We were pinned down, 30 clicks from Danang, low on
ammunition and surrounded by VC….I’m sorry if this joke is getting
old.
This years NAMM was not nearly the watershed year for
new products but there was some cool stuff. I spent most of my time downstairs
in Hall E, where most of the start ups and smaller companies are, demoing at
the looperlative booth. I did not see the String Port,
but did catch a demo of the Moog guitar, which is amazing, if only I had 8
grand. Also of note. Eventide has announced a new Pitch Factor pedal which puts
many of their best harmony effects in a floor pedal. Both diatonic and parallel
harmonies are available and you can use two pitches at once as well as delaying
them to create echo pitch effects. Very cool. TC unveiled a really cool
new bass amp and cabinets that is tiny like a Walter Woods amp and sounded
fantastic. They also released a G Major 2 rack effect that improves on the
original and includes some tasty new effects and intelligent pitch shifting as
well. I went to try out the Source Audio infrared midi controller, but they
didn’t have it set up at the booth. There were some cool boutique effects
pedals that I was hoping to try out but the noise level made it hard. Spent
some time at Asher guitars trying out some of his new lap steels, wish I had
the money to buy em all. Also tried out the new Duisenberg Lap steel that has
palm levers for pedal steel bending , and a movable capo. Very nice though the
palm pedals where a bit awkward to control. Back at the Looperlative
booth, I had the privilege of meeting David Torn, (who hasn’t been doing
much looping as of late, and working like a mad man on film scores), seeing
my old pal Lyle Workman who is also doing a lot of film work, and having Victor
Wooten stop by and order an LP-1. Also I got to see the great Will Lee
play at the Sadowsky booth, and I gave bass legend Lee Sklar the finger and had
him return the favor! Lee was going around the show taking pictures of people
flipping him off! What a funny guy. This is the same guy who has a “producer”
switch on his bass, (that does nothing at all J). In
addition to my demo duties at Looperlative, I also had a gig sponsored by NAMM
and the Museum of Making Music, in the outer lobby on Friday afternoon, where I
made a nice connections to start cracking the film scoring scene. Low lights of
the show included the usual parade of poseur, wanna be rock stars, trashy
strippers, and the general style over substance tenor of the LA scene. Down here
it seems like the music business is about 10% art, and 90% artifice and image. They
other low light was the general wanking din of people trying to show off
their speed playing at practically every booth for guitar and bass. What is it
with these trade shows where people think they impress each other with how fast
they can play? That was what was refreshing about hearing Will Lee play. He
grooved like a MOFO. No slap bass, no tapping, just solid musicianship. Not that
I don’t appreciate those techniques, its just the wackada wackada widdly
widdly hyper playing that starts to grate on my nerves, seems to pervade every
corner of the show. All in all, it was a good show and very stimulating, and
fun.
Bill