, free album of chippy music. Included: Lawrence Power, nonfinite, Eightecs, Agenflit, Peter Swimm, captainmarmalade, Baron Knoxburry, dotdUmmy, and Otto tsr. (Hope I spelled those right.)

The track titles are excellent: “Mothership” … “Gird of Your Loins” … “Super Diaper Rash.”

If anyone plays this for their mother, let us know what she thinks! It’s free, so I suggest making a nice case for it yourself.

2A03 M0M EP