You may have heard about the Japanese magazine Science for Adults (Otonanokagaku), which recently came with a $30 analog synth kit. I'm now completely in love with the magazine, whose Japanese only website is full of wonders. There's a great little pipe organ - be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the page. The magazine itself looks great - page after page of stuff about organs, waveforms, and building the kit (you can even download extra punch cards). Admittedly it's not quite as elegant as this all-paper pipe organ, but it looks a bit more practical.
Gakken, their parent company, also produce many other great things, including these awesome electronics kits, which look like EMS synths.
(Thanks, Paul)
For £19.95, this site will sell you a kit to build a working organ made out of paper, with 8 pipes and a punched-paper sequencer. This page explains how it works, and this page has big colour pictures of the pages before they've been assembled. By way of tribute, MT reader Tim writes: "I've found the following free
download+printable paper instruments in order of decreasing playability: Ocarina (i tried this one a while ago, works pretty well!), Japanese Paper Drum Kit, and Acoustic Guitar. Time to start a paper band!"
UPDATE: Here's the 2007 Music Thing Christmas Gift Guide
I think it must be pretty much impossible to buy music geek presents for music geeks. But if I had to try...
£8.99 Editors Keys: Little sticky labels to make Cubase/Sonar/Reason much easier
$10-40 T-Shirts for music geeks: Let me know if you find more
$12 An album by Link Wray: The coolest stocking filler you'll ever see
$17.95 Electric Kazoo: Cheaper than a theremin, and twice as noisy.
$23 Buddha Machine: Giving a CD = boring. Giving a tiny electronic music box = not boring
£19.99 Paper pipe organ kit: Will keep you very busy on Boxing Day
$39 Dubstation: I'm not sure software is a suitable festive gift, but this amazing dub box is a great virtual stocking filler
$49.99 GuitarPlug: Add a USB port to any guitar
£35 Mojobow: Single string slide guitar. Rockin!
$55 Speakjet Voice Synthesizer: For talking like Hawking
$59 Pink Flying V Ukulele: The guitar your kids really want
$77/Octave Chromatic desk bells: As used by Meg White
£59 Wesley Perspex Kids Guitars: Perfect 'for the kids'… (May be out of stock)
$110+ Transparent Les Paul: In case you don't have kids.
$100 (per month) Dotcom Modular Synth Subscription: By the summer, you'll be making noises
$149 Hottie Amps: They'll think you've given them a toaster! They'll be wrong!
$154: Paia Fatman: Analog synth kit, if you love the smell of solder in the morning
£100+ A Vintage Reel-to-Reel. Click to search eBay for (revox, studer, teac) +reel, or trawl car boot sales
$140 Blue Snowball: Amazing looking USB microphone. Remember the huge shock mount
$159 Drumometer: Join the world's fastest growing extreme sport: Really fast drumming
$179 Ampeg Scrambler: The originals cost $1000. These don't
$180/octave Bigfoot Keyboard: Batteries not required for more Xmas morning hilarity
£130 Riyaz Master Tabla Machine: Self contained Indian drum machine
$289 Moolon Pedals: Amazing engraved effects pedals from Asia
£220 MFB Synth II: Tiny, cheap analog Minimoog clone with a sequencer
¥39,800 Fernandes ZO-3 Travel Guitars: Available in any colour except boring, although mainly Jap only
$300 TC Electronic Pedals: Just the best looking pedals in the world (I reckon)
$407 Stroh violin:Amazing amplified acoustic violin, used by Tom Waits
$425 Sonar Axe: Just to see the look on Granny's face when they open the parcel on the 25th
$429 Memory Lane: Diamond's very clever analog delay pedal
$499 iMP Tube Amp: The best looking little hifi amp ever (thanks Chris)
£350-ish Moog Prodigy: The best bang-for-the-buck vintage Moog money can buy
$699 Future Retro Revolution: It's roundy, it's white, it's analog and it's bleepy
$729 Moogerfooger Analog Delay: Buy it for your newborn and say it's an investment
€2190 Lemur: Incredibly sexy and clever. Looks like an old computer monitor
What do you want for Christmas? Share in the commentsLabels: xmas2007
You may have heard about the Japanese magazine Science for Adults (Otonanokagaku), which recently came with a $30 analog synth kit. I'm now completely in love with the magazine, whose Japanese only website is full of wonders. There's a great little pipe organ - be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the page. The magazine itself looks great - page after page of stuff about organs, waveforms, and building the kit (you can even download extra punch cards). Admittedly it's not quite as elegant as this all-paper pipe organ, but it looks a bit more practical.
