Our visit to Thomann, 13th of June '25

 

Howdy folks!

 

So last month, we visited Thomann! Again!

 It was our second time around. We didn't have a blog to write about it last time. But this time we do, so we shall tell you a little about our visit and the stuff we brought home with us! 😀

 

 Well, to get us started, if you don't know, Thomann is a musical instrument and equipment vendor. One of the biggest, actually.

They're mainly known for their online store, which has a rather chunky selection of various bits and bobs, from really fancy guitars and PA systems to little curios like this. And no, this blog post isn't sponsored or anything. We just wanna tell you about our visit.😉

 

 So anyway, a little curiosity when you want to visit Thomann's actual shop location is that it's..... *really* out of the way. It's in a small settlement called "Treppendorf", here in central Germany.

The funny thing is: We actually live only about an hour's drive away, and yet we really can't get there on our own. We don't have a car, and this little settlement is so isolated that getting there via trains or buses would involve insane detours and travel time.

 

..... which is why we went there with some friends, driving through the hinterlands along country roads. Not quite what you'd expect when visiting one of the worlds biggest music stores, but i suppose we didn't feel too weird about it, being locals and whatnot.😜

Not actually a road we drove along, but have a picture of the local hinterland for flavour!

 

But yeah, in the actual shop, they don't have the entire online selection on display. The shop's rather large, but there just isn't space for that.

They do mention that if something isn't on display, they'll happily bring it out of storage for you if you'd like to try it out. Being a relatively small spender though, we wouldn't want to inconvenience the staff by demanding they bring out a bunch of tiny bric-a-brac for us to try. 

But then, if you wanted something specific, or the full selection, you'd just buy online. Going there is about the experience, really.

We didn't wanna be some obnoxious tourist who takes pictures all over the place (not even sure if the house rules allow it, actually), so we don't have any pictures of the shop's inside to share, but here's the gist of it:

Thomann's shop grew out of a converted family home. Now, in some parts of the store, like the brass and guitar departments, you can't really tell, because they're quite roomy and big.

 In some other departments though, like the synthesizer/studio department, things feel a bit more compact and, indeed, sort of homely. If your home was stuffed with a load of synths, electric organs and MIDI-controllers.😉 

 

This was last year's visit. Less construction, but more rain.

 The atmosphere in the shop's pretty great, all in all. Most of the stuff on display can be tried out, and as a musician, you generally feel like you're among your own kind. The staff is knowledgeable and generally quite pleasant (in a real way, not forced service staff smiles!😉), and we kinda enjoy watching the other customers and guessing what kind of a musician they might be. Don't judge us.😅

 

Actually we generally felt a bit more "at home" this time around, because last time we went, we actually hadn't released any music, yet.

Our debut album was done, but still in the release pipeline, and we honestly didn't know much of anything, so we were a bit of a deer in the headlights, the first time we went.

We even brought a shopping list back then. Big mistake, it only distracted from the atmosphere.

This time, we were waaaay more casual about it. We've got a good number of songs released, now. So if anyone were to ask (Not that they're likely to!), we'd be able to point them to some of our work, instead of lamely going "Oh, well, we uh..... kinda haven't quite released any music, yet".

 We know much more about the industry in general. And also, we've got a much better understanding of what kind of a musician we actually are, and what our workflow and methods look like. Hadn't really figured any of that out yet, last time. 😬

 

But yeah, this time around, it was way more chill. When we bought a little keyboard for our friends's son, we even joked a little with the staff about DAWs and MIDI-capabilities.

 We were thorough with this visit, too. Went to every corner of the shop, checking out every department. Some of them are more of a "fun to look at"-kind of deal for us, because well, we're not about to buy a saxophone, even if we're in a room full of them. But then, there's places like the world percussion department, where we ab-so-lutely might (and did) buy something.

