Craig Anderton's Sound, Studio, and Stage

[vintagevibes]

Is HC over?  Have they "reinvented" themselves out of existence?  Sad.

[The EAKLE]

There were several (three?) threads made just for NAMM coverage, but i cant find them :/

[DrPopper]

There used to be news releases on the front page ...now nothing.

[HKSblade2]

Click the Music Biz, then Industry news (for leaks) and Trade Shows/Events for Namm pics and video. Phil linked the YT channel there as well.

[MikeRivers]

There's a thread with a slew of Phil's photos, in which he probably posted a slew more last night. I found it by going to the HC main page and from there, going some place that made sense to me at the time.

I'm in a bit of a quandry about how I'm going to write my usual report this year for one simple reason - NO HANDOUTS! (and, no, I'm not complaining about no free lunches or dinners, though those are appreciated). When I visit a booth I always take some literature with me to remind me that I was there and what I saw. I'm pretty good at filling in the details once I get started. My usual procedure when starting the final report is to sort the literature into related piles - microphones, preamps, signal processors, software, and such so I can divide the report into logical sections. But this year even single sheet handouts are scarce. Ask for a press kit and I get a card with a URL. Maybe next year I'll move into the 20th century, get a handheld video recorder, and just post videos. But that wouldn't be me.

There's a short summary of the Preview day on my web page and there will be a summary of what I remembered of Day 1 a little later today.

[CTStump]

Mike think of all the Trees they are saving by cutting down on paper brochures. That should at least be a silver lining in your dark cloud my friend.

In this day and age it's all on the net and the Forest's are a little thicker, not taking in acount Guitar manufacturing.

[vintagevibes]

If you go to Musicians Friend homepage you will find a comprehensive list of all new NAMM products with prices.  Almost 700 of them ... as if they have some sort of direct feed.  Yet there is almost no coverage here.  They are purposely killing this site.  It's over.

[bookumdano3]

Dunno about HC coverage, but I have some groovy lit from a few booths yesterday.. API, digico etc.  Here's my Namm report so far...

Met with my good friend Paul from VSL at the illio booth.

Met my good friend Rich at Korg

Met with my super good friends Avery and Nate at Yamaha

Met with my super duper friends at Roland.

Met my good friend Fred Gretsch at Gretsch  (they're gonna build a White Falcon gtr for me like the one I hacked up myself that ended up in the old Ferris Buehler movie... yay... yay)

Will meet up with my good friend Bob Clearmountain tomorrow at Apogee.

Met my good friend (template- plug in name here for maximum name dropping effect)

Oh... gear and stuff.........

Maybe it's just me, but I'm happily noticing lots of BIG consoles in the booths (compared to the past five or six years).  Makes me very happy and I'm now back to reconsidering a small Nucleus and maybe go with something more akin to what I'm used to with bigger consoles.

The cutest girls are not in the convention in any way shape or form.  They're all employed outside as waitresses at the various restaurants.

ProTools/Avid is pretty nowheresville for my uses.  The white maudio keyboards don't seem to be anything new. 

I luv luv all the mic choices.  Even the crummy ones.

We are living in an era of plenty when it comes to gear.

When you walk by soundonsound's booth, grab a mag issue.  Stuck inside is one of those large, nifty foldout wall charts with frequencies of all instruments/vocals.  Those things are always handy when trying to construct an uncluttered arrangement. The chart even has a cool lower area with "fat", warm" "shrill", "crummy" frequency charts to help further define what you may be going after in your eq adventures... the chart is by soundonsound and Sweetwater.

I was looking at Tascam's new lineup of 2" 24-track tape machines that go for six thousand dollars retail....hah.. just kidding. 

In the Jack Paar "I kid you not" department.... there's a booth where they've got a UKELELE BASS GUITAR..  The demo is a guy playing it... has honkin huge strings and huge tuning pegs and sounds like Chris Squire blasting out a bass solo..  but the dang thing is a UKELELE.  Complete with hollow body and sound hole.  I'm going back in a minute to see who the booth is.  They're sort of mixed in with tubas and trumpets, so not in the main areas I walk.

