
September 27, 2022By Brad Tolinski 0 Comment
The Best Gifts for Guitar Players
By Brad Tolinski
Do you have the task of buying a great holiday gift or gadget for the guitarist in your life? Don’t fret! No matter what your budget is, let us provide you with some awesome suggestions of gifts for guitar players. Whether you’re in the market for strings (guitar players always need more of those!), or an incredible personalized Spark smart amp (see below), you’ll find something in the following list that will have your special guitar-playing someone—even if it’s yourself—smiling well into the upcoming new year.
Best Gifts for Guitar Players
Spark 40 & Spark MINI Smart Guitar Amps and Bluetooth® Speakers
The Spark series of smart guitar amps and Bluetooth® speakers have been hailed by Guitar World, Guitar Player, TechCrunch and Engadget as some of the best and most advanced guitar products of the last two years. Spark 40, the 40-watt intelligent combo amp – and its 10-watt powerhouse companion, Spark MINI – come jam-packed with smart features that help you learn guitar and make daily playing fun and addictive. You can even turn Spark 40 or Spark MINI into an unforgettable, personalized gift by customizing the front grille with your own artwork. Sound too good to be true? Let’s just call it a Christmas miracle!
Price: $229-299
Buy here: Personalize Spark 40 | Personalize Spark MINI
Stringjoy Guitar String Subscription
There’s nothing quite like a new set of strings to make a guitar sound like a million bucks, but remembering to buy them can be a royal pain. Well, tell your favorite guitarist to worry no more. With the Stingjoy guitar string subscription service, you can send a fresh set of guitar strings straight to their door at regular intervals year around. Simply choose the strings you want to subscribe to, how often you want them delivered, and Stringjoy will take care of the rest. If you ever need to change the brand, delivery frequency, or your payment or shipping info, you can cancel or edit your current subscription at any time right from an online account page. A great gift idea for guitar players!
Price: $11.90 - $37.90
Buy here: stringjoy.com/categories/subscriptions
OMNYSS Sonically Disruptive Gear Collection
Looking to make it an otherworldly holiday? Plug into the all-new, sonically disruptive OMNYSS gear collection. OMNYSS is built for seriously epic soundscapes with 3 all-new amps and 6 effects – and the massive riffs you'll be inspired to write might just knock down the Christmas tree. Powered by Positive Grid's award-winning BIAS FX 2 guitar software, you can connect to OMNYSS with RIFF, a plug & play audio interface built for guitarists, by guitarists. More on that below.
Price: OMNYSS - $99
Buy here: OMNYSS
Dunlop Trigger Capo
Your husband, wife, son or daughter may have a capo, but probably not one as durable, stylish and easy to use and the Dunlop Trigger Capo. This professional curved-radius acoustic guitar capo allows you to quickly and easily change key with a squeeze of the hand without hindering your fingers or scratching the neck of your guitar. The Trigger also comes in an assortment of cool colors including black, gold, nickel and brushed metal. A great gift for guitar players and a perfect stocking stuffer.
Price: $21.51
Positive Grid RIFF Guitar Audio Interface
Supercharge your home rig with RIFF – a plug & play audio interface built for guitarists, by guitarists. RIFF transforms your computer or mobile device into a fully loaded dream guitar rig, letting you take full advantage of our award-winning BIAS FX 2 amp & effects software. It's truly everything you need for playing, recording, and practicing guitar.
Price: $179
Buy here: www.positivegrid.com/products/riff
ESP LTD EC-256 Guitar
The LTD EC-256 takes many of the coolest aspects of ESP’s higher-end EC Series models, and offers them in a super-affordable guitar guaranteed to make any holiday brighter. Its classic shape is excellent for all musical styles and genres, and it features the kind of multiple bindings on the body and headstock that you’d expect on a much more expensive instrument. The EC-256 features a mahogany body, fast three-piece thin U-shaped mahogany neck, and a roasted jatoba fingerboard with 22 extra-jumbo frets. Two ESP designed LH-150 humbucking pickups complete the picture. The EC-256 would be a sweet Christmas purchase at twice the price.
