When should you tune in tomorrow to get the news? Thanks to the fact that some folks do send CDM press releases under embargo, some big announcements should happen at:

• Thursday, 1:00pm Eastern Time: This is the opening of the NAMM show, so it’s when many embargoes are lifted. Any really big stories that deserve it will get immediately published then.
• Thursday, 3:30pm Eastern Time: I have some specific stories that are held for this specific time that will definitely be published then.
• Over the weekend and later: Because I want to actually cover less but do it in more detail, expect other news and analysis over the coming days.
• The rest of 2009: Some announcements simply don’t make NAMM. We expect some news to come out of this year’s Messe conference in Germany. I expect in the near future trade shows in China will start breaking news. And most importantly, a lot of news doesn’t happen at trade shows. I’m personally excited by the stuff we’ll be seeing at things like our Handmade Music event coming from DIYers.

Some NAMM news is already leaking out today, and on top of that I’m watching as sites are posting press releases that are clearly under embargo. Now, that might seem a good way to get a jump on the news, except it’s not.

Can we cover less, but get some deeper information? That’s my goal for CDM this year at NAMM, the music manufacturers’ US trade show. There’s plenty of new stuff that comes out annually at NAMM. From CDM’s New York City nerve center, I’ll be honing in on the stuff about which I think you’ll care most.

I can’t be in Anaheim for the show. That’s no loss to you, because trade shows floors aren’t necessarily conducive to the press. The main reason I go is to get to hang out with people I might not otherwise see. If you are there and think there’s something CDM should be covering, do drop me a line, especially if you make something that’s liable to be lost in the shuffle of industry news.

But I have been able to land some advance information, so starting Thursday and on through early next week as I can share information, I have plenty I want to talk about, and not just what’s in the press releases.

It’s already common knowledge that you can expect new things from Ableton, Cycling ‘74, Native Instruments, and Roland, just for starters. Cycling ‘74 has already let slip that they’ll be showing their collaboration with Ableton, and Ableton for their part has scheduled a press conference.

I do expect some nice news items for people making music with computers. Do stay tuned right here for the inside track.

Having been published the old-fashioned way, I’m really interested to see what on-demand printing will make possible in publishing and content – and, particularly, what it will mean for Web entities like CDM. (We need a new term: Web Treeware?)

On-demand isn’t as fast as a retail outlet with a book in stock, but they’re getting faster. Lulu can turn around our new CDM Winter 2008 guide in time for Christmas Eve. If you order by tomorrow, you’ll get the book custom-printed, bound (in a lovely, publisher-style) “Perfect Binding”, and shipped by 12/24:

Order deadline: Saturday 12/13 (note: US East Coast time)

US: Choose US Postal Priority, FedEx Ground

Canada, Latin America, European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, rest of the world: Choose standard shipping

(faster shipping options are available, too)

Print Edition + Free PDF Download @ Lulu.com

And, of course, you get a DRM-free, Creative Commons-licensed PDF with your order, free. (For people charging for ebooks, I’m hoping Lulu adds the option to sell the bundle; CDM of course is giving away our PDF.)

This is just a first experiment for us, but I’m interested not only for CDM and Lulu but what this sort of thing means for content makers in general. (You’ll see a lot of self-published sheet music on Lulu, for instance.) It could make new things possible in publishing.

I’ve rush-ordered my print copy; I’ll take some photos when it gets here.

Also, we’ve just gotten a volunteer for a Spanish-language edition. (Imponente!)

Priority Mail Photo (CC) Harold Neal.

“What if, instead of targeting Web content to a single day, you turned it into an object that would last a season? What would you want to save and savor?”

That’s the question I ask at the beginning of the Create Digital Music Winter 08 guide. We’ve filled it with good stuff we love, plus good stuff we hear that you love (via our survey of hundreds of readers for the holiday guide). Via Creative Commons-licensed images, you’ve shared your world of music, and so we share the whole guide as fully free work (it’s got a CC Attribution / ShareAlike license).

Here’s some of what’s inside – we wanted stories that you’d want to live with the whole winter season:

• Circuit bending 101 with Michael Una
• Imagining synths: reflections on the design of electronic instruments with Dan McPharlin, creator of wonderful miniature synths handmade from cardboard
• Tutorial on slicing audio to MIDI in Ableton Live 7, with tips from Live guru Francis Preve plus a free accompanying CDM pack designed by Covert Operators at http://covops.org/cdm
• Holiday Guide, with your favorite gear and software of the year, listening and reading suggestions, and ideas on open hardware from monome creator Brian Crabtree
• Creative tips for surviving winter in Berlin, courtesy monolake (Robert Henke)
• Images from the CDM community and beyond

With the help of graphic editor Nathanael Jeanneret, the results are designed to be an object on paper or read on high-resolution displays. The PDF is available free, with an on-demand print version from Lulu available worldwide (US$19.99 before shipping). I just ordered my print copy rush, so I’ll let you know what it looks like as this is the first time we’ve tried this.

Print Edition + Free PDF Download @ Lulu.com

A big thanks to our sponsors for making this possible:

Ableton Live, our premiere sponsor; now with an unlimited 14-day trial

Audiofile Engineering, makers of Wave Editor for Mac

Highly Liquid DIY MIDI electronics maker

Covert Operators, creators of Live Packs and video tutorials for Ableton Live

I’m really eager to hear what you think.

It’s Handmade Music Night here in New York! There’s still a couple of spaces in the optical Theremin Beep-It workshop with Mike Una – just pay on-site – and a number of really interesting projects from electronic glocks to bicycle turntables to networked and floating musical objects.

In Brooklyn:

7:30-10p tonight (Thursday)

3rd Ward gallery/artist space

195 Morgan Ave., at the corner of Stagg St., in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, near the Morgan L stop

Directions

Online:

Join the Virtual Lab in the Treehouse room (free Etsy registration required) and hang out with the crafters, around 1:30am GMT:

Virtual Lab @ Etsy.com

We’ll have plenty of documentation following the event, too, so for more on the projects and the Beep-It, stay tuned.