De:Bug is one of my favorite reads in music technology. And while I can fake my way through French and Spanish, De:Bug is also the one non-English publication I read daily. So I’m gratified to get to write a byline for the publication, which someone was nice enough to translate into German. For our German-speaking readers, you actually don’t have to read this one in English (though there’s an English version, to)

In this story, I pick out the major themes in new music tech at the NAMM show this month in Anaheim, California:

Winter NAMM 2012 Roundup
Peter Kirn von CDM ist für uns über die NAMM gelaufen

It’s also a pleasure to get to meet the folks from De:Bug. Believe me, I’ll be practicing by reading your work, though I’d best leave the translation to the pros for now.

Trade shows aren’t what they used to be. For those of us who love music technology and the spirit of invention, it’s a good thing – why shouldn’t people be coming up with ideas year round? Why not spread them in places other than the gray, fluorescent glow of a big trade show floor open only to the industry?

On the other hand, there’s something to be said for those moments when an entire industry can come together face-to-face. And perhaps with that in mind, NAMM next week in January is gearing up to what looks like a very big week for new toys and tools, even as some vendors – notably a number of the bigger software makers – take a pass.

We’ll be in Anaheim for NAMM at the end of next week, and there are very good reasons to be excited about the trip. Some of the news, indeed, we’ll have in advance of the show, and in some cases can even publish it. Possibly triggered by leaks, we saw a big announcement from Moog last week as well as the first of three from Akai.

Here are 10 reasons to be “stoked,” in California parlance, for what’s happening in music tech this January:

1. Casio back in the synthesizer business. Matrixsynth gets some great scoops and research on this one, aided by ComputerMusicGuide. Whatever Casio’s reputation, the’ve produced some of our all-time favorite synths — particularly those in the CZ line. Sure, some of these twee, adorable low-end models may have become the butt of hipster jokes, but make no mistake: phase distortion is genius. So, that makes it intriguing just what Casio is teasing for NAMM. Will this be just another entry in a crowded entry-level synth market already well covered by the likes of Korg, Novation, and recently even Avid? Or can Casio channel some of the greatness of its history into something genuinely new and different?

2. Teenage Engineering. I’m in regular touch with TE, and I have no idea what this video is about, but I know the Teenage guys always come up with something fun to look at – thanks to some serious industrial design chops and imagination, and a business small enough to get from idea to prototype quickly. Synthtopia takes notice; DE:BUG predicts a designer synth; I’m imagining an accessory.

3. Moog. We already know Moog is in with a new monosynth called the Minitaur, at just US$679. The design is traditional, but the sound and playability look top-notch. With the accessible pricing – even with the cat out of the bag (the bull out of the … pen?) – this could be a show highlight. And given the popularity of Animoog, I wouldn’t put another surprise or two past the North Carolina company. Oh yeah, and since it’ll be hard to play with the Moog but easier to get a feel for the Akai controller and software, this is tied for me with seeing the other big announcement last week in person – the Akai Revolution.

4. Universal Audio: DSP vendor UA has been on a bit of a roll lately, and I expect something big from them. Stay tuned.

5. Line 6 tells us they’re launching something major at the show. No clue what it is, but this vendor has been exploding into markets from guitars to iOS, so stay tuned; they’re atop the visit list.

6. KORG has been especially adept at giving users what they want, from the inexpensive, accessible-analog Monotrons to ground-breaking mobile apps for iOS and even Nintendo DS, and some major, crowd-pleasing hardware. NAMM is a big show for all of the big three from Japan – Yamaha, KORG, and Roland – and of the three of them, KORG are the ones that I hear people buzzing about already. (You hear that, Roland and Yamaha? Them’s fightin’ words… we’ll be visiting you, too…)

7. The Basement. Once the dominion of only hard-core synth geeks, the blogiverse has made some of the odder, boutique creations and analog labors-of-love more interesting to average electronic musicians than the splashy booths and bigger names. From French Eowave to local modules, I know there are some very nice folks showing up I’m eager to meet. I even hear MeeBlip designer James Grahame may be lurking around Disneyland…

8. Parties … off-campus. There are always some good parties around the NAMM area, but it’s getting into Los Angeles and away from Anaheim that has appeal for me. We’ll be teaming up with local live performance collective Interface LA for a Very Controllerist Party at downtown LA’s Bootleg Theater, with Mike Slott headlining and unique performance rigs from Moldover, Rich DDT, and Nonagon, and some great crews from both SF and LA. Stay tuned for details on that. I also hear Droid Behavior will have one of their legendary loft parties going for Wham Bam … maybe I should just stay awake until my early-Saturday flight back to Berlin.

