Here’s a cruel joke for you: the first day of Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show? The date on which all the music tech press releases for the show have dated their embargo? April First.

Now, to me, the whole point of April Fool’s is surprise, or at least humor. April Fool’s has become so obligatory that everything from faux press releases to blog posts are dedicated to the topic whether they were inspired or not. So, you know what? No April Fool’s Day here. Anything covered on this site tomorrow will be – to the best of my knowledge, anyway – real. (Or as near reality as we ever get.)

Ironically, news in our world is so unsurprising, any interesting news is immediately suspected of being fake. Teenage Engineering’s Operator-1 is so cool looking that, aside from concerns it may not ship, some of you have gone so far to worry the whole thing is an elaborate April Fool’s prank. (One clue that that’s nonsense: it was announced on March 30. It even missed the Ides of March.)

But there you go: case in point. Reality actually can be cool. So we’ll stay away from the pranks this year, and any foolery will be of the technological kind. Enjoy.

The NAMM trade show brings together the biggest gathering of manufacturers of musical instruments and technology twice a year. Summer isn’t quite as big as the massive winter show in Anaheim, but you can still bet on plenty of new product announcements as the show rolls into sweltering Austin, Texas.

I’ve decided not to go to summer NAMM this year, so I’ll be covering new tech from afar. I’ll actually be in Chicago through the weekend, updating when I can and probably catching up next week. I have a project I’m really excited about that I’m working on in Chicago, but I can’t tell you what it is until later; stay tuned.

I do know that Ableton will be making an announcement tomorrow which we’ll be covering in detail; other than that, haven’t heard too much dirt.

But if you are in Austin this weekend, CDM wants to hear from you. Take pictures, tell us your impressions, and get instant fame, glory, and our respect for surviving this massive trade show. If not, well, as usual, I’ll be digging through the press releases to find what we really care about and, as always, to cover all the wonderful music-making stuff that doesn’t show up at big industry trade events.

I’d like to thank the Academy . . . Yes, it’s that time of year when the entire global music press put their heads together to pick their favorite products. It’s a bit like an Editor’s Choice, only with all the editors. The results sometimes lack nuance, and I wouldn’t take them as product advice, but they’re always interesting. See the complete results, but here are some of the categories we care about: