By David Stewart
Wow! Just when we thought it was safe to hop in the van and start driving again, what happens? We end up in Nashville at the Summer NAMM Show. This year there were no helicopters or Lear jets to get us to the show as in the past; just a trip in Chuck's luxurious van. Trips that we take together are always interesting. Even when we try to talk about something other than work, we still end up back at the same place — work, and how we can better serve our customers. You'll hear more about these new ideas in the coming months. NAMM shows always have a very festive mood (lets face it, musicians do know how to party) and this one was no exception, with great bands playing up and down every major street and great concerts every night. But in the end, fatigue (partly due to information overload) always wins at the show. The theme of this year's show was once again guitars, with a notable presence of groove or DJ-oriented equipment and digital peripherals. In spite of walking what seemed like 50 miles per day and listening to every sales pitch known to man, I'm sure we missed things. This report is in no way meant to be the definitive all-inclusive text on the matter. Before you enter remember this: List prices (where available), model names, release dates, colors, sizes, power ratings, specs, weights, knob per dollar ratios, cool guy factors, and everything else are all subject to change. Space prevents us from covering everything in these pages, but a more detailed report is available on our Web site at "www.sweetwater.com/reports/summer-namm98/". AKAI. The S5000 ($1995) and S6000 ($2995) samplers appeared to be working perfectly. They aren't shipping yet, but Akai expects them to be ready by October or November. These beasts are the latest incarnation of the S-series, and they can hold up to 256 MB of RAM, have 64 voices across 32 MIDI channels and sport a nice removable front panel that doubles as a remote control (a la Fostex recorders). They look to be the de facto standard in sampling machines for the next few years. AKG showed a new satin silver version of their popular C1000S microphone. It comes with a second capsule converter that provides more presence and ships along with the standard hypercardiod modifier. They also changed the color of the C3000 to satin silver as well. These new colors will probably not show up in the field for a few months. Also of note was their new IVM-1 in-ear monitoring system, which is the most advanced application of their Individual Virtual Acoustics technology, using binaural processing technology to achieve an extremely natural sound. ALESIS. The M20 is shipping! Actually we've already sold a bunch of them, so it's not news to us. They were also showing various M20 support products such as the CADI Controller ($1299) and the RMD 32 channel remote metering option ($799). They were also thrilled to report that the wait for the Q20 effects processor ($999) is almost over, as well. They expect to roll them out in August. The new QS6.1 ($999) will be taking over the low priced keyboard duties (see Page 8 for additional information). David Bryce gave us a great demo of the new DM Pro drum module ($899). This baby sports four times the ROM memory (16 MB) of its predecessor, the DM5, holding 1600 instruments spread across 64 mapped drum kits, with 256 different snares. It has six outs and 16 trigger ins that are controlled by a separate microprocessor running some very sophisticated software. Availability is early October. Oh yeah, it sounded fantastic. In other news, the Studio 32 mixer is going down in price to $999. ART is now in full production on the new TubePac and TubeEQ (both $249). They have a dual tube EQ ($449) coming out in September and in October they'll be announcing a single rack space channel strip for around $499. We were shown several products at the drawing stages that look very impressive. Stay tuned. AUDIO TECHNICA was showing their soon to be released 4060 ($1695) large diaphragm tube microphone. It sounds incredible and I found out that a prototype has just been used on the current Celine Dion album. AXON. Anyone serious about controlling MIDI instruments with a guitar needs to check out their stuff. The AX100, the latest in a series of neural net guitar to MIDI converters has the most consistently fast tracking
BIG BRIAR. Winning my award for coolest product name are Bob Moog's "Moogerfooger" products: the Ring Modulator ($289) and Lowpass Filter ($299) are analog effects with genuine Moog designs. The knobs (oh yeah, there are knobs) are the same type as used in the original MiniMoog keyboard. They also had the handmade Ethervox MIDI Theremin working ($3500). BOSS. Their newest tuner, the TU-2 ($139), is housed in a floor pedal style case with LED's that can be seen in full sunlight. It doesn't use battery power until activated by stepping on the pedal. The output can be muted or passed through while tuning. The AD-5 acoustic guitar processor ($249) has a very unique feature coined at the show as "Reverse Amp Simulation" which allows an acoustic guitar to be run into a standard guitar amp and make it sound like a full range speaker. Release date is scheduled for October. Can't afford an MC-505? Boss has the answer with the Dr. Groove ($495). The DR-202's waveform memory incorporates 24-voice polyphony, with its 207 drum and 49 bass samples arranged into 128 Preset drum kits plus over 400 Preset patterns ready for instant triggering. From Hip-Hop to Acid Jazz and Latin, practically every genre of Groove music is represented in these Preset patterns, all with street-level authenticity. There's a 3-track sequencer with a 13-part drum track, a dedicated bass track, and an external source track for triggering external MIDI gear plus a variety of real time controls including tap tempo. CAKEWALK. In collaboration with Roland and Fender, Cakewalk plans to participate in products enabling guitarists to be more creative and productive in recording and live performance. The first solution from the alliance is the combination of three distinct products optimized to work together: Cakewalk Guitar Studio digital audio and MIDI recording software, the Roland GR-30 Guitar Synthesizer and the Fender Roland-Ready Stratocaster. Guitarists can record and play eight tracks of CD-quality digital audio in tight synchronization with MIDI. Tracks can be edited and mixed in a familiar environment because the user interface is designed specifically for guitarists. It features a Virtual Fretboard for the display and input of melodies and chords. Players are able to capture ideas quickly by using the rhythm patterns provided. There are also specialized utilities including a guitar tuner, MIDI Guitar setup, and guitar effects including chorus, reverb, EQ, flange and delay. DDRUM was showing a new expanded drum kit called Ddrum System One ($4595), which is based on the Ddrum 4 technology. It adds three Ddrum cymbals and a hi-hat to their System Two kit ($3795). Since you use your own stand for the hi-hat it feels like real hats with sounds for open, foot, and closed pedal positions. DIGITECH. Expanding on their success with the S-100, Digitech showed the new S-200 processor ($339). It has 20-bit I/O in a two in/two out configuration (the channels can be separated), plus a more comprehensive and easier to use display than the S-100. The Vocalist Access ($469) packs the harmonic punch of the Vocalist Workstation into a 1-space rack mount package. The user interface is made more friendly by a new edit knob: push it in to edit, then push it in more to release the edit mode and it pops back out. The Talker ($299) may be their most innovative product at the show. Housed in a simple (but cool looking) floor stomp box, it gives a guitarist (or anyone else!) access to all kinds of talking effects made popular in the 1970s.
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