9. Waffle House and IHOP. Oh, yeah.

10. Surprises. I expect enormous displays from Yamaha and Roland in particular. But I can usually keep up with bigger players from a distance. NAMM is a time when I typically get surprised by vendors who I didn’t know were coming up with products – and get to see them face-to-face. And that’s why walking the show floor in person can truly be a pleasure. So, if you’re afraid we might not find your booth, please do get in touch and don’t be shy. Time is short, and stuff slips through the cracks, but we might be able to find a story about what you’re doing.

See also MusicRadar’s take on what to watch, which also looks forward to guitar announcements and some celebrity appearances.

I could go on and complain about Anaheim, the inability to hear on the show floor, the poor conditions for doing any reporting, the fact that “live” coverage is a joke thanks to dreadful wifi networks, and so on. But there are just too many reasons I think we’ll enjoy this year’s coverage. I’ll get stuff up as quickly as possible this week, and then we’re back to our usual coverage of tech and music the following week.

Effect pedals on CDM? Heck, yes. Electro-Harmonix may have just stolen the show in Nashville with the Freeze pedal alone. Continuing our coverage with Nashville locals and musicians Tony and Jeremy, we have some hands-on videos, images, and impressions of the gear on offer. Don’t miss yesterday’s story on how the trade show helps Nashville recover from flooding. They offered a sobering picture of the state of the show, as well, but that didn’t stop them from finding good stuff to share. -Ed.

Summer NAMM was never the size of its winter counterpart. We were still surprised by the poor manufacturer turnout at the June 18th – 20th convention in Nashville, TN. Absent were heavy hitters like Roland and Korg and innovators like Moog, ZVex, and Dave Smith. Luckily, those that did attend brought some pretty cool new gear. Here are our impressions:

TC-Helicon VoiceLive Touch

The VoiceLive Touch puts the famous TC-Helicon harmonization technology and effects in a unique, stand-mountable package, with the addition of performance-oriented looping. The unit feels very rugged, locking onto the stand to give the performer all of the controls at the right height. The interface is a simple array of touch “buttons” for access to the different DSP units with display duties being handled by a simple LED matrix display. Parameters are accessed and manipulated by a touch slider below the display. The VoiceLive Touch seems designed for quick access to presets in the middle of a gig rather than for delicate parameter tweaking. For ease of use during a set, the vocal harmonizer/looper looks like a winner. TC-Helicon says that while preset management over USB is the name of the game for the time being, a software editor could be in the cards down the road. In the first video, TC-Helicon rep Laura Davidson gives CDM a hands on look at the device. In the second video, a singer-songwriter demonstrates one of the harmonization presets. – JD

Previously on CDM: a preview of the device

Numark Mixtrack DJ USB Controller

The Mixtrack is a solid little device, preset for controlling Traktor for $150. For that price, this looks like an amazing little controller – touch sensitive platters for playback control matched with the full range of DJ-mixer style playback, pitch bend, EQ, and looping controls, many of which are illuminated. It’s class-compliant USB and operates as a simple MIDI controller, so it should work out of the box with any application with a fairly minimal amount of mapping and setup. The Mixtrack supports Mac and Windows with possible future Linux support, “if the customer demand is there.” Ed.: actually, since it’s class-compliant, it will already work on Linux. It’s plastic, but it feels quite solid to lift. The encoders have a nice size and grip, with a just a touch of resistance when turning: you don’t feel like you’re going to pull the encoder off of the front panel when adjusting the EQ. I don’t think the crossfader is going to win any awards when put against a DJ battle-style mixer, but it seems like it will do the job without any complaints, especially considering the price of the unit. While the unit is obviously very portable, it may be just a bit outsized for most laptop bags; but that goes with almost every portable controller out there that isn’t named “micro”. In the video, Numark rep Eric McGregor gives CDM an in-depth look. -JD

