The final regular-season MMMM of the year challenged solvers to find an 11-letter piece of musical equipment.

The clue for PLUS, [___ sign (symbol to outline five times to solve the meta)], turned out to be very important. As the picture to the left illustrates, there are five plus-sign grid square configurations containing the same set of letters (B,O,A,R, and D) arranged differently.

So we’re looking for a piece of recording studio equipment that is a type of board. The “11-letter” prompt helps a lot, and the variously mixed-up BOARDs point to a MIXING BOARD, this month’s meta answer. For those solvers who are not musicians, Google was your friend this month!

I also accepted WOBBLE BOARD (sent in by two solvers), a musical instrument invented in Australia, and FINGERBOARD (sent in by three solvers), which is part of a guitar.

Meta Song:

My band (the Kindred Souls) is releasing a cover album in January. You can see a fun preview, featuring a MIXING BOARD, here:

Mega-Meta:

A total of 66 people have solved the mega-meta already, and 39 have gotten the red herring. Congrats! Want extra credit for solving either early? You have until December 22, when the final puzzle of the year comes out, the mega-meta reveal.

Selected Solver Comments:

susaberry   Glad you put number of letters, because I was just sure it was keyboard, then soundboard! Doh! 

ned   Thanks for having an easier meta on the final puzzle of 2020. I needed it.   I hear you! 

Niaomiya   This is actually the first time I’ve ever been able to solve one of your metas.    Congrats!

Laura M   Really pretty straightforward in retrospect, but I had so much trouble seeing this one!

Hollie   Thank you for another year of MMMM! It brightens my day every time I see your email arrive. 🙂   Aw thanks!

Alternative Music Clues:

pbfrommn suggests cluing BUS as [“Kiss Me on the ___” (Replacements song)].

Brent Holman suggests cluing FAR POST as a Robert Plant song from his first solo album.

DIS suggests cluing STARDOM as [“20 Feet From ___”].

Evan suggests cluing NLERS (which he would never use in a puzzle himself!) as [They might be Giants, for short].

Groaners:

TMart   O bard, this one was broad, adorb(s) and dobra. Nice work, Bro-da!

Slash   You get 5 stars, or an A-plus!

m5rammy   …and you did it in such an ADORBs way

Paul Coulter   How appropriate that we do this to get on the leader board, also 11 letters.

A total of 223 solvers found their way to the correct answer this month. The average rating for the puzzle was 4 stars out of 5, and the average difficulty rating was 3.05. This month’s randomly chosen winner of an MMMM coffee mug is longtime solver Peter Abide from Biloxi, MI. Thanks to Matt Gaffney for blogging the puzzle at Crossword Fiend, where you can rate the puzzle (thanks!) and/or leave a comment.

The final puzzle of the year, the mega-meta reveal, will be coming your way December 22. See you then!