After attending several of these shows, I've become rather complacent about products, so this NAMM report probably doesn't quite have the same enthusiasm. This year I went into the show with a terrible chest and sinus cold and being constantly tired didn't help my level of enthusiasm that I usually take into the show.

Regardless of my condition, I did manage to have a good time and see some interesting new things.

So, what the heck is NAMM? Normally it's a trade show where companies that manufacture music related products show their new stuff to prospective retailers, dealers, and distributors. This is where big announcements about ground breaking products occur, and where companies forge new alliances--or not.

One surprise was that Evolution Electronics, purveyors of fine MIDI controllers, was acquired by M-Audio. Niels "Zuwonga" Larsen, previously with propellerheads, is currently with Evolution. I stopped and thanked him because he referred me to Keyboard Magazine to write articles on ReBirth and Reason. This eventually led to the book contract. Basically, I'm indebted to Niels for his help over the years.

As usual, it was great to see the Props. Apparently Syntrillium was not at the show this year, so the Props managed to get a premium space right by the doors of the hall! They had the prop lounge all set up complete with disco balls and phat sound system where passers-by were enticed with the sweet sound of the Scream 4.

The big props announcement is, of course, ReCycle for MacOS X. Yes, everyone (except old sampler users) can now upgrade their operating systems to panther.

Besides the announcement of ReCycle 2.1 (for MacOS X), Propellerhead Software has introduced a new teaching package for grade school and high school students. Developed by Stephanie (Left, under the disco ball), the program is designed to meet certain learning criteria mandated by the British education system to monitor the progress and comply with auditing procedures of the educational system. It received a lot of attention at the show and will hopefully be implemented before the next school year :-)

I had the opportunity to meet the new propellerhead, James Bernard. We hit it off quite well since he's a fellow squarepusher fan. It was strange to hear his demo called "Pusher" since it sounded vaguely familiar to a certain track off "Go Plastic". I have to admit, James' demos were really inspiring. He's a master of using the external controller to do live tweaks, and he could probably put on a whole set using a 16bar loop with live modulation stuff. Plus, he's fun to hang with whilst out getting pissed! He did a fantastic job showing what can be done with Reason and a fist full of knobs.

The Merkle brothers of bitplant were again at the show and they had their work spread out all over the software section. Their latest work is the Arturia CS-80V. I had a chance to play with it and it really sounds impressive. As usual though, the Arturia stuff is CPU hungry, but if you have fast machine and want a reliable CS-80. This is most definitely the way to go.

How would you like to have a Minimoog Model D for $200? The newest Arturia plug-in takes the technology behind the Modular V and shrinks it down to an easy to use interface that emulates the legendary Minimoog.

The plug sounds great, and the price is right for anyone to get that sound on their systems.

Real Moogs were naturally at the show, including the new 50th Anniversary Minimoog Voyager with a cool backlit control panel. Bob Moog was decked out in a tux and they had a birthday cake on the first day of the show.

There was another moogerfooger pedal (that seems new) that i didn't get a close look at. The pitfalls of being sick and not thinking clearly.

A really interesting bit of technology at the moog booth was the new PianoBar. This device is non destructive method of adding MIDI output to your piano. It doesn't turn your piano into a diskclavier for MIDI playback, just a midi controller. It's a great idea for people who play piano and want to explore the possibilities with MIDI. The piano bar has a control module that converts the scan data to midi note and velocity information. There's also a pedal sensor which is also converted to midi data. The Control module also features a synth with plenty of preset sounds.

Dave Smith, yes the guy who came up with "MIDI" and legendary synth designer of Sequential Circuits was at the show demonstrating his newest creation, the rack mounted quad evolver which sounds just like one would imagine... phat as hell. It doesn't have the interface features like the original evolver, but there is editing software to control all of the parameters.

Dave Smith even brought along a Prophet T-8 kept in beautifully mint condition from his collection. It's unbeleivably immaculate. I guess i should not be surprised :)

The new Korg MS-20 complete with patch cords is actually a USB control interface for the "Legacy Collection" of virtual Korg emulators that include the MS-20, the poly-six, the Wavestation, and a combination of the devices. When you start patching changes on the mini MS-20, the virtual cables on the software are changed. It's quite a clever idea and probably worth it for the virtual wavestation alone.

The other cool Korg device was the new Kaoss Pad Entrancer that processes audio AND video. The demo man, Chris (and former colleague of Propellerhead James Bernard), showed some clever tricks with a live camera feed where the frames were frozen, stuttered, reversed, and looped at different frame rates. This seems to be a growing trend where DJs can control a visual show as well as audio. Other companies had interesting devices, but the Entrancer seemed to be the most versatile.

The gmedia impOSCar is neat vst/AU plug that emulates the old OSCar synthesizer. Not like the world needs another virtual synthesizer, but the OSCar was a pretty unique synth that i remember well. Not many were made, so this one of those plugz that could be very popular. Also featured were the oddity which is the Arp Odyssey emulator and the M-Tron a virtual mellotron. I know two people who own originals...one works for propellerhead software.

