Infinite sustain, a Moog filter, and — metallurgy? Welcome to the world of the Moog Guitar. It’s not a digital instrument, and it’s not a synth, but I’d say its unique focus on timbral shaping places it squarely within the interests of folks who read this site, and keeps it true to its Moog name. Too bad its price will likely keep it out of reach for many of us.

As a number of you wrote in to remind us, Moog Music’s new guitar has arrived — yes, actually a guitar. The product description even feels obligated to explain that it’s “Not a guitar synthesizer, not a MIDI guitar or an effects processor; players are intimately connected to The Moog Guitar because it works its magic on the strings themselves.” (Well, hey, some of us are pretty intimately connected to a Moog synthesizer, too — and kind of fascinating that you can have that relationship with something that doesn’t have strings. But this is a guitar story, so I’ll move on.)

Paul Vo is the creator of the instrument and apparently approached Moog with the design, working with Moog’s engineering team and Zion Guitars’ Dale Brown. And then they start talking metallurgy:

The Moog strings that come with guitar have a specific metallurgy designed to work with the Moog Pick-ups. Other strings will work in emergency situations but the guitar will respond best with Moog strings.

Additional note: I personally am inclined to believe this claim about strings despite some grumpy comments below; the difference of specific strings makes a big difference on any instrument. Add pickups — again, on any instrument — and that difference is even more pronounced.

So, what makes it a Moog Guitar?

NAMM08: Volt Per Octave Play the Moog Music Booth from cdm tv on Vimeo.

Husband-and-wife synth duo — and Moog superfans — Nick and Anna Montoya were helping out at the Moog Music booth this year and NAMM. Their greatest responsibility: making sure synthy good vibrations emanated from all that hardware through the day. We picked up a bit of their performance, which was able to rise above the din of the trade show floor.

Okay, that’s my hand. But my feet are eager to stomp on this, too.

People looked at me funny when I told them the most promising gear I saw at the NAMM show was a foot controller.

Well, not just any foot controller. First off, the design and build quality are really exceptional, even in the pre-production model, as you’d hope from a premium-priced Moog box. But it’s brains, not beauty, that set it apart. The MP- 201 is a controller that finally gives your feet some intelligence.

Here’s Amos from Moog Music taking us through the MP-201 — including a peek at what’s coming between now and when the unit ships in the spring. And Amos is worth listening to, as he’s one of the folks working on presets for the unit.

NAMM08: Moog Multi Pedal Preview from cdm tv on Vimeo.

My first impressions of why it’s cool:

You’ve seen the “top picks” lists elsewhere online for the NAMM show, that massive Californian convergence of musical instruments and music-making gear. Add together the knobs and faders from such lists, and you could probably build a synthesizer Death Star and destroy Daft Punk’s hidden Rebel base. Of course, you’d only have a marginally larger Death Star than the identical one you could have built from last year’s gear.

We’re doing things a little differently: picking out entirely random stuff that managed to reach for the sublime — including the sublimely absurd. Bad is better than boring. We’ve seen strange things that simply failed, or at least substantially creeped us out.

Now, those moments of victory, of supreme revelation, of –

Yeah, that’s Roger Linn, the LM-1 and former MPC designer without whom drum machines as we know them today wouldn’t exist, holding the “Drum Machines Have No Soul” bumper sticker he acquired. That’s why we were in Anaheim.

We’re still waiting on Barry Wood’s legendary NAMM Oddities, so we’ll focus on our own sense of the exceptional.

Other standout moments and products for reflection:

NAMM had plenty of new goodies, but what do we actually want to buy? Here’s Liz’s top pick (high on my list, as well). -PK

No, it’s not an advertising campaign for Ableton Live if that’s what you’re wondering. The Live-like logos that pop up onto your screen when you start using the Novation Nocturn controller actually represent the Nocturn’s various knobs, automatically mapped to whatever software you’re using at the time. It’s a heads-up, intuitive display that extends both the mouse and the controller itself. You can see the knob settings on screen, then use the mouse to navigate between the controller’s touch-sensitive knobs. If the Automap feature isn’t doing it for you, you can reassign any parameter or create a new MIDI map from scratch. Ed.: Novation says this functionality will soon be available on other Novation Automap gear, too, like my beloved ReMOTE SL keyboard. -PK

In terms of blinky appeal, each of the knobs are surrounded by LEDs that make it easier to see the knob’s position in a dark club.

What will it cost? A mere $100. On my wishlist, for sure.

Nocturn - The world’s first compact intelligent plug-in controller [Novation Music News -- and by "first", I think they mean the first of theirs, of course, or "intelligent" defined as their particular Automap feature]

Stay tuned for hands-on video with the Nocturn. And yes, the crossfader feels fantastic, especially for the price.

Don’t believe what you see in the press releases, in the glossy write-ups of shiny, new technology from the NAMM show. Wandering the NAMM show is a truly surreal experience, like falling into a giant music store that acquired its own zipcode crossed with a swap meet crossed with a convention of badly-dressed rocker cosplayers. With apologies to Barry Wood’s superior NAMM Oddities, we couldn’t resist telling you what we really thought of some of the things we found. NAMM find: win or fail?

Part one, the items that registered fail (with one very sweet win that managed to undo one of those failures.)

(Warning: one mind-bogglingly not-safe-for-work close-up photo toward the end. If some things offend you, try not to scroll very far.)

Liz McLean Knight also contributed photos and editorial to this report.

Will Richard Devine unleash his blazing fury once again at NAMM this year as he did with the Neko keyboard, or will he physically keep his cool but unveil his own brand of auditory destruction instead?

Come to the CDM Unofficial Afterparty in Los Angeles and find out! Show up at 8pm to Bassworks and witness a DIY, technological show and tell and then stick around to check out live musicians and visualists along with our pal Rich. Fire may or may not make an appearance, but we in CDM HQ personally hope for the metaphorical sort.

And you are all on the guestlist (meaning it’s a free party). You’d be ragingly insane to miss it if you’re local on Friday.