Well, from an 'oldsynths' standpoint ... pretty boring this year. Most
of the modular analog companies were missing this year. Of course, NAMM
is more about 'newsynths' than 'oldsynths' anyway. ;-) And, these
days, it seems to be more about softsynths than hard synths, too.
Nord was showing their new 2nd generation Modular. New ASIC
architechtures allow more local RAM and processing speed for each DSP, so
the sounds are more rich and with lot's of ambience and effects
processing. We need to get a report from Russ Brower, as he has one on
order, and it should be arriving any day now.
Eric Barbour from Metasonix was showing his latest tube module, which now
gives him enough tube based modules (4) to have a complete simple synth
voice based on vacuum tube technology. Not for the faint-of-heart, but
very interesting concept, in my opinion. Now, if we could only get them
in "Pre-CBS blackface" format. ;-) ;-)
My best of show: The AnadigmVortex FPAA (field programmable analog
array) chipsets. This is a family of register driven analog building
blocks, including oscillators, switched cap filters, transistor arrays,
gain blocks, etc. Can be configured on-the-fly, and in real-time. Very
smooth sounding operation (1 mS update rate), with no zipper noise or
artifacting. My only complaint is 8-bit DAC functions. But, I think
there are a lot of possibilities for this type of chip set.
I'm sure there was a lot more hidden around the show. Hard to see it all
in 2 days. And, this year, I spent more time in the guitar section of
the show than in electronics & keyboards. Kinda looking for other things
for the studio these days.
Anyone else have some good findings from the show?
mj
> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:14:17 -0700
> From: Rory McDonald <rmcdonald@...>
>Subject: RE: Re: toronto repairs
>
>MARVIN:
>Sorry I missed you at NAMM. I got stuck at work last minute, so I didnt go.
>How was it?
>Rory
>
>ANYONE ELSE ON THE LIST HAVE ANY COMMENT ON THE NAMM SHOW??