 Generally, i'd say our top 3 departments are:

 

The Guitar Department

 Actually, technically it's for plucked strings in general. You'll find Bass guitars, Banjos, Mandolins etc. in there, too. But yeah, while we weren't really looking to upgrade any of our stuff for the time being, this department does win out on sheer style. Stepping into this department is like stepping into the guitar dimension, where everything is made of wood and strings. Still, didn't buy anything here, this time around.

We *almost* got a funky new shoulder strap, though.

 

The Studio Department 

 Meaning, the one with the synths, MIDI-keyboards, theremins, pads, drum machines, samplers, interfaces...... do i need to go on, or can you see why we like this one? 😉

Last year, we bought our Keytar here. This year, we bought the Stylophone Theremin. Next year, who knows? But it's definitely worth a look, because for a musician of our kind, this department is out home port.

It's actually one of the smaller departments physically, having a bit more of that "homely" feeling i mentioned. But yeah, this place might hold zero interest for say, a violinist or a drummer, but to us, this nerdy little corner is pretty much the main attraction!

 

 The Pitched Percussion and Piano Sections

 We couldn't make up our mind! See pitched percussion (Marimbas, Glockenspiel, Vibraphones etc.) and pianos are actually fairly similar in that, they're both rooms full of big, expensive musical devices that we'll likely never own, both because of cost and space.

And yet, in terms of sound we love both of these, and frequently use virtual instruments of them.

Well, to be fair, an acoustic Marimba or piano would also be an open declaration of war on the neighbors, so perhaps it's better this way.😋

 

 

 But yeah, now that we've told you about the shop, why don't well tell you about the stuff we brought home?

 

Well first off, there's the....

Stylophone Theremin 

 

Look at that little cutie! Looks like some kind of sci-fi machine from the 60's!

Now, if you don't know, a Theremin is an electric instrument that uses the proximity of your hand (or anything else) to an antenna to control pitch. More advanced Theremins also have a second antenna to control volume.

If you wanna head to Wikipedia to look it up, here you go. Also, while you're there, maybe check out the page of it's inventor. It's kinda wild. Turns out he also created the first working TV device in Russia, and also a wiretap for the U.S. Ambassador's office in Moscow. We didn't know any of that before doing research for this post.😶

 So yeah, it's a Stylophone device, so as you might imagine, it's a bit of a gimmicky machine, but, like all their stuff, it's a gimmick you can actually work with and be inspired by.

 

There's nothing much on the back, but Michael really enjoys the elegant writing.

 

It was a bit fiddly to set up and tune (truth be told, we couldn't actually try it properly in the shop. Too much interference.), but after a bit of playing around (and mounting it on a stand of it's own), we've gotten the hang of it.

 

Mounting this little guy on a mic stand is a good solution. Y'wanna keep it in a clear space, what with electromagnetic interference and other such technobabble.

 Now, the bad news is: The "Mix" setting, where you can theoretically use both the slider and antenna simultaneously, is pretty much useless, because your slider hand movements will trigger the antenna.

But as either a funky slider synth or a proper antenna-controlled Theremin, it works pretty well! And it's actually really fun when tuned. You can do vibrato just by shaking your hand, like doing vibrato on a pretend violin! 😜

 

You'll definitely hear this in one of our next tunes. But for now, let's move on to the next thing we got, which was....

 

The Behringer FCB-1010

We don't make unboxing videos, but have an unboxing picture. ;)

 

Wait, don't run off, yet! We know Behringer's got a bit of a reputation, but this one isn't a clone! At least not as far as we know.

 This is an actual original, and it's....... weirdly quite a one-of-a-kind device.

Okay, so, it's a MIDI-controller, mainly. You could set it up to use it on a stage to trigger various things, or indeed, do so in a studio environment like we have.

The thing is, beyond having a bunch of programmable foot switches, this thing also has two expression pedals. Those aren't sustain pedals. They're not spring-tensioned. They basically function as programmable sliders or knobs.

..... and bizarrely, this is the only device we could find that offers this kind of all-in-one solution. Every other foot switch board is more of a usual stomp box for on-stage use, and expression pedals like that normally come as a separate, individual device that costs almost as much as this entire board. (Which was just under 150 Eurobucks.)

