Though the Hilton Hotel has the feeling that way too many parties have happened on it’s watch, the NAMM show is fresh and oh so innovative. You get a sense that music and expression are evolving with us as human beings. There is so much going on here! the new technologies coming out of Microsoft, Apple, Intel, MOTU, Ableton, SHURE, Open Labs, etc. etc. are making music available to everyone. seriously, if you have a compulsion to play or make sound, this place is a bed of inspiration.
It’s only my first 1/2 day here and i’ve only seen about 15% of the show, but i’m giddy already.

more later

Darek Mazzone
www.crossfader.com

This morning I attended a press conference that announced the fruits of a collaboration between Roland/Boss and Fender Musical Instruments. Three products stood out as outstanding. Two are Boss pedals that capture the sound and the fury of a couple of Fender’s most enduring amplifiers, the ’59 Bassman and the ’65 Deluxe Reverb. They have the typical form factor of other Boss boxes, and the knobs are identical to the controls you’d find on the real Fender amps. From what I could hear in the cacaphonous NAMM environment, both units nailed the sound of the amps they emulate.

But what really got my juices flowing is the Stratocaster VG. The companies involved might not appreciate my making obvious comparisons, but Roland and Fender have taken an American Standard Strat and given it the Line 6 Variax tretment. You can select an assortment of presets that instantly make the Strat sound like a Telecaster, a Strat with dual humbuckers, an acoustic guitar, or whatever, complete with a complement of effects. Best of all, it still looks (and presumably feels) just like a standard Strat. I can sum it up in three words: I want one!

DJ gear is blowing up again at this year’s NAMM. Everyone seems to want to ride the bandwagon of DJs moving to software. One of cool new products I’ve seen so far is the Numark Total Control. It’s a USB tabletop controller that’s automatically set up to work with Numark’s Cue software and Native Instruments Traktor (it also comes with “lite” versions of each program). In addition, you can also set it to work with any program with a MIDI learn capactiy. Total control looks a bit like a 2-channel DJ mixer with jog wheels; it’s got all the channel and pitch bend faders you need, as well as knobs for knobs for EQ and other functions. Numark quoted a MAP of $249 for the Total Control, to be released in April.

If there was a word to sum up the show so far, it would be “Native”. I just saw Apogee’s new portable Symphony system written exclusively for Apple’s Logic Pro 7. Using a $595 PCIe card into Apple’s 17″ Mac Book Pro, you can get up to 32 tracks with 1.6 ms of latency. Right after that, I went to the Sony booth and heard that their Oxford plug-ins are now available in Audio Units. Native has arrived. Be sure to check out our March issue for more Native news.

Just brought Nathan Eames back from the Sony booth, where the big news from the Oxford plug-in world is the fact that the first three of the range of seven have now gone native. Seems to be an emerging theme at this show. Nathan, I understand that there’s a lot happening in Oxford Town?

It’s certainly been a busy time for us Tom. In the last month, we’ve released Universal Binary versions of all our Pro Tools plugs, launched the Oxford Limiter for the Powercore platform and most exciting I think for the
NAMM show is the launch of our Native range. People have been talking to us for a while now about – when are you guys gonna be compatible with Logic and Digital Performer etc? And the truth is, they have been, but
you needed a Powercore card for them to run. Now though with Apple’s Intel based machines running at lightning speeds – we think its a good time to bring them out for Logic etc. So the first three plugs that are AU
compatible are the Oxford EQ, Oxford Dynamics and Oxford Limiter. The remaining four (Inflator, TransMod, Reverb and Restoration Tools bundle) will come early in 2007.
We’re all really excited at Oxford about opening up to a whole new world of users, and hope that Logic users will appreciate having us on the platform. Just to give a very quick background on where we came from – we made a really expensive digital console, the Oxford OXF-R3 (cost around $1m !) in the nineties, and now that Sony Oxford has stopped manufacturing consoles, we took the same technology , algorithms etc and applied them to plugins. So unlike a lot of emulation software, you’re actually getting the exact same EQ and Dynamics sections from OXF-R3, right inside your computer.. its the same code. If you want to check out
our plugs, or see some video demos from last year’s NAMM show, come visit us at www.sonyplugins.com.

Just checked the Open Labs booth, where they’re showing the brand new Gen 3 NeKo and MiKo keyboard workstations. Among the many enhancements, the biggie was the use of Intel CoreDuo2 processors. The NeKo SE ($3,999) stashes a 2.1 GHz processor inside, while the Neko LX ($5,999) and NeKo 76 ($7,399) have 2.4 GHz processors. The MiKo LX ($3,499) also as a 2.1 GHz unit, while the MiKo SE ($2,999) includes a 1.8 GHz CoreDuo 2. These workstations are available now. www.openlabs.com

I’ve only been on the floor for 30 minutes and I’ve already seen something I thought I’d never see at NAMM. $12,500 studio monitors! The company is AAD by Phil Jones and the speakers are the 7001′s. Mix reviewer David Rideau heard them at CES in Las Vegas and loved them so we ventured down to the E Hall to check them out. Phil promises me Mix will get a pair for review so keep your eyes on the mag. NAMM is showing more signs of being a high-end show than past years. Alan Sides and GCPro are bowing a $60k studio system in a press event Friday night. I’ll let you know more about those as the show develops.

Hello, pro audio colleagues, and welcome to the 2007 Winter NAMM conference. The marching band has passed through the lobby and struck the fanfare. And the crowds have surged in for the 10 a.m. start. We’ll be back throughout the next three days, with audio podcasts, video reports from the booths, and more words than you can read in a day. So bookmark this site and keep coming back to see what’s new in the world of pro audio and musical instruments.