MOTUnation.com

Here's some impressions/news from what I've seen at NAMM so far - it was impossible to catch everything, and I'm sure I've missed quite a few things, apologies...

MOTU - very busy, lots of excitement. DP6 and the new Keyboards VI.

Spectrasonics - Omnisphere. Indeed it is pretty much "Atmosphere RMX".
Eric and the gang used some very creative sampling techniques and concepts. The demo was pretty much just one patch. Eric coaxed a lot out of it. No literature other than a card with "September 2008" on it. That's the projected release date. Personally I was disappointed, but maybe when more news is posted on Spectrasonics website I'll change my view.

Waves - no release date for Waves 6. No mention of Waves 6. A
Waves staffer said the "official" version of 5.9.7 was due "soon." Waves was showing its little iGTR which is like a Zoom or pocket Pod. 100 bucks - not
bad.

BIAS - Peak 6 is "very soon". They said that it was originally scheduled for
end of November but they added a bunch of extra features at the last minute. Last of beta testing is next week.

Apple - missing in action, except for a little "office" upstairs.

Digidesign - nothing really earth-shattering - ProTools 7.4, which has been out awhile. Some new portable interfaces.

Native Instruments - nothing new at all. They were pushing Kontakt 3. Booth was kind of empty and the staff looked lonely.

Korg - nothing major. I don't bother with arranger/home keyboard products, do I don 't know anything about their new line.

Roland - Fantom G workstation looks nice. Accepts new "SuperNatural"
modeling boards. Nice display. Seems to be a good, well-thought out product. Regarding new arrangers - see my description of Korg above.

Yamaha - new controllers, more integration of hardware and software, "X-factor" software (I don't have details on it ). New arrangers and digital pianos - but again...

Steinberg - I didn 't visit the booth.

Alesis - new drum machine, the SR18. Nothing to write home about.

Ableton - nothing major.

FxPansion - BFD 2. Great product, great people. Plenty of details on their website.

East West - details on the website.

Ilio - details on the website.

Garritan - details on the website.

Synful orchestra - I might have to get this. Real-time playability is much improved. Either this or Wallander are the way it's all going.

Synthogy - not at the show.

M-Audio - a slew of things, details on the website.

Coolest musical performance - the three piece fusion band featuring two older guys and what looked like a 10-year old drummer, playing in front of the Arena. I don't know who the kid was, he was barely tall enough to reach the pedals, but he played like Lenny White. I was blown away.

Much much higher smokin' babe quotient this year. Even the Hammond booth had smokin' promo babes.

Tomorrow - going to catch Yngvie Malmsteen - not.

David Polich wrote:Much much higher smokin' babe quotient this year. Even the Hammond booth had smokin' promo babes.

Crikey, smokin' babes everywhere?
Don't you guys have smoking restrictions in the US?

No MOTIF XS rack, eh? Bummer.

Thank you for the report, David.

Don't you guys have smoking restrictions in the US?

That's only for adults. Babies can smoke where ever they like.

LOL! Brilliant, dix!

Yeah, the "babe factor" seemed much higher this year. One company (Peavey?) had a Playboy bunny complete with the Playboy logo and bunny outfit signing stuff and people were waiting in line to get photos with her? Dean Guitars had 3-4 model-types getting photos taken as well. There were at least two other Guitar and/or Amp manufacturers with model-types as well.

Ha! Maybe Playboy will put out a "Girls of NAMM" this year?

Omnisphere was INCREDIBLE! Eric put on a great demo. It's Atmosphere on steroids. The sampled light bulb sounds were awesome.

I think it's a good toss up as to whether Omnisphere or DP6 qualifies as "best of show"....I'd probably give the edge to DP6 since Omnisphere won't ship for 9 months.

My vote for best of show goes to DP6, no question. Everyone else had incremental fixes and improvements. I'm looking forward to more news and demos about Omnisphere, of course. But DP6 will be out much earlier than that and it will be something I use every single day.

Let me clarify - my "best of show" award has to be given to both MOTU and the beautiful young women that were at the show -

Anyone experience the MC Artist series controller from Euphonix?

We've had the DP6 pictures - why no pictures of the smokin' babes?

Aside from DP6, sounds like NAMM was pretty lame this year.

wurliuchi wrote:Anyone experience the MC Artist series controller from Euphonix?

Yes I am really interested in this myself. It seems like 'native' support is on the cards for DP (as opposed to HUI or Mackie Control modes). And I wonder if they will do this for PT as well?

Stephen

stephentayler wrote:

wurliuchi wrote:Anyone experience the MC Artist series controller from Euphonix?

Yes I am really interested in this myself. It seems like 'native' support is on the cards for DP (as opposed to HUI or Mackie Control modes). And I wonder if they will do this for PT as well?

Stephen

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oQbnPqimRiQ

PrimeMover wrote:Aside from DP6, sounds like NAMM was pretty lame this year.

You know, it really wasn't. To a 22 year old kid attending for the first time it's totally mind-blowing.

A lot of technology has matured and truly "groundbreaking" technology is some time away. I'm talking about things like bubble memory and quantum computing. 64-bit has appeared but it will be awhile before the majority of apps take advantage of it. And even then, what will the difference in actual "sound" be? The only thing you really hear are your speakers, and speaker technology is still based on designs from the last century.

Compared to what I had ten years ago, my set-up is ultra-fast and pretty amazing. But you get used to amazing. It's all relative. 8-core Macs - will we all be yawning about those three years from now? Probably. How many of us never get beyond the presets in our VI's? You could spend an entire year, 7 days a week, just figuring out Absynth 4. If someone had told me in 1998 that I could manipulate audio just as easily as MIDI, in real-time (a la Melodyne) I would have practically fainted. "Mind-boggling" is up to you to define.

Here's an interesting note about the show - it has outgrown the entire Anaheim convention center, and if the city of Anaheim doesn't add a significant expanbsion by 2009 then the show won't be held there in 2010. No more winter NAMM in sunny SoCal. That's major.

David Polich wrote:Here's an interesting note about the show - it has outgrown the entire Anaheim convention center, and if the city of Anaheim doesn't add a significant expanbsion by 2009 then the show won't be held there in 2010. No more winter NAMM in sunny SoCal. That's major.

David... I have to ask just what your source is for this? It's a big deal to make a statement like that. Has the NAMM organization made such an announcement officially?

It was in the Orange Country Register on Thursday January 17th.

here is the link -

http://www.ocregister.com/money/space-a ... mith-shows

Hey thanks for that. I didn't mean to question you, but really wanted to see the article. Anaheim better step it up. I'd hate to see NAMM move. I wonder why they couldn't have it in Los Angeles like they did some years back when they were renovating Anaheim? Actually, I'd love to see them at the San Diego Convention Center in my own backyard.