10 switches to trigger functions, and the up/down switches change banks.

 

I'll grant you, this one's not a strictly necessary piece of gear for a studio musician like us, especially since we already have a pretty healthy amount of physical hardware to do MIDI-stuff with, buuuuut we didn't have something to keep our feet busy, before, and now we do. So that's quite neat. 😉

Also, curiously, as this is a bit of an older device, it's the only MIDI-device we have that we couldn't use USB for. This thing can only be hooked up using actual old-school 5-Pin MIDI cables.

...... which neither our interface nor mixer-interface has a connection for, so we also got ourselves this here MIDI-Interface to connect it. 

 But yeah, we've played around with programming it and seeing how we can use it. Gonna try to slowly ease using it into our workflow.

But enough about our feet. Let's talk about our hands, instead, and the next thing we bought, which is....

 

The Hercules Inpulse 300 Mk3 DJ Controller

 

Mmmh, more unboxing pictures for you. Though personally, i was quite happy when we got rid of the big Styrofoam packaging bits.

Okay, i can hear you saying:

"Michael and/or Amalia, you fools! You're a composer, not a DJ! What are you doing? You don't even do live shows!"

Well, yes, you're not wrong there. But! Butbutbut! We love a bit of scratchin'! And while we can use stuff like Shaperbox (Or indeed, just DJ software) to do that, we really wanted some actual jogwheels to do it with.

Also, while it isn't exactly our sphere, it -is- pretty fun just to grab some cool beats and do some mixin'.

....... though yeah, mostly a "because we can"-style purchase. Not one we regret, though. 😜

 

Gonna be honest, having a DJ deck sitting in here makes our home studio about 50% more cool, instantly.

So the DJ controller is cool, and actually the last thing we were planning to get before we even went.

The DJ deck, the Theremin and the Footswitch-board were all pre-marked in our mind as likely purchases.

There -are- a couple of smaller things that we got spontaneously on-site, though. First, we bought this little keyboard for the son of the friends we went with. No pictures of unpacking that one, because well..... we didn't. 😉

But then, we also got a couple of things for ourselves.

First, we got.....

Funny sticks to hit stuff with

We got a pair of these brushes, because we've been meaning to get some for a good while. We don't have any specific plan on what we need these things for, but in the world of percussion, we've learned that *anything* can potentially make cool an unique noises.

Same goes for this, a pair of drumsticks designed for quiet(er) practise. The have a hollow plastic tube for a shaft and a beater at the tip. No really, a beater. Look:

So aside from being helpful for sauces, puddings and the like, they also have the potential to create some unusual sounds when you bang them on stuff. Yeees.

 

But we didn't just get funny sticks. Nono, we also got...

 Elephant Bells

We happened upon this set of them for 44 Eurobucks and couldn't say no. We like our curiousities and world percussion. We like Bells. We were quite comfortably under budget. It was fate.

But the good kind of fate! These are nice, and fit in very nicely between our djembe and our guiro, on the shelf that also holds our tongue drum and our singing bowl. Yeah, you can see what i mean by fate. 😜 

And yeah, they sound nice, are pleasant to look at and will inevitably end up in a few songs over the years, so that's definitely neat.

Also, turns out these things are called "Elephant bells" because in india, they (used to?) hang them around Elephant's necks to announce their arrival. 'cause you know how sneaky and light-footed elephants are.😉

But yeah, aside from that there were some cables, which aren't exciting enough to talk about.

So that's about all we have to tell about our visit, this year. There's already another visit planned for next year, though i'm not sure if we'll find anything to buy, that time around. Don't gemme wrong, they have plenty of cool stuff, but we've got limited space in our home studio. Not to mention budget. 😛

So who knows, maybe next year, it'll be more of a sightseeing tour through the shop. Or maybe we'll end up buying a bunch of cool stuff after all. Either way, we'll most likely write about it on here, again.

But for now, we thank you for reading along, and hope you have a good day. Or night. Morning, perhaps? Well, have a good one, in any case!