Alesis MultiMix8 USB FX

The Multimix8 is another iteration of small mixer/USB interface device from Alesis – 8 channels, 4 with microphone preamps, a high-impedance instrument input on channel 2, and 2 pairs of stereo line inputs. Built-in preset effects with individual sends on each channel, all mixed to a class-compliant 2-channel 16/44.1 bidirectional USB audio interface. Alesis is apparently taking user feedback from their original MultiMix8 USB to improve panel layout and knob spacing, dropping 24/96 support and reducing the power consumption. We were quoted $149 street price, which is only around $10 or so off the predecessor’s street price. -JD

Beat Kangz Beat Thang

A personal highlight for me was finally getting the chance to meet Aja and the Nashville-based Beat Kangz crew. I was impressed with their end-user friendly approach to the marketplace, valuing user feedback on their products. News to me is that Beat Thang Virtual is getting an AudioUnit version within the next two weeks, with VST coming soon after. I think that getting that product integrated with existing DAWs is going to do a lot for them. Of course, the one everyone is waiting for is the Beat Thang Beat Machine. It was there in all of its prototype glory, although Aja said that the first shipment of test units at full production spec were going to be in their hands soon, with some small tweaks to the hardware (particularly with the feel of the pads) ready to go through a final beta test phase. If their goal is to make the ultimate beat production device, I think they stand a really good chance of delivering. The prototype box is solid as a rock, intuitive interface and spec’d out to be an MPC killer. At $1000, it’s hard not to be interested in this box if you do any kind of rhythmic production. In the first video Aja shows Create Digital Music the Beat Thang Virtual. In video two, Aja shows us the Beat Thang Beat Machine. – JD

Akai SynthStation25

What may be the first of its kind, Akai has released a hardware accessory for their SynthStation iPhone software. Unveiled at Winter NAMM, the controller is simplicity itself – It’s an iPhone dock with 25-key keyboard, mod and pitch bend wheels, Octave and Program buttons and 4 buttons for accessing the voices in the SynthStation application itself. Couple this with headphone and RCA outputs and USB interface for MIDI, and Akai is offering a package to give actual musical performance control to their iPhone app. The relative merits of the controller or even the use of iPhones for performance and composition aside, Akai is making a strong move here by being the first to market with such a device. Given the sales of SynthStation in the iTunes store, Akai is betting that there are a significant number of people out there that would want to have an extended musical experience with their app and that those people are going to pony up around $100-$150 for a dedicated hardware controller for it. The release date has slipped on this device at least once already, but they seem to be pushing for July at this point. Interestingly, Akai is going to make their API available to third party developers, wishing to allow opening up the SynthStation25 to other iPhone applications. – JD

Electro-Harmonix Freeze

Shipping in late June, The Electro-Harmonix Freeze sample-and-hold pedal may be my favorite effect unit at Summer NAMM. The concept is deceptively simple: press down on the footswitch and the unit sustains what you just played. Let go and the sustaining stops. In the meantime, you can layer over the frozen part with additional notes. See the video below for a great demonstration. The Freeze seems perfect for experimental music and non-guitar instruments. Homebrew modifications are inevitable.

EH showed off other new products, including the Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi distortion/overdrive (so named because of its 4 germanium transistors), the Neo Clone (smaller version of the Small Clone analog chorus), and tiny Headphone Amp. In the video below, Larry with EH gave CDM a demonstration of these effects as well as the Ring-Thing Ring Modulator. Ed.: Or, as they describe it, to be semantic, a “single sideband modulator.” The unique thing about the Ring-Thing is that you can tune it from an incoming signal and avoid the unwieldy dissonance that come from most ring mods. Of course, unwieldy dissonance is a ring mod’s main charm. But should you want it to sound more musical, you have that option. – TY

Pigtronix Keymaster

Guitar-pedal bad-boys Pigtronix debuted an innovate universal signal router at Summer NAMM called the Keymaster Re-Amp Effects Mixer. Unlike most loopers, the Keymaster has a plethora of input/output options, including xlr and 1/4” in/outs and two pedal-level effects loops. You can run the loops in series or parallel with the option to mix the two loops in parallel mode. The beauty of this pedal is the limitless ways you can use it. Power two amps at once, instantly switch between two amps on the fly, switch between two effects chains, blend two effects chains, put two instruments in the two return jacks and mix them together to a single amp, and any routing you can dream up.

In the video below, Pigtronix founder Dave Koltai gives CDM an in-depth tour of the Keymaster. The second video shows Dave Koltai sampling a variety of Pigtronix’s other innovated pedals, including the Mothership Analog Synthesizer, Philosopher King polyphonic amplitude synthesizer, EP2 Envelop Phaser, and the Echolocution. Great sounds! – TY

Glasstones

Mark Payung’s fledgling Glasstones guitar company isn’t a household name. . . yet. But that may change if the final Glasstones guitars sound as good at the prototype did at Summer NAMM. The secret of the guitar’s long sustain is a patented glass compound that the nut, frets, and fretboard are made of. Supposedly, the highly-dense material better transmits the vibrations of the strings into the wood. Mark excitedly took us over to his friends’ 3rd Power Amplification booth to let us hear the Glasstones prototype guitar through an American Dream amplifier. The American Dream amp features some innovations of its own, including a triangular speaker chamber and switchable output between 22 and 10 watts. Channel one is voiced to sound like a ‘62 brownface Deluxe; channel two, a ‘65 blackface Deluxe.

Of course, it’s always hard to tell what guitars and amps truly sound like unless you’re playing them with your own gear; but this combination under the ideal conditions of the show floor sounded fantastic. (Watch the video below to hear for yourself.) Time will tell if the Glasstones guitar is a game-changing innovation or a fly-by-night novelty. If I were forced to choose, I’d bet on the former. – TY

Tony Youngblood (story, photos) resides in Nashville, TN and hosts the experimental improv music podcast Theatre Intangible. [@tonyyoungblood, Twitter]

Jeremy Dickens (additional reporting, photos) is a native Nashvillian musician, engineer, sound designer and and producer with works on dPulse Recordings, Sony Digital and his own Discrepancy Recordings imprint. [@logickal, Twitter]

Want follow-up coverage of any of this gear? What strikes your fancy? Let us know in comments.

Nashville locals Jeremy Dickens (logickal) and Tony Youngblood were on-site this month for CDM to cover the Nashville’s NAMM show, the summer installment of the major music manufacturer trade show.

The Summer 2010 edition of the North American Music Merchants trade show (Summer NAMM to most of us) has come and gone. For three days in humid downtown Nashville, members of the gear manufacturing, distribution, and retailing businesses converged upon the convention center to see the latest new merchandise being brought to market. This year, however, they did so against the backdrop of a city whose economy faces an uncertain future in the wake of the devastating flooding that displaced thousands of people and did billions of dollars in property damage.

In the background, there were some interesting signs regarding the uneasy state of the industry as a whole. According to the official numbers, overall attendance was down by 4% from last year, although overall exhibitor numbers were “slightly up.” It wasn’t difficult to overhear the disappointment and frustration in the conversations of sales people on the show floor. Michael Fine, a representative for guitar brands such as G&L and ESP, was quoted by the local media as saying that “Everybody’s sales were down at least 25 percent last year, mine included.”

NAMM music gear trade show is ‘hurting’ this year [Tennessean.com]
See NAMM’s press release for numbers and a slightly different angle. -Ed.

Meanwhile, many of the attendees were disappointed by the lack of representation from some of the bigger names in the industry. Gone are the days of an Ableton, once distributed by M-Audio, announcing new versions of Live on Saturday Morning; that company, like many others, reserves the honor exclusively for events like Anaheim’s Winter NAMM show. Indeed, M-Audio and their new parents Avid were easy to miss in the crowd, having a small display of product and scheduled Pro Tools demos hidden among the racks of Hal Leonard Publishing’s music books. The show that once sprawled across two floors of the Nashville Convention Center and the adjacent arena now fit almost entirely within the confines of the Center’s main exhibit hall. Even with Summer NAMM’s well-deserved reputation as a “guitar show,” the larger guitar manufacturers were conspicuous in their absence.

