The Mix 2024 Gift Guide

New York, NY (November 27, 2024)—The holidays are upon us, and with that comes the annual conundrum of what to get that audio pro on your list (or, if you’re the audio pro, some ideas to pass along to the well-meaning but thoroughly confused gift-buyers in your life). Here’s just 10 items we thought of, but if you go through them and still don’t have enough gift ideas, check out our rundown of every gift guide we’ve ever published, going all the way back to 2007!

SSL 2 MKII and 2+ MKII Audio Interfaces

Solid State Logic’s first foray into personal audio interfaces, the SSL 2 and S+, came out during the pandemic and were an instant hit. Fast-forward a few years, and the next generations of each—the MKIIs—are now available. Both units provide dual SSL-designed mic preamps, which deliver 64 dB gain range and a 116.5 dB dynamic range. The combi-XLR inputs double up as line-level inputs, and feature a 117 dB dynamic range and +24 dBu maximum input level. As a bonus, they also comes with an SSL Production Pack software bundle.

“Synthesizer” by A Place to Bury Strangers (Death By Audio)

Oliver Ackermann, singer-guitarist for the band A Place to Bury Strangers, is likely as well-known for leading the boutique guitar effect company Death By Audio, where he builds pedals by hand in Queens, NY. Now he’s brought both sides of his life together with the glow-in-the-dark LP edition of APTBS’s latest album “Synthesizer,” which is available in various editions including one that allows you to build a working DIY noise synth using included components and the LP cover as a circuit board.

Sensaphonics dB Check Pro

Ever use your headphones or IEMs and wonder how loud you were listening? “Probably safe enough” is not a scientific measurement—and that’s where the Sensaphonics dB Check Pro comes in, because it can tell you exactly how loud they are, displaying the real-time and average dBA-SPL levels, along with a timer of how long you can still safely listen at that level. The dB Check Pro is programmed for use with over 140 earphones from 12 major manufacturers; for more info, check out our review from a few months ago.

Audio-Technica AT-UMX3

Having a simple desktop audio mixer on-hand is always useful; they become the Swiss army knife for tons of projects, big and small, regardless of whether you’re a content creator/streamer or a longtime pro. With that in mind, here’s the Audio-Technica AT-UMX3 is a compact USB mixer with a high-performance A/D converter (up to 24-bit/192 kHz), which can feed multiple audio sources into a single stream on your computer, whether microphones, instruments or another outside source.

Audeze Filter

Audeze’s headphones are revered among audio pros, but they aren’t the only trick up the company’s metaphorical sleeve. As its first non-headphone offering, Audeze came up with Filter, a battery-powered, Bluetooth-enabled speakerphone purpose-built for conference calls. Intended for pros on the go—folks who bounce back and forth between the office and studio or travel a lot—it is about the size of a smartphone and sports a touchscreen as well. You can learn more about it in our review from earlier this year.

Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision

Few recording facilities are famous enough to be honored with their own box set, but New York City’s Electric Lady Studios recently earned that accolade with the release of Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision. Founded by the titular guitarist in 1970, the studio has hosted John Lennon, The Clash, AC/DC, Chic, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and countless others over the years. The box set itself serves up music that Hendrix recorded at the facility during the last four months of his life, and a Blu-ray feature-length documentary tracing the studio’s incredible history through today.

Minuendo Music Earplugs

All audio pros need a pair of earplugs at some point, but generic foam earplugs  can be too much of a good thing, usually blocking between 22 and 32 dB—far too much when you need to accurately know what your surroundings sound like. Minuendo Music earplugs, however, can adjust how much sound they’re blocking; little levers allow you to reduce sound between 7 and 25 dB. Find out more in our recent review.

Telepathic Instruments Orchid

Kevin Parker of Tame Impala co-founded Telepathic Instruments and the company’s first product is Orchid, which is described as “an advanced chord generating hardware synthesizer.” Intended for exploring musical possibilities while songwriting, the unit has eight 8 chord-type selecting and chord modifying keys on the left side, and a single-octave keyboard on the right, used to choose the root note and trigger the chord. Then you use the rotary encoder located between the two sections to re-pitch and re-position chords. The results should help break you out of using the same old chord combinations and send your music off in new creative directions.

Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO X LE Headphones

Marking its 100th anniversary, Beyerdynamic has produced the DT 770 PRO X Limited Edition, a closed-back, dynamic headphone with a nominal impedance of 48 ohms. Sporting cushy, gray velour pads and the brand’s Stellar.45 dynamic driver, which boasts a frequency range of 5 Hz to 40 kHz and is capable of producing SPLs as high as 112 dB, the headphones are made for use in the studio, at home and on the road. Check out our recent review for more.

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20

It won’t be the cheapest item you buy for someone on list, but the project studio maven you get it for (like yourself, hint, hint) will be the most grateful. The Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 is a studio hub that keeps everything under control. The unit is fully equipped with 18 inputs and 20 outputs, including eight ultra-low-noise mic preamps, line, Hi-Z, and MIDI connections for drums, vocals, guitars, keys, and synths. There’s plenty of routing and mixing options, and you can also expand and sync your setup with ADAT, S/PDIF, and Word Clock connections as well.