Beat Kangz rocks, why because black artist have been buying it’s beat machines from non black company’s. Some companies could see this as crossing the line, but it is not Akia and Roland has made a sh-t load of cash of the house and hip hop and always market their machines as the real urban maker.

What black electronic company, who machine is to make white boyz/girlz more funky! Do not forget more white people buy urban music then black people do.

I love this site but overlooking this product.
Make me wonder are you racist or getting paid to show products that are really crap.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE

For you geeks wake the funk up.
I love this site but overlooking this product.
Make me wonder are you racist or getting paid to show products that are really crap.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE

– at least that’s my current guess. I’ve been told by Ableton that these are not exposed to other hardware. But I also know the APC is a MIDI-only device. That means you should be able to just listen in on the system exclusive messages between the two gadgets and add the same features to other devices. I’m hoping that’s the case, because I think this could be quite nice for DIY users.

None of this has anything to do with Max for Live — in fact, with M4L you can do quite a lot *more* that the APC can’t do, and you can do it with any hardware you want (including DIY hardware, even hardware that connects via serial or wireless or OSC or whatever you want, without ever touching MIDI)

But that does require an M4L license — which means there will be half a year or so after Live 8 comes out that you wouldn’t be able to do it. ;)

After watching the Imposcar 2 demo on SonicState.com, I do think that it will be one that could be worth the upgrade. I am biased, though, by talking to the very proud and enthusiastic developers.

Portable digital recorders abound and keep getting better. The innovation award, though, perhaps goes to Zoom for their Q3, which will have a built-in VGA video recorder. So, now instead of grainy videos with shitty sound quality on youtube, users can post grainy videos with decent sound quality. The Q3 is supposed to be ready in Q4. Zoom is also working on an 8-track built-in recorder/mixer/USB2 interface. Would they be the first to combine all these functions in one device?

I also saw (and heard) an awesome hand-built synth at the Haaken Continuum booth. I’ll try to send a picture later.

John Bowen Synth hopes to ship soon, but did not want to commit to dates.

Dave Smith and Roger Linn are still working on the Linn Drum II. The Mopho is said to be selling well, so maybe that gives DSI the financial space to focus on what sounds like a quite complex project. Sonic State also has an interesting interview with them.

The Moog CV theremin controller seems great if you have an analog synth. One of their demos had a Moog guitarist leaning into it to modulate the filter.

Not officially a NAMM announcement, but I spoke with Jim Coker about Numerology 2 and future Numerology plans. This really is a fantastic program in if you are into sequencing (especially if you like to randomize bits).

Also spoke with Urs Heckman briefly. He was there to get (another) EM award, but his new Uhbik effect suite (on sale now) sounds pretty good in the limited amount of time I’ve had with it.

At the end of the day, I think Ableton created the most buzz with their trio of major announcements (8, Max and MPC) and related developments.

By the way, the basement had a lot of empty spaces this year. Last year, it seemed to be filled almost wall-to-wall, but there were many gaps, a large lounge area and an opening in the center large enough for a dance floor (not that there was one). Some of the vendors had moved up stairs obviously, but clearly some decided NAMM was not worth it this year. People said Thursday was slow, but Saturday was just as crazy as usual.

Cubase 5 – well, Cubase users, curious what for you is the biggest feature here? (I thought the VST Expressions thing was interesting for composers, though it seems to require that you work in their score editor.) I’ve never spent so much time in Cubase, so it always feels a bit like trying to pick up the local news in a foreign city – not sure what’s most relevant. But it is a significant release.

I think it’s also very cool that Steinberg did their own iPhone app.

There’s actually quite a lot of soft synth news – the Waldorf, fxpansion’s Synth Squad, and Trillian all look brilliant. There’s also the new Arturia.

Automap 3, definitely.

Virus TI2 looks interesting.

And I love the Beat Thang. Late to the party on that one, but I’ll try to find something to say. (I wish I had a Roger Linn piece to compare, but I do believe we’ll finally see it in 09.)

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