That being said, Nashville’s participation in the yearly NAMM schedule is an important one for other reasons. The influx of travelling convention participants is something the local economy counts on for tax dollars — now more than ever. The city’s other main convention center, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, is closed until November after sustaining heavy flood damage, causing the cancellation or relocation of many events previously booked for this summer. That leaves events like NAMM with the burden of bringing badly-needed revenue to the city. More strikingly, the show and its exhibitors are working with ongoing efforts to assist local musicians and studios in recovering their lost possessions and livelihoods in the wake of the floods.

Nashville electronic musician Tony Gerber [artist site @ reverbnation] is a direct recipient of such aid. Gerber is a solo artist, member of space music ensemble Spacecraft, and active in the music performance scene in Second Life as Cypress Rosewood. He’s had his music life put on hold after the flood, losing approximately 80% of his and his family’s possessions. Despite those losses, he sees the ordeal as a “positive experience,” largely due to the assistance of friends, fellow area musicians organizing a benefit concert in his behalf, and the Recording Academy-associated relief organization MusiCares.

While MusiCares provides aid to individuals in the music industry during many types of crises, they acted quickly to establish an active presence in Nashville’s music community, offering expedited financial aid to cover losses. They also partnered with retailer Guitar Center to collect equipment donations at their stores nationwide and to offer discounted prices on replacement gear to flood victims. While details are kept confidential, MusiCares staff member Courtney Bailey said that they had given out approximately $250,000 to flood victims since their establishment.

It wasn’t only individual studios to suffer losses: local cartage and equipment storage facility Soundcheck was inundated as well, with the accumulated wealth of over 600 musicians from the broad spectrum of Nashville’s music scene suffering loss and damage. Even some of the smaller exhibitors on the show floor had been touched by the destruction: Mark Payung of Glasstones [Facebook link] had kept some of his company’s prototype guitars at a locker at Soundcheck. “It was really a depressing site. It was so bad they had signs that said ‘Beware of Snakes.’ Going in and seeing all my gear destroyed was heartbreaking.”

Despite the flood and despite the economy, retailers and buyers still came to Summer NAMM 2010 to do business. It’s unclear at this point whether we’re experiencing a few bad years or a downward trend that could change the way the music manufacturing industry operates. We may be able to tell more from Winter NAMM, where manufacturers customarily pull out the big guns. Until then, Nashville restocks, refinishes, repairs, and rebuilds.

Contributor Jeremy Dickens is a native Nashvillian musician, engineer, sound designer and and producer with works on dPulse Recordings, Sony Digital and his own Discrepancy Recordings imprint.

Tony Youngblood (photos, additional reporting) resides in Nashville, TN and hosts the experimental improv music podcast Theatre Intangible. [twitter]

Nashville Flood Relief:
http://www.unitedwaynashville.org/nashvilleflood/

Nashville is a special place for music, and just as any natural disaster in the world hits musical communities, so, too, has recent flooding taken its toll on this American city.

The NAMM summer convention, a top gathering for the musical instruments industry, will go ahead as planned in Nashville on the 18th through the 20th of this month. For their part, industry group NAMM says that they’ll pump some $13 million into the local economy. Other efforts:

The MusiCares flood relief fund, targeting aid to local musicians, will host a booth and silent instrument auction. If you want to donate your instrument, with 100% of proceeds going directly into aid benefits, you can do so either at the booth or contacting jefffl@namm.org. 100 percent of the proceeds generated from this auction will directly benefit local flood victims.

Musicians union AFM Local 257 will also host donations of products, instruments, and financial gifts at the show. If you’re elsewhere in the world, you can donate online at www.nashvillemusicians.org

Several sponsors are working on a “BIG Gear Giveback” program for the industry, culminating in a concert; see www.namm.org/wannaplaysunday

Finally, while I won’t be attending summer NAMM (I’ll be at home in New York), I know a number of things will be happening there that are relevant to CDM. If you’re attending or live in the Nashville area, get in touch.

As always, we won’t cover every last bit of news, just the stuff we really find important. And in a twist, we’re also looking to volunteer participants to help us cover the community around music technology, not just the big industry-driven stuff.

Where and when to get your tech news

At 10:00 or 11:00 am tomorrow, January 14, Pacific Time (GMT-8), embargoes begin lifting on most NAMM news.

You can follow CDM’s coverage in two places: here on CDM, of course, but also at:

namm.noisepages.com

On CDM, we’ll have our own editorial look at the show. For the latest, round-the-clock news, videos, and clips, dispatches from our contributors, as well as unedited press clippings, watch namm.noisepages.com. We’ll take the best bits of the noisepages site and round them up on CDM.

We’ll be covering official and unofficial news this week. So, yes, we expect to cover big names like Roland. We’ll also be picking up on tech in hotel rooms, open-source oddities at the party Friday, and hardware that can’t afford NAMM booths – you know, just like we always do. Every day is a news day around here.

Friday night in Los Angeles, I’ll be part of the big, unofficial Wham Bam Thank You NAMM party. We’ll have video, sound, and feature coverage both of the artists and of the discussion we hope to kick off about the future of music tech. So watch for bits of that over the coming days.

What to expect

Our most anticipated news:

Ableton and Serato have already teased ableton-serato.com. So, obviously, if you were to tune into CDM at 11am California time tomorrow, I’m sure there won’t be any news whatsoever. Got that? Do not, by any means, expect any news Thursday around 11am.

I’ve been looking forward to talking to Teenage Engineering about their gorgeous-looking, Casio-inspired, FM radio and FM synthesis-equipped OP-1 synthesizer for months now; NAMM had always been the timeframe. Whatever isn’t ready, I should be able to catch when I’m in Stockholm in February. I’m imagining their studio looks something like the Wonka Chocolate Factory. If you’re there, you can find them on the floor.

I expect lots more controller hardware from lots more makers, and, whether it’s at NAMM or Messe or (for many manufacturers) completely independent of any trade show, I think 2010 will see more integrated hardware-software products.

No LinnDrum. There won’t be a LinnDrum announcement this year. That’s actually not a rumor. I think it’s best to diffuse any potential disappointment early. Dave Smith Instruments, though, have promised an announcement, so we’ll see what Dave’s been up to and I hope to catch up with Roger (Linn) later this year.

I could make more predictions, except I already know a lot about what’s coming out, so the predicting is somewhat less fun. Let’s see, let’s see, something I don’t know — I predict that the panelists I assembled on Friday will propose something so ludicrous and absurd for futuristic music tech that we’ll all be forced to make it.

And protests of major guitar manufacturers. On a more sobering note, the Korean workers who make major US brands like Fender, Ibanez, and Gibson are assembling a protest of the whole show, as reported by MusicRadar. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello is even involved. It’s guitars, which strictly speaking isn’t NAMM news – but nearly everything we make (even the inner circuits of a US-assembled monome) is built with Asian labor. If anyone can get the scoop on this protest, I’m happy to hear it.

Big 2010 NAMM news that’s… not at the NAMM show

A lot of the big news in 2010 may happen outside NAMM:

• Big makers skipping trade shows: Native Instruments, for instance, is skipping pricey trade shows to talk directly to would-be customers on the Web. So if there’s an announcement from NI – among ranks of manufacturers I expect will gradually grow – it’ll be elsewhere. I hear this Web thing is going to be huge.
• Renoise 2.5, 2.6: The underground tracker is adding some unique features. The 2.5 upgrades, like its unique matrix view, look cool enough, but it’s the 2.6 version, with full-blown scripting and OSC support, that gets even more interesting. We should know more about each as the year goes on. (There’s no NAMM announcement, but you can catch Renoise at the Indamixx booth on the show floor.)



• Ruin & Wesen’s magic box: The techno geniuses of Ruin & Wesen have been hard at work on their MiniCommand, plus the open Miduino library – built on Arduino – that powers it. This deserves a lot more attention for things like algorithmic musical programming, but the short version: expect magical music-programming capabilities that bridge hardware and software.
• OpenSoundControl/OSC: Yeah, I know: OSC has been waiting for its big breakout year for some time. But don’t forget, OSC already has new traction, from becoming a standard in live visual/VJ apps almost overnight to inclusion on new hardware. There’s some big news as far as better hardware and software implementation in the pipeline. Oh, and because it’s open, we’ll get to just talk about this, and actually make it happen. OSC won’t be at NAMM because that’s not where it belongs: it’s a way of implementing Internet standards as much as it is a way of creating music-specific protocols, and a lot of its future lies directly in your hands.
• Open hardware: It won’t be on the NAMM floor, but there is a convergence of monome users, alternative developers, and even (at the party Friday night) open-hardware Arduinomes. DIY tech is something we’ll be watching in Anaheim and all year long.
• …and the suitcase brigade: Technically, NAMM doesn’t allow “suitcase” behavior – that is, people showing stuff who don’t have a booth. But I have at least one product demo booked offsite at a hotel room I think you’ll like. (Whoa, that sounds way more illicit than it is.)

How to Send Us News Tips

Are you a manufacturer with a product? An attendee with photos, video, sound, or words on anything cool — even that late-night jam back in the hotel room with friends? We’d love to have you get it to us. Directions on the namm.noisepages blog:

Community-driven coverage: Help Us Cover The Stuff Everyone Misses

If you’re introducing or demonstrating new products at NAMM, and you’d like to be considered for CDM’s curated NAMM products guide, let us know. Incidentally, since I don’t represent the NAMM organization, that can mean anyone in LA around NAMM or otherwise timing announcements that week, whether or not you’re an exhibitor. One- and two-person shops are as welcome as big manufacturers, as always.

There is no charge to be in the CDM guide, excepting the need to have something cool. We can’t cover everything and want to avoid information overload, but we’ll pick some stuff we know CDM readers will want to know about.

Also, I will be in Anaheim for limited meetings during the NAMM show on Thursday and Friday. If you’d like to meet up (especially if you’re not exhibiting), please get in touch. I know I won’t be able to meet up with everyone I’d like to on this trip, but we can give it a shot.

Manufacturers/inventors, we want to hear from you:
For meetings or to get in our news coverage, I’ve set up a form:
CDM NAMM Meetings and Announcements [Google Docs; form embedded below]

CDM does not break embargoes, period. I’ll be working hard to make sure news coverage is timed; if you can get us materials early, that helps.

Interested in being a correspondent? I’m looking to enlist anyone interested in covering the show floor and getting photos of oddities and awesomeness, as well as talking to artist guests. If that sounds like you, get in touch. To put this another way, if we don’t get materials early, it’s very hard to get them up as quickly!

Keep your schedule clear: the big news is that we’ve got a major event coming up Friday night in downtown LA, and we’re talking to LA-area artists. More on that very soon.

Here’s the embedded form (you’ll need to click through to the site if reading inside an RSS reader):

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.

I had Chairman Bill running in a corner of my screen while I cleaned house, hoping for something interesting like gesture recognition in Windows 7, so I didn’t snag images quickly enough. Gizmodo has a good write-up with images and on-demand video from CES should be available soon. He did choose JayZ over Timbaland as his producer, I’m guessing because even Gates was offended about that whole Finnish chiptune controversy.

Since Gates is currently a Windows user, I suggest loading up the retirement laptop with platform-exclusives FL Studio and SONAR (alongside plenty of great cross-platform tools). And since presumably Gates still has a house filled with flat-screen projection surfaces, might I suggest a side order of VJing — especially if the music thing doesn’t work out?

Sadly, this leaves the rest of us dreaming for a gestural, multi-touch operating system that isn’t installed in a hotel lounge doing cool-looking but semi-pointless things.

• Apple
• Ableton
• Cakewalk
• Native Instruments
• Cycling ’74
• Trinity Audio (the mobile Linux folks)

I’ll let you figure this one out; some of those folks have made announcements, and some have not.

Exhibiting at AES? Send me your booth number and I’ll try to drop by! I should be around all weekend.

Going to AES? Let me know…