The Ohmforce Symptohm Melohman is one of the most unique synthesis plugs at the show. Period. The ohmboyz are infamous for their unique designs, but that same thinking has gone a step further with this synthesis application which morphs sounds. Various patches are assigned to a set of keys on a keyboard. While playing a part with one hand, you switch patches by pressing one of the patch keys, and the rate of morph is controlled by velocity. This allows for an amazing amount of expressiveness (or tweakiness).

Finally, I got to see the damn book! It's not as bad as i thought it would be. I was quite surprised to see the digicam image I shot used on the cover. I dropped by to meet everyone at backbeat books. I've become familiar with the routine of dealing with people via phone and internet and never meeting them, so it was nice to finally attach a face with the text. This copy was Fedexed from the printer, so there were only two copies at the show. Apparently someone purchased the other copy at the end of the show. I'll post more info later this week about when and where it will be available.

It's quite bizarre being an author. I don't consider what I've done as "real" writing, so it's odd to think of myself as an author, but the people at backbeat were very welcoming. So it was time for some Backbeat spycam pics. Pictured Left to right: Kate, Me, Nina. Kate worked on the back cover copy of the book, and Nina is in charge of getting the book publicized and promoted.

Kate did an extensive amount of work on the book about Jim Marshall, yes the legendary electric guitar amplifier creator. He was at the show signing autographs. We took the opportunity to get him to autograph Kate's copy.

Kate had never met Jim Marshall before and had only seen the picture of him on the cover of the book. She was expecting a somewhat younger looking Jim Marshall.

While hanging out at the Props booth, I ran into Ben Hayes, one of the engineers who tracked the session for the bass loops and various rhodes and sax riffs for the refill that appears on the book. It turns out that Ben got a gig on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. This bus goes across the country to meet the winners of songwriting contests and to produce audio and video of the winning entries written by students. Apparently the bus is constantly on the go and travels about 40,000 miles a year.

Ben took Tage and me on a tour of the bus which comes fully stocked with equipment. It's basically A full music and video production studio on wheels. Sponsored by mainly by Yamaha, it has a all the basic stuff you need to produce tracks including a MIDI drum kit, guitars, basses, synths, pro tools HD-i system, logic audio, turntables with final scratch, and of course... Reason. There is another workstation in front which includes video editing facilities and DVD duplication equipment.

The last few years, it's turned into a strange orgy of press announcements telling the world that one company has been acquired by a larger company. It was strange not to see emagic at the show. Instead it was a big apple thing to announce apple G5 towers, Logic Pro, and garageband. It was weird --even for a die hard Mac user like me. Logic will now be bundled with all of the plug-ins and boxed as Logic Pro. The upgrade price is about the cost of a few of the plug-ins.

One of the "Must Have" devices at NAMM this year was the Metasonix Agonizer. I had the fortunate opportunity to meet Eric Barbour, the irreverent genius behind the vacuum tube audio smashers by Metasonix. After talking to him a bit, I understand why these devices sound so damn nasty. Here's a bit of copy from the TX-1 Agonizer advert:

"What it does: The TX-1 uses and obscure TV tube from the 1960s which nobody has ever used for audio before. It does horrible things, especially in this circuit. A neon lamp in the feedback loop causes all kinds of nonstability, plus loads of screeching, gagging awfulness. There's no transistors and no damn Sovtek 12AX7s in it either, so disabuse yourself of that smug little delusion. It's not like you're a schmuck, personally (are you?) If you're that pathetic, we'll put in terms even an LA session guitarist can understand: Bad sound, bad sound. Ouchie. Run away, run away....

We'll make it easy for you, suckboy. We will simply warn you, if you buy a TX1, your wife will leave you and your dog will chew your genitals off. Be a good buy and get a Line 6 amp simulator. Be obedient and be unoriginal. Buy more Sheryl Crow albums. Ha ha ha. Now piss off, Mister Tiny Tax Payer."

I'm a sucker for cool looking hardware that has a vintage feel. RobRoy of Electronaut had his valve mic pre on display. It's basically a one man company from Chicago putting together an interesting looking unit. there was no way to hear it, but it sure looks cool. It turns out that RobRoy and I have friends in common including John Herndon who added a nice back cover comment to my book.

I had a chance to take a closer look at plugzilla from Manifold Labs. The concept of a hardware VST host is pretty cool, but i think i'm just a little too spoiled with having a visual GUI to control parameters. The creator of Plugzilla, Joe Waltz, was also showing an updated version of an old eventide 2016 Reverb unit. Joe is also the creator of the old Lexicon Jam-man. Just a bit of trivia for you old gear freaks.

Muse Research displayed their new VST hosting hardware called the Receptor. This is a very interesting stand alone device that supports windows VSTi and effect plugs. You can plug a USB keyboard, MIDI controller, and mouse into it to control the parameters, as well as a monitor, or you can control the parameters via ethernet using a client application on either Mac or Win. No it's not just a computer, it's a dedicated audio processor device that uses VST software.

