Winter NAMM 2001 Report
Part 3
It’s day 3 of the Winter NAMM show here in Anaheim, and this reporter thinks he just might be able to get used to sunny 65 degree days in January. Despite the beautiful weather, the real attention-getters are inside the convention center, so that’s where I’ll take you.
The 600 foot long (yes, two football fields) Roland “booth” was easily the largest display at the show and they certainly had a lot of new gear to gawk at. Perhaps causing the most commotion was the latest in the VS series of recorders – the VS2480. A little over two feet across, this incredible all-in-one studio can record and play back up to 24 tracks of 24 bit audio. It sports 16 analog inputs (all balanced mic/line, with 8 on balanced XLR with phantom power) plus 2 R-Bus 8 channel digital I/O’s and 17 motorized faders. Using all the optional I/O yields a possible total of 36 inputs and 32 outputs – not a problem for the 64 channel digital mixer. There are built-in dynamics on every channel, and with 1 VS8F2 effects card pre-installed and the option to add up to 3 more, 16 simultaneous stereo effects (or 32 mono) are possible at once. For ease of use, there is a port for an optional mouse and ASCII keyboard, and for those who need a larger viewing surface than the already expanded LCD screen, there is an optional meter bridge and a VGA out to connect a standard computer monitor. With MIDI and SMPTE sync, word clock input, the SCSI port for connecting to external storage devices and/or Roland’s CD burners, 24-voice phrase trigger pads which play direct from disc (complete with WAV file import/export) and the ability to do 96kHz recording (albeit at 12 tracks), Roland has made this a truly professional piece of gear. Hats off to the inventors of the all in one hard disc recorder for raising the bar once again with this winner! Obviously, there’s a lot more Roland gear to talk about, but there’s enough cool gear from other manufacturers that that will have to wait for a later report.
Martin had a host of new guitars to show off. The limited edition Cowboy II features a unique high pressure laminate soundboard with a painting by Robert Armstrong of an old West scene complete with a chuck wagon cook who looks suspiciously like Martin CEO C.F. Martin IV. The ALternative X actually has an aluminum top (hence the capitalized “AL”) – quite a radical departure from a company so steeped in tradition. A number of more traditional models were displayed as well, including limited edition commemorative guitars for Clarence White, Elizabeth Cotton, Keb Mo’, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Merle Haggard. The real showstopper, however, was the new D50 Deluxe. The most ornate production guitar in Martin’s history, the D50 has Brazilian rosewood sides, back, headplate, end piece and heelcap, a heavily “bearclawed” Sitka spruce top and Adirondack red spruce bracing. A dark heart abalone “Tree of Life” inlay, bordered with pearl, runs the entire length of the ebony fingerboard, and up onto the headstock. There are also inlays on the back, endpiece, heelcap, bridge and pickguard, and the tuners are hand engraved gold vintage “butterbean” style, all in all making this unique instrument a true work of art.
Yamaha had a new production workstation called the RS7000. This unit seamlessly integrates audio and MIDI, allowing up to 64 MB of samples to be imported (with optional memory expansion) which can then be time stretched or compressed, in real time, to fit any tempo. The 62 voice synth has over 1000 sounds, and the ones we heard were quite impressive. The sequencer offers both pattern-based recording with 16 sections of 16 tracks each, or a 200,000 note per song linear sequencer. Add to that effects, including a separate Master section with multiband compression, slicer, isolater, and other DJ-style tools, 18 assignable knobs and 2 pads for real time control, plus flexible I/O and this production station will find a home in a lot of studios.
AKG was showing a new front address, large diaphragm condenser mic, designed for broadcast applications. Dubbed the C4500B-BC, it has a transformerless output, excellent electromagnetic screening and an internal pop filter. Proximity effect is significantly reduced by the capsule design, which is optimized for a working distance of two to three inches.
People gathered at the Korg booth were treated to a first look at a new twist in synth technology as the new Karma synth was unveiled. An instrument seven years in the making, the Karma has the same sound engine, effects and sequencer as the Triton, and can even take the same expansion boards. The difference lies in revolutionary technology which uses Generated Effects, or GE’s. GE’s are somewhat of a cross between arpeggiators and MIDI phrases, but which can be highly manipulated, altered and even randomized in real time. The applications run from things like strummed or fingerpicked guitar parts, to incredibly rich, lush pads, to impossible to play musical phrases. Certainly the dance market will jump on this new workstation, but its potential will stretch far beyond into other types of music as well.
Paul Reed Smith was showing two new models to their Santana series of guitars. The Santana III is a somewhat less expensive version of the current Santana II, with an Indian rosewood fingerboard with visible fret tines, as opposed to the Brazilian board with its unique hidden tines on the Santana II. The new model also has covered pickups, more similar to the ones Carlos uses today. Perhaps the bigger news, however, was the introduction of the Santana SE. This incredibly affordable instrument features a solid mahogany body and glued-in mahogany neck with a slightly longer (25″) scale length. With two humbucking pickups, 3 way pickup selector with master tone and volume controls and available in four translucent finishes (Vintage Cherry, Royal Blue, Teal and Grey Black), the stunning thing about this guitar is not the smooth playability and great tone, but rather the price – the Santana SE lists for only $738! How well does this budget beauty play? The master guitar player himself had to sign off on both the Santana III and SE. After playing the SE he said “This is great! Now where’s the inexpensive one?”
The folks at Neumann had a working model of their impressive M150 microphone. The successor to the legendary (and virtually unobtainable) vintage mic, the M50, this pressure transducer omni tube mic will surely find a home in studios who need the best in natural, warm reproduction. The M50 has long been known as one of the premier mics for string scoring and orchestral recording, and from what we could tell at the show, fans of that mic will not be disappointed with this modern, quiet successor.
Over at the Steinberg booth, the new Houston control surface was catching the eye of many a show attendee. This classy new controller is designed specifically for VST software, and as such, integrates beautifully into the system. Providing a level of direct control that is very hard to match with a generic controller which is not designed expressly for a single software, the Houston will be on the wish list of many a Cubase user.
This wraps up day three from the 2001 Winter NAMM show here in Anaheim. There’s still plenty of great gear to talk about, including what may just be the hit of the show (in the news biz, we call that a “teaser”). In the meantime, there are concerts, special events, and lots of free food and drink to consume on manufacturer’s expense accounts. As this is sometimes the only way to get at the truth of the matter, I must press on. Journalism is a tough and thankless job, but somebody has to do it. This is David Klausner, guest In Sync reporter, signing off from California.