Price: $449
Buy here: espguitars.com/products/9572-ec-256-blk
Sennheiser HD 300 Pro Headphones
Looking for amazing value in professional monitor headphones? The newly developed Sennheiser HD 300 PRO delivers a neutral, high-resolution working sound, which is why it ranks high on our best gifts for guitar players. Its huge depth of detail passes through even in the loudest of environments. No matter if you are editing, playing or composing music, and regardless of whether you’re behind a drum kit, at the mixing desk, in a live setting or in the studio, the HD 300 PRO provides the details that you need for making good playing or production decisions.
Price: $200
Buy here: en-us.sennheiser.com/hd-300-pro
Xvive U2 Rechargeable 2.4GHZ Wireless Guitar System
Give the gift of freedom with the well-priced professional Xvive U2 Digital Guitar Wireless system. With extremely clean audio quality, a simple setup, and steady reliability, the Xvive U2 is setting a new standard in digital wireless guitar systems. You get a 20Hz–20kHz frequency response, a compact form factor with no bodypack or wires, only 6ms of latency, and operation in the 2.4GHz ISM band for pristine signal transmission with no dropouts. Plus, the rechargeable Li-ion batteries last up to 5 hours per charge, and the U2's transmitter and receiver are housed in tough ABS plastic to stand up to life on the road.
Price: $154.90
Buy here: xviveaudio.com/u2-p0056.html
Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen
In Eruption, music journalists Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill share with fans, new and old alike, a candid, compulsively readable, and definitive oral history of the most influential rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. The book is based on more than 50+ hours of unreleased interviews they recorded with EVH over the years, most of them conducted at the legendary 5150 studios at Ed’s home in Los Angeles. The heart of Eruption is drawn from these intimate and wide-ranging talks, as well as conversations with family, friends, and colleagues. A must-read for any guitarist, and a perfect addition for under the tree.
Price: $17.99
Buy here: amazon.com/Eruption-Conversations-Eddie-Van-Halen/dp/0306826666
PreSonus AudioBox USB 96 High Definition Recording Kit
A great gadget for mobile musicians, guitarists, and podcasters, the 2-in, 2-out AudioBox USB 96 audio interface is bus-powered, compact, ruggedly built, and works with virtually any PC or Mac recording software. It boasts two combo mic/instrument inputs with high-performance Class A mic preamplifiers, MIDI I/O, and professional-quality, 24-bit, 96 kHz converters. And it comes with PreSonus’ amazing Studio One Artist DAW software for Mac and Windows.
Price: $99.95
Buy here: shop.presonus.com/AudioBox-USB-96
Truefire Gift Certificate
Looking for a great Holiday gift for a guitar player but tight on time? With a TrueFire E-Gift Certificate, your guitar player playing loved one can get access to 40,000+ interactive video guitar lessons including 900+ guitar courses, 30,000+ tabs, 20,000+ jam tracks, plus a free download bonus, new releases every week, and much, much more! They also can choose to download awesome guitar courses from famous and popular educators like Steve Vai, Matt Schofield, Larry Carlton, Tommy Emmanuel, Robben Ford, David Grissom, Johnny Hiland, Sonny Landreth, Andy Timmons, Carl Verheyen, Dweezil Zappa, and many others.
Price: $25 - $300
Buy here: truefire.com/gift-certificates
She Rocks Mug
If your girlfriend, wife, mother or daughter rocks, let them know how you feel with this unique She Rocks ceramic mug. They’ll be thrilled! And better yet, let them know the profits go to The Women’s International Music Network (thewimn.com) which brings women from all facets of the music industry together. The organization produces events, creates opportunities for performance and networking and works to bring the conversation around diversity in the industry into the forefront. The WiMN seeks to create a hub to connect women in all facets of the music industry and works to expose role models, events and educational opportunities that focus on women in music.
Price: $15
Buy here: thewimn.com/product/she-rocks-hand-mug/
Final Thoughts: Best Gifts for Guitar Players
It's no secret that shopping for guitarists can be an overwhelming task, so we hope this gift guide provides you with some peace of mind and eases your holiday shopping experience. Whether the guitarist in your life is interested in recording, sharpening their skills, or just jamming out in the new year, take comfort knowing that you can deliver the perfect present.
Brad Tolinski is perhaps best known for his work as the editor-in-chief of Guitar World Magazine for 25 years. He is also the author of Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page (Crown); and Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound and Revolution of the Electric Guitar (Doubleday), which was the basis for a 2019 guitar-focused exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Most recently he edited the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Issue of CREEM magazine, and his latest book Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen (Hachette) is out now.