I hung out quite a bit with Magnus Lidström, creator of the Reason Malström Synthesizer. He's quite an interesting fellow who has been working with Marcus and the crew for quite some time. Besides picking his brain about some of the inner secrets of the Malstrom, I finally had the opportunity to try out his new µtonic VSTi Drum synthesizer. This plug is quite nice and can make some very mean sounding beats.

Magnus assures me that a Mac version is coming soon. If you're a windows user, you can give it a try now.

While dropping by the Millennia Media booth to talk to someone about doing repairs to my vintage HV-3 preamp, I ran into my friend, John Bacciagaluppi (right) of TapeOp Magazine. One of those "Small World" Moments since, John is friends with John LaGrou (left), principal of Millennia. I met a contributing writer, Ian who was working the Millennia booth. Ian is going to do a review of the book for the magazine... I used the HV-3 for the Stradivarius Violin refill. It's been a few years since it's seen regular use, so John said to send it in for a tune up.

Millennia's TD-1, twin direct input is something like a smaller version of the Origin. This device is a mic pre, and instrument direct box and features two ReAMP circuits. One simulates a strat output and the other simulates a les paul output. It's a super clean DI designed for capturing sounds accurately and can handle outputs from amplifiers. From one input you get a variety of output options so it's more than just a di. You could buy a couple of new computers for what this baby goes for ;)

A few other shots from around NAMM.

Me with Jesuspark. (Thomas Merkle), Nina and Sandra. All visiting california from Germany.

Look - Stefan without the trademark Glasses.

Tage with the camera before it was lost. He was rather disappointed that he lost some pics he took of George Clinton (Woof! the funken master himself). Things worked out though because, George Clinton and his posse came strolling through the Prop's Lounge. Tage had the chance to meet him personally, and shake his hand. Tage was quite chuffed after that.

Dammit...i didn't have my camera with me!

First thing in the morning everyone is feeling ok. Loui and Wolfram can enjoy themselves before the mad rush.

I never knew this until Wolfram told me, but there is a separate German Propellerheads Website...complete with it's own unique content. i'm embarrassed that i didn't know about this before.

Yes, Shaq was at the show. People don't beleive it and ask, "Why would Shaq be at the show?" From what i've heard, he's got a pretty nice studio in his home. He was standing right behind Tage, but i missed that shot... He is quite humongous... i got out of the way!

So what was it that caught the attention of Shaq (and Tage and me)? This really good DJ was scratching over a beat through a Serato Scratch Live interface. The visual display had a really interesting interface that scrolls the waveforms so you can see the transport point of the audio file being scratched. Plus the DJ was excellent.

An interesting shot of the lighting equipment booth. They started up the fog machine as I passed by so I had to take the shot.

Sandra was given some kind of inflatable promotional thing, and Stefan cops a feel. It's always a party when he's around (but i can't show those pics).

At the end of the show, Tage broke open the champagne to celebrate another trade show end.

Ernst plays DJ (iTunes DJ) with the music blasting over the Propellerhead Sound System. Stefan switched it over to the 2ManyDJs album to pick up the pace.

Now that ReCycle 2.0 is obsolete, dozens of copies of Recycle 2.0 were trashed and thrown into the Propellerhead Refuse pile.

After the props packed up, we met up for dinner then back to the hotel for one final "Frankfurt" night. I didn't make it that far, but here are a few scenes from the beginning...

Stefan and Tage modelling the new Reason Sweatshirts. They go well with trucker caps, Long Island Ice tea and for those with finer palettes, a nice glass of red wine.

The group en masse managed to obtain a corner section of the bar. Unfortunately there was a poorly tuned piano next to the seats and some drummer tapping random notes on the keys. It was quite annoying.

They made me ask him to stop. Just before i was going to slap him, i simply asked, "Would you mind if I played a bit?" and he was cool and stopped. So... yeah i just played the intro verse and chorus to "let it be" and let the real players have their turn...

James exhibits his other talent... Yeah he can play philip glass tunes on the piano!

The bartender (or perhaps busboy) is completely taken with James' performance.

The headliners took their turn... Everyone was shocked to discover that Wolfram is quite a good pianist. Stefan can pull out a lick or two as well :)

Basically Garageband is MIDI production system that allows you to sequence and manipulate loops much like bitheadz phrayzer or SF-ACID or Ableton LIVE. You can record and edit MIDI sequences as well as digital audio; mix and process tracks using any Audio Unit plugin (yes even the commercial ones).

It's really quite impressive for what it does mainly because the sample sets are impeccably produced. I couldn't figure out if you could import your own loops, however you can use your own audio tracks. It is by no means as flexible as Live or Reason, and there's no ReWire support, but if you're completely new to music production on the computer, then GarageBand is a really nice way to learn. Especially for the price point.

Years ago, John racked up a Telefunken v72 mic preamp for me, and built a custom DI for tracking line level signals. I've used it a lot to record everything from vocals to synthesizers. In fact, many of the old rebirth mods and refills on this site were sampled through this device :-) The most notable samples are the prophet 5 bass and supersubs and the TB303 set.