NAMM 2012

rjmmusic

rjmmusic

Administrator
Staff member
Hi all,

We're not exhibiting at NAMM this year, conserving our time and money for the herculean effort that is the Mastermind GT development. We will be at the show tomorrow (we are fortunate to live close enough that we can drop by whenever we like). Is there anything I should check out at the show? I haven't been keeping up with the NAMM buzz, but would be happy to take pics and report back on things that are of interest.
 
Parker Maxx Fly Bass looks very cool (if horrendously expensive)
The new 1 watt Marshalls are rather cute
I want to know more about the new Egnater pedal line (and if the E2 will ever see the light, but that's another issue!)

Be worth checking out the other manufacturers of foot controllers etc - dunno if Liquid Foot or MarkL etc are exhibiting? Just to see how many of your ideas they stole ;)

EDIT: Also, the Mackie DL1608 digital mixer looks awesome. Would love to find out more on that one.
 
Okay, I'll try to hit as many of those as I can. I'll probably post pics via Twitter since that's the easiest from my phone. I'll report more details here a bit later.

Heading into the fray, wish me luck!
 
The Mackie mixer is probably the coolest thing I saw at the show. It seems really well thought out and powerful. Whoever wrote the iPad software did a great job.

Couldn't try the Marshalls, but they do look very cute. :)

The Parker bass was really nice - well balanced, pretty light.

The Egnater pedals are new (and I have some involvement in them!) I didn't get to hear them, but they look really badass. This is the first time I've seen a (more or less) finished product.They're really serious about getting into pedals, so I'm sure you'll see a lot more. I don't know what the current status of the E2 is, but last I heard, the modular series will live on...

Other things of note:
- This is the first time I tried a Jet City amp and they're really impressive for the price. They even have a -fully- MIDI programmable version. I didn't hear that one, but I'll be watching that one to see how it compares to the "normal" models. Doing MIDI controlled amps is a tricky thing to get right - ask those who have tried...
- The Apogee audio interface and mic for the iPad are surprisingly good.
- Looks like BOSS is learning a few things - the GT-100 looks like a serious improvement over previous models.
- The 5150III 50 watt model sounds good but annoys me greatly because they changed the footswitch interface from the 100 watter. (and added a MIDI interface that people are already reporting is not as flexible as they'd like) :roll:
- Really disappointed the Mastermind GT was not on exhibit at the show. :evil:

That's about all I saw - most of the time, I was in meetings. It was good to see all of the familiar faces, though!
 
I'm so psyched about that Mackie mixer, I'm seriously considering getting an iPad so I can get one and run it. It offers the same facilities in a live desk as my big Mackie Onyx desk (just without the 16-channel firewire interface) in a much smaller footprint, plus all the advantages of digital control and processing. Plus, I could also use the iPad for my lyrics so I wouldn't have to deal with bits of paper (or forgetting the words!). For each band member to be able to control their own monitor mix wirelessly is outstanding - I'd love for the next step to be a scaled-up version with 24 channels and 10 aux sends, a la what Presonus did with the StudioLive. How it'll fare against the (can you say gimmicky?) Line6 touchscreen offering will remain to be seen.

A lot of people have complained about the lack of innovation, guitar-wise, in this show. Most of the hype was about the new Klon! But I've seem some interesting, if not necessarily innovative, things in the videos and news clips from NAMM, and there are certainly things in the PA and keyboard worlds that have interested me greatly. I wish I'd seen the Eric Gales & Andy Timmons jam at the Dunlop booth on Friday live though!

When I went for the Egnater Tweaker amps, I seriously considered the Jet City stuff - sounds great, but at the time there were too many limitations on the unmodded smaller heads for me (lack of FX loop for one). They've redressed this a bit with newer models, but I'm still more than happy with what I ended up choosing.
 
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