Eight Is Not Enough: 8 Cool Ideas To Help Build Your Holiday Wish List
trushack | Dec 17, 2015 | Comments 0
Sing it with me: it’s the most wonderful time of the year. If you end up with a good gift haul, of course. And since you’re a regular TheToneKing.com reader and viewer, we want to repay the favor and help you get as much cool gear as you can without making your relatives take out a second (third?) mortgage on the old homestead. Even Aunt Helga, who is old enough to have been Les Paul’s wet nurse and still thinks Arizona is a territory, will be able to get on board with our rundown of cool gifts for the discriminating gear head. So feel free to print it out and stuff it in your holiday mailings, copy into a family-wide email, or blast it on the Jumbotron at the big game (if they can put stuff like wedding proposals up, they’ll surely find room for this). TheToneKing.com is looking out for you!
ModKits DIY Amp and Pedal Kits
The ultimate stocking stuffer
It’s not truly Christmas without a gift requiring assembly, but this is one gift any guitarist will be excited to dig into. We here at TheToneKing.com had a ton of fun putting our electrical engineering skills to the test with the Aggressor distortion pedal and ModKits Mod 102+ amplifier builds , and ModKits DIY offers a wide range of different projects ranging from beginner to advanced skill levels.
Roadie Rags
Show you care about the gear too
We’ve been waving the Roadie Rag flag for a long time (the flag is actually a giant Roadie Rag), and for a good reason. A clean guitar is a happy guitar, and happy guitars make happy guitar players. Roadie Rags are doubly cool because they have two different surfaces available; one side can be used for cleaning the body, while the other can be used for string cleaning. It may be a head-slappingly simple concept, but it’s something every guitar player can use. So buy a couple!
Randall RGOD
If you can handle the gain!
The Randall RGOD is a crazy good, crazy versatile pedal that can play nice with your rig or bend it to your will, depending on how you want to use it. Run it straight in to your amp and bask in the boatloads of gain, or plug it into the return of your amps effects loop and use it as a preamp for an entirely new tonal experience. The RGOD offers two channels with a complete set of EQ and gain options, so be careful: you could easily forget what your “old” amp used to sound like.
Eminence Speakers
For the ultimate upgrade. Heck, it’s cheaper than an amp and will breathe new life into your amp!
We’re longtime fans of Eminence speakers; they make, right here in the U.S., the speakers that many amp manufacturers rely on to let their products shine best. With the handy Tone Guide feature on the Eminence website, players can find the perfect speaker for their needs with as little information as “British” or “American.” Speaker changes are a quick and easy way to significantly tweak a rig, and Eminence has a ton of tonal options on tap.
Gettysburg Cables
Prove you may know something cool that he/she never heard of!
These cool cables recently hit our radar screen, and we like what we’re seeing and hearing. Gettysburg cables are hand-built for business, with braided copper shielding, triple insulation, and 4 inches of extra heat-shrink protection at the plugs. Gettysburg’s Goldilocks line also features a distinct hemp wrapping which helps prevent tangling, as well as adding a little je nais se quoi to a piece of gear that is all to often an afterthought for many players.
Peavey Micro Head
$499 for the Kitchen Sink! (USB, Silent Record and KILLER tone!). After all, who doesn’t want a new amp?
Peavey’s line of micro heads have garnered rave reviews in the gear world. The amount of value these heads deliver is astonishing; the soulful punch of Peavey’s tweed-adorned Classic series, the rocking versatility of the Valve King, and the dense, and the pummeling crunch of the 6505 are now all available in a platform that could actually fit in most regulation-size stockings. Heck, you could buy two of them (hint hint) for the price of one really nice amp.
Panama Guitars, Conqueror – for the purist!
Mom’s & Wives – Built-in attenuation on this one at $299 price-point!
December is Panama Guitars month here at TheToneKing.com, and these unique amps, built by hand in Bouquete, Panama, have been killing us with awesome tones and high-end looks. Potential guitar-gear-gift-givers should also take note that there’s a serious bonus available to Panama customers this month. Purchase one of the very cool Inferno, Fuego, or Shaman models from any Panama dealer and you’ll be eligible to get a cab from Panama for free (see the video at the link above for all the details). In other words: BONUS CHRISTMAS!
Sweetwater Gift Card is sweet all day long
For those who simply want to say, “Thank you” or “We Love you”
Sweetwater, of course, is one the biggest and most well-regarded gear brokers out there. Whether it’s a bag of picks or a professional-grade studio tube compressor, Sweetwater’s massive selection means that every player is bound to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Whatever you celebrate, we here at TheToneKing.com hope you’ve had an awesome year, chock full of great tone. If it were up to us, our readers would get everything this list and more! Thanks again for an awesome 2015!
Tiny URL for this post:
About the Author: