NAMM Oddities 2010

[ubbotheroom]

I'm a long-time MOTU-MAC guy but I pop in here once in a while. Many of you have seen my annual NAMM Oddities web pages and I just wanted to let folks know that the 2010 pages are now online.

nammoddities.com

MOTU didn't show anything strange enough to make the Oddities. Volta did make the list last year though.

[HCMarkus]

Thanks for sharing... I always enjoy your report. My fave: myMIX. Great idea!

[Tonio]

Yo Barry !!

Good to see you're still hangin' in there. Still playing the Stick?

You should pop over here more often.

T

P.S.We met @ Jaime's get together in San Diego years ago ....when DP 2.7 or 3 came out?

[ubbotheroom]

Wow, that get together at Jamey Scott's was quite some time back. I don't get to play Stick as often as I like but I have been doing some composing, including a piece for a string octet that will be performed in La Jolla in April.

The only reason that I don't hang out on MOTUnation is that I'll get busy and when I come back there are hundreds of posts and replies to sift through. With the MOTU-MAC email list the emails just come in and kind of force me to pay attention. I also find I read the content on websites who have RSS feeds I follow while other get neglected for weeks.

[James Steele]

Wow, that get together at Jamey Scott's was quite some time back. I don't get to play Stick as often as I like but I have been doing some composing, including a piece for a string octet that will be performed in La Jolla in April.

The only reason that I don't hang out on MOTUnation is that I'll get busy and when I come back there are hundreds of posts and replies to sift through. With the MOTU-MAC email list the emails just come in and kind of force me to pay attention. I also find I read the content on websites who have RSS feeds I follow while other get neglected for weeks.

Don't think this one has RSS features... phpBB 3.0 that is. Although View New Posts is your friend. BTW, Barry... did you see the guitar that had the video screen built into it on the face of the guitar under the strings? Funny stuff!

[ubbotheroom]

Don't think this one has RSS features... phpBB 3.0 that is.

I'm on a beta board using phpBB 3.0 and I found that the RSS feed didn't really help much because of the unthreaded nature of the feed. It ended up being easier to just remember to keep checking during the beta cycle.

Although View New Posts is your friend.

If I don't check in regularly it's not that friendly because it tells me that there are 12,000 new posts.

BTW, Barry... did you see the guitar that had the video screen built into it on the face of the guitar under the strings? Funny stuff!

That video guitar was actually my choice for the Oddity of the Year. I don't know if you got to play it but they've got a a piezo pickup and some circuitry to emulate (in analog) the sound of a single coil, double coil, and humbucker. I thought it did a credible job.

[mhschmieder]

Did I post my review of the Eigenharp here, or only in the keyboardist's forum?

That was the biggest oddity at NAMM, though it had been announced beforehand.

I concluded that for a wind player and keyboardist, it is a less natural interface than either a keyboard or wind controller.

It has rows of buttons, and I found that awkward vs. one linear arrangement of notes. Others might not find it so.

At any rate, the mouthpiece is less responsive than I'd hoped, as it doesn't have a reed, even though the instrument itself looks like a bassoon crossed with a Chapman Stick.

The buttons are touch sensitive and also can rock in either direction for pitch bend. Yet I find a global pitch bend easier to deal with, as the fine-grained tactile feedback isn't really there.

Kudos for doing something different though, and something that might inspire new people to get involved in music on the playing or writing level.

There are now three models, and the cheapest one is under $600 (I think). All have the same features other than numbers of buttons and how long the ribbon controller is.

[Shooshie]

Did anyone post pictures of the MOTU-Mac dinner at NAMM? Never heard a word about it.

Shooshie

[James Steele]

Although View New Posts is your friend.

If I don't check in regularly it's not that friendly because it tells me that there are 12,000 new posts.

Well if you only check this board once a year (to post the NAMM Oddities notice... hehehe... ), I can't help you there.

[ubbotheroom]

Did anyone post pictures of the MOTU-Mac dinner at NAMM? Never heard a word about it.

Steve Wilkinson had posted a me.com gallery but that seems to be gone now.

I took two pictures:

[ubbotheroom]

I concluded that for a wind player and keyboardist, it is a less natural interface than either a keyboard or wind controller.

It has rows of buttons, and I found that awkward vs. one linear arrangement of notes. Others might not find it so.

At any rate, the mouthpiece is less responsive than I'd hoped, as it doesn't have a reed, even though the instrument itself looks like a bassoon crossed with a Chapman Stick.

The buttons are touch sensitive and also can rock in either direction for pitch bend. Yet I find a global pitch bend easier to deal with, as the fine-grained tactile feedback isn't really there.

As a keyboardist and Chapman Stick player I had the same reaction that you did. It's an interesting idea but just doesn't feel that musical to me.

Having sought out oddities for years at NAMM I've had the opportunity to play quite a number of alternate controllers and some are more successful than others. One in particular that I really liked was the Haken Continuum. Too bad it's so expensive.

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, I first saw the Haken Continuum at NAMM 2003 or thereabouts (maybe earlier). Could be great for non-Western music or anything not based on the traditional western scale (including Schoenberg and beyond, or pre-Baroque music). I nearly fainted when I heard the price, but there is a smaller/cheaper model.

I think one of my co-workers who moonlights for Don Buchla told me that he has one. At any rate, I've heard it is well-implemented and not buggy or glitzy, which is more than can be said about a lot of other controllers.