The epilogue of NAMM 2003
By A.J. Fox - 2/5/2003
What is the NAMM Show?
First of all NAMM stands for the National Association of Music Merchandisers, and it is a company that coordinates an annual show where the musical instrument industry unites. Music store owners and other buyer types come to Anaheim, California to check out the newest musical products, to purchase inventories for the coming year, and to be educated by the companies (who are the exhibitors) and by the free courses offered by NAMM to help them grow their businesses. The show is not open to the public. You have to be a company who makes, buys, and/or sells musical instruments and products. You can become a member but it is very expensive, you can have a famous employer like me and get in, or if you are female, tall, hot, and have giant tits, they will pay you to come. And that's how the story begins
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I decided to go at the last minute, so between being unprepared and it being my first time going to a NAMM Show, the trip was in jeopardy from the beginning. Thanks to my Clié (personal entertainment organizer), and meeting privy people out there, the trip was saved. Just a little note, Go fly somewhere!!! The airlines are in a price war if you don't already know, I got my airfare for $258.50 round trip from Columbus to little John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana less than a week from the flight!!!
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Sensory overload!!! All five, for four days. Jan. 16th-19th, Thursday through Sunday. Every day was 75 degrees, and sunny, every night was 60 and clear. Athens did not get above 20 degrees for those four days and had hung around 20 a while before I left. You have got to love palm trees, fresh air off the coast, and a warm breeze through a cab window every morning to get the day started. Disneyland is right across the street (North) from the convention center. I was across the street from Disneyland on its northwest corner. South on Disneyland Drive to the convention center.
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The Anaheim convention center is huge. Four floors, lots of glass and steel, it's about one and a quarter times as long as Court Street (Athens), and it has an arena on one end of it. It's quite a sight and experience itself. There were 1,309 exhibiting companies there (record). You name it, it was there. You don't name it, it was there; tons of free little knickknacks to go around. Many companies had huge scaffolding structures draped with the respective company's banners and a giant rotating logo. Atop the scaffolding were little patios where company executives, buyers, and hot women with abnormally large breasts hung out and signed papers and looked down on the thousands. 65,000 people attended the show throughout the four days.
Many of the booths had sound dampening rooms to show off their gear. The NAMM rule is that your booth cannot exceed 80 dB. The NAMM police cruise around with their decibel meters and keep the peace. It was really loud this year from what I gathered. It's hard to show off even a single amp, drum, and/or cymbal without exceeding 80 dB, let alone most every maker in the industry under one roof. There are stiff penalties, but I did not see anyone get busted, and it was pretty loud at times.
Literally hundreds of great musicians and stars play a role in this event. The main event was Elton John, along with Vanessa Carlton, Ray Charles, Nikka Costa, Amy Grant, Bruce Hornsby, Jewel, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, John Mayer, Michael McDonald, Brian McKnight, Randy Newman, Take 6, Rufus Wainwright and Brian Wilson at the Anaheim Pond. Hundreds of other acts played in little nooks and crannies all day and night, all over the place. Adrian Legg, Will Lee, Pappa Roach, Korn, Rob Zombie, Dick Dale, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Ronnie James Dio, Ben Harper, P-Nut, Lisa Loeb, Slash, and a whole shitload more showed up at their sponsors' booths. The companies give them free shit all year, so they have to show face at events like this for the companies.
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I was so busy getting to all the companies I wanted to check out that all of my star sightings were incidental, but nonetheless, there were sightings. I saw Coolio do his marathon version of Fantastic Voyage, and Gangsters Paradise. I saw Paul Stanley (KISS) all painted up on a small stage getting his picture taken with the big-tittied asian girl from the Gemini booth. I was trying to film the big-tittied asian girl at the Gemini booth with my PEO, but this big, black-haired guy was getting in my way as he got his picture taken with her (Gene Simmons-KISS). I listened to Adrian Legg play for a bit. I met Bob Moog. Jim Marshall was signing t-shirts. I got to meet countless other famous people in the biz.
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I also stopped by the Gemini booth to get a personally signed poster from the lovely tittytropolis chicks there. Gemini is a DJ equipment company that, every year, hires some of the hottest silicone tittied* chicks you will ever see, to greet you at their booth. Unfortunately, I never saw any of their products. I wonder if anybody else did?
*Sorry for using the word "titty" so much, I felt it was the necessary word to illustrate how fake and Neanderthal the marketing tactics can get.
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The home recording and digital recording booths were huge, and had presentations going on almost constantly. It was way bigger than what I imagined. M-audio has a bunch of new outboard USB recording interfaces out this year. The Digidesign digi 002 is quite the impressive outboard digital mixer for pro tools. A couple new plug-ins for guitar amp modeling. The editing capabilities of digital recording software is becoming incredibly evolved.- PEO video.
The show was predominately guitars. I was not all that impressed by any that I saw. There were a couple Fender and Gibson custom shop guitars that were sweet, other than that, they're all pretty much the same. Just a whole bunch of crispy digital effects and shitty guitar sounds coming from everywhere. You would not believe how many people from the 80's were there. Dirty washed up 80's "rockers" with their 17 year old girlfriends that look like they're 30. Peavey is still pushing the 5150 thing. Ernie Ball is making a big push to market to the younger players. Most of this shit is practically identical, even having few cosmetic differences. This is because they are all made in the same cave in Korea; they just spray the proper name on the peg head. I'm serious. I stayed away from the stagnant gene pools where the evolutionary process has become retroactive, otherwise known as guitar booths at the NAMM show.
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On a brighter note, my boss talked to the owner of Rickenbacker and hooked me up with a mapleglo 330 wholesale, it's being built right now, woohoo!
Korg had a very cool little museum of their synthesizers throughout the years. They had a couple booths set up just for the Korg Triton. If you have the dough, get that keyboard. I hope to own one some day.
I was mostly interested in the new analogue equipment; that and finding someone to refurbish old synths. Mission accomplished. There were about five booths dedicated to new analogue equipment, and most of those were shared by more than one company. Theremins, all kinds of build it yourself patchable components, and others below.
I found this company called mini music, www.minimusic.com that has created music software for PDA's. They beamed a trial version of their drum machine to my Clié, it is really fun to play around with. If you have a PDA or PEO, check out their website.
The Moog booth was showing off their new line of Mini Moog Voyagers and their Mooger Fooger pedals. The new Mini Moogs are very nice pieces. They're equipped with midi shit, all kinds of touch sensitive features, and patching capabilities. The Mooger Fooger pedals are little synthesizers for guitar, bass, vocal etc. I've heard good things about them. I will have them.
Another device that I discovered and can't wait to get my hands on is the Sherman Filterbank 2. This is a very aggressive synth with input/output patching, pre amps, midi, and unbalance connections. Bands like the Chemical Brothers, Placebo, Stereolab, U2, Tom Morello, etc. use this device.
Other synth names to investigate are, Frostwave, Vermona, Doepfer, MESI, Tibal, Jomox, Technosaurus, and Elektron.
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I checked out all of the microphone companies. I would not buy a Rode NT series microphone. They tend to fall apart, from my experiences (and others). Most of the microphone companies have microphone comparison software you can download from their websites. This allows you to do a-b comparisons between every mic in their line with a bunch of different instruments.
The NAMM show is an incredible experience. It is a great place to be if you are a musician, and a gear head. It's great for networking with others in the biz. If you get the chance, go! It wasn't totally my bag, but the sights, sounds, the weather, the mexican food, seafood, thai food, and of course the Gemini girls will land me back in Anaheim in mid January next year.