[blue2blue]

---

CTStump wrote:

Mike think of all the Trees they are saving by cutting down on paper brochures. That should at least be a silver lining in your dark cloud my friend.

In this day and age it's all on the net and the Forest's are a little thicker, not taking in acount Guitar manufacturing.

---

Oh yeah. I remember when I had my student AES membership. I'd stretch my arms carrying around all the 'free' four color, heavy cardstock books and brochures... and that was with a trip or two to drop them off at the car and come back for more. (At a buck or two a piece -- back in the 80s -- that couldn't have helped but contribute to the high cost of selling gear. I worked for a communications manufacturer for a while in the 80s and, damn, that show chaff gets expensive.)

Anyhow, I try to generate and collect as little paper as humanly possible these days. When I moved out of 1450 square feet + 400 squares of garage into a beachside flat with 400+100, I ended up recycling hundreds and hundreds of pounds of magazines and other junk. Maybe over a ton. I dunno. It was crazy. (Decades of a number of tech mags from computing and recording. At one point I had 7 tech subscriptions. Not to mention a then-fat daily newspaper, along with another, thinner daily.) 

[MikeRivers]

---

vintagevibes wrote:

If you go to Musicians Friend homepage you will find a comprehensive list of all new NAMM products with prices. 

---

If thats all you really care about, I guess my work is over.

But I understand. The WWW makes this so easy. Why do they even bother with these shows, anyway?  And don't think there are a lot of manufacturers who think that way, which explains why they don't exhibit. 

[UstadKhanAli]

We were joking yesterday that in 20 years, NAMM will not take place in the Convention Center and will be completely virtual.

 Mike Rivers sighting, going into the Bob Moog tribute!!!  Good to see you, Mike!

 I'll post photos and text of NAMM soon.

As for handouts of the FUN variety, the Holophone booth was wheeling in kegs of cold beer yesterday around 4 pm, and so my friends hung out in front of the booth for 45 minutes, helping them lighten the load so it wouldn't be much easier wheeling the kegs back out, and that was very sweet of us.

[Beck]

Personally I would like to see music forums less product oriented, even though I know that's sillier than saying I'm still hoping for world peace.

The conversations would look more like this...

Post by ubooienoobie666:  What new thing do I need to get this sound?

Reply by Beck:  Nothing... you can't buy that sound in a product.  You need talent and skill.

Reply by ubooienoobie666:  What?  But I thought... I mean, isn't...

Interrupted by Beck:  No!  Now go away until you have something creative to contribute here! (See, we need an interruption feature to cut off other members in their flawed thinking even before they're done typing the post.)

[MikeRivers]

Darn!  I remembered that somebody was having free beer at 4 o'clock but when time care around I coudln't remember who it was. Did you notice the new mics Holophone was showing?  I saw them and thought this was how Bob Heil would make the case for an EV 664. 

Virtual shows aren't so far away. There were at leat two companies streaming walk-arounds throughout the show, and Craig's videos are pretty much that. A few years back when Mackie was in one of their slump periods, they didn't attend a show but made a "virtual booth" at their web site.

[vintagevibes]

---

MikeRivers wrote:

---

vintagevibes wrote:

If you go to Musicians Friend homepage you will find a comprehensive list of all new NAMM products with prices. 

---

If thats all you really care about, I guess my work is over.

But I understand. The WWW makes this so easy. Why do they even bother with these shows, anyway?  And don't think there are a lot of manufacturers who think that way, which explains why they don't exhibit. 

---

HC used to be the place to go for NAMM news as it happend.  Now before I can even figure out where it's hidden I can get it all from Sonic State or Music Radar.  I really think this site's usefullnes has been diminished with each "upgrade".  I'm not one to think all corporations are evil but this seems like an example of corporate bumbling by people who don't know what's going on in the trenches.  The fact that it is now owned by retailers confuses matters even more.  Have you ever seen a bad review in the Musicians Friend catalog?

[UstadKhanAli]

NAMMbulating 2013 (because, of course, I need to have a cute name for walking around NAMM...

