Well, another thrilling Winter NAMM (The International Music Products Association) Show is behind us. I can honestly say that the NAMM Shows get more astounding every year. The 1999 Show in Los Angeles was especially exciting for our Sweetwater team as our booth was located strategically on the Main Floor this time. (We finally made it!) No more setting up in the most out-of-the way aisle in the deepest basement location; this time we were in the thick of the action. (In fact, as you read this, our Sweetwater Technical staff is already hard at work getting the next issue of Sweet Notes filled with detailed notes about everything we saw at the show. You can also go online at: www.sweetwater.com to get a first look at all that is cool for 1999 and the new Century to come.)

Our Main Floor booth location allowed us a better opportunity to showcase our exclusive K2500SWx keyboard package. The K2500SWx is an awesomely customized system which delivers the world's most powerful synthesis and sampling keyboard (via the industry renowned Kurzweil K2500XS) along with everything needed to make it a world-class music production station that looks every bit as good as it sounds. Real oak endcaps and an oak music stand, along with the custom wooden keyboard stand was designed to make the K2500SWx the centerpiece of any studio. And although many of our K2500SWx packages are going to professional studios, it was exciting to learn that touring performers as diverse as Oscar Peterson and the U.S. Air Force Band have added the power of the SWx to their setups.

The K2500SWx not only comes fully loaded with every possible option inside the 88-note weighted keyboard - including 128 megs of RAM, 28 megs of ROM, 2.5 megs of P-RAM, and the powerful KDFX digital multi-effects - it also sports an internal 2 gig hard drive which will prove to be more than adequate to hold all of your own sampling work. And all of these options have been installed and tested by our top-rated Service Department. You won't even have to worry about which Operating System you're getting as Sweetwater will install the most recent version just before we subject the unit to 24 hours of burn-in testing. In fact, you won't even have to wonder when future Operating Systems become available as we'll notify you as they're released and (if the update is free) we'll even send you a copy so that you always have access to the latest and greatest new features.

Sounds great and great to look at: the amazing SWx from Sweetwater (see larger)

The SWx’s latest soundware and software upgrades provide the very cool KB3 Organ simulation and the revolutionary “Live Mode,” which lets you bring external audio signals in for “VASTing” and then take your sound through the most flexible and powerful digital effects processor ever placed inside a keyboard.

And now that you have the world's most powerful Synthesizer/Sampler, you'll be ready to dig into the most professional 15,000 Megabyte CD-ROM Library ever assembled. These are not “throwaway” CD-ROMs - we're talking about Sweetwater’s award winning Stratus Library of Classical, American Standard and Exotic Instruments and Synths. You get the highly rated Sweetwater Grand Piano CD-ROM, as well as the entire RSI Library. And don’t forget our 20 out of 20 stars (Keyboard Magazine) Ultimate Guitars CD-ROM and the recently released Total Stereo Session Drums CD-ROM, along with the soulful Pocket B-3 and Finger Juice CD-ROMs. This is just a small list of the CD-ROMs that will take your K2500SWx to the extreme.

But as if that weren’t enough, just to show you how serious we are about the K2500SWx package, we've even included our entire Power Translator Library complete with Roland's great Solo String, Brass Sections, Orchestral Winds, String Sections and Orchestral Percussion CD-ROMs, along with their custom designed Power Translator floppies.

You might ask, “What good would all this be without first-rate technical support?” Not a problem, since this exclusive Sweetwater package includes free lifetime technical support from the number one Kurzweil experts in the industry.

But the K2500SWx is more than just extremely smart, it's also extremely beautiful to the eye. We commissioned top professional craftsmen to design a framing of real, solid oak for the keyboard, as well as a top-quality extra-wide conductor’s music stand. The K2500SWx rests atop a custom designed, solid black, wooden keyboard stand and sports a laser-engraved brass plaque with your studio’s name, which completes this musical work of art. There's so much more to tell about the K2500SWx, but I'll leave it to your Sweetwater Sales Engineer to fill you in on the rest. Your music is worth the best, isn’t it?

Now I'm off to finish writing about all the wondrous products I've been seeing in my dreams all week at the NAMM Show. See you soon.