Here's some photos and text of my NAMM visit. Includes various gear, including the Korg Mini MS-20, the Antique Music Wheelharp, Robotune Robot Guitar Tuner, guitars, fun, that kind of thing.

http://www.elevenshadows.com/sss/namm2013/index.htm

[Lee Knight]

I don't think I'm alone in saying this...

NAMM has been a personal growing process for me. And not in the way one might imagine. Each year I get closer and closer to realizing, (though I've always really known) that music is where it is at. If something is required to help you make that music, so be it. Go find it. NAMM can be a facilitator in that search. But it is also a reminder that it all comes from within and comes out through us.

Tools are tools. They're cool, but they're just tools. How many hammers do you really want?

I love stumbling 'cross the simple, ingenious idea in the basement, like the cool, oversized rubber "wingnut" that fits over a chosen stomp box knob. Sort of a more refined expansion on the MXR rubber covers for knobs, to allow you to adjust a primo parameter with your foot on a floor stompbox. Clever and obviously so right. But...

...for me, I'm at the point of saturation with MI and audio development. If it doesn't already exist, that thing that's going to help you make the music inside you come out and be here with us all, you're not going to find it on the NAMM floor. And really... it does already exist and you already own it.

Having said that, I walked the floor with a friend who makes metal machining tools. He was busy building and maintianing relationships with some very big people. He makes the big, computer controlled behemoths that tool the tuners, or that perfect little screw for the design, or the truss rod that needs to be to this spec, the new bridge design, whatever... and I found there to be a very alive and caring culture among the guitar making elite. Martin, Larivee, PRS, Taylor, Breedlove... down to the Jay Tursors... there seemed to be a genuine love of their mission of getting a great guitar into the guitar lover's hands, at a price they could swing. This was the overwhelming and reoccurring mantra. Quality at a price that everyone could make happen.

That passion was alive and well. It was a privilege to witness a little of that.

Beyond that... this year's music on the big center outdoor stage was fantastic. More of that please.

[MikeRivers]

Nice collection of ambulations, Ken.  What's your secret to taking good photos through that NAMM museum display case?

[CTStump]

Thanks for sharing that Ken. I wish I could afford the Massive Passive myself, there is something about the irresistible urge to tweak those knobs.

Your photo's of those custom Guitar's are awesome, Great work my friend.

[UstadKhanAli]

---

Lee Knight wrote:

I don't think I'm alone in saying this...

NAMM has been a personal growing process for me. And not in the way one might imagine. Each year I get closer and closer to realizing, (though I've always really known) that music is where it is at. If something is required to help you make that music, so be it. Go find it. NAMM can be a facilitator in that search. But it is also a reminder that it all comes from within and comes out through us.

Tools are tools. They're cool, but they're just tools. How many hammers do you really want?

I love stumbling 'cross the simple, ingenious idea in the basement, like the cool, oversized rubber "wingnut" that fits over a chosen stomp box knob. Sort of a more refined expansion on the MXR rubber covers for knobs, to allow you to adjust a primo parameter with your foot on a floor stompbox. Clever and obviously so right. But...

---

Love it!  Yes, completely agree. 

I am really excited about a lot of the stuff I see from individuals, small companies, etc. in Hall E.  It's great to connect with them and share that enthusiasm.  I make a point each year to go through every single aisle in Hall E.  I saw the Antique Wheelharp, the Goltar Robotune Robot Guitar Tuner (tunes all six strings simultaneously and accurately), the Stage Ninja microphone/camera clamp, and a lot of other cool stuff there, stuff that is genuinely innovative.

[UstadKhanAli]

---

MikeRivers wrote:

Nice collection of ambulations, Ken.  What's your secret to taking good photos through that NAMM museum display case?

---

Thanks, Mike!  Good seeing you!

And my secret?  It was one of these two things, I can't remember which:
1.  Flashing a bit of leg to the NAMM staff to get them to open up the display.

2.  Pressing the camera up against the window ever so gently to minimize the reflection from the glass on the display.