I almost don't know where to start, the Anaheim convention center is GYNORMOUS. The pamplhet they give you when you walk in lists the stores alphabetically and i almost wanted to take a picture of it to show you how many names were on the thing. It was just over 2,200.
When i walked in Universal Audio was first in site, i got to look at the new UAD-1 card that fits into a laptop port. Kinda neat.
Then it was over to Ableton for the announcement of 4 things. Ableton 8.0 which has 45 new features and upgrades from Ableton 7. Some of them being better use of external audio effects(finally), 4(from what i counted) additional audio effects plugs ins and a lot more use of grouping devices(which we all know ableton loves). I only got to watch two of the 4 demos. They announced a partner ship with Akai on a midi controller that looks very monome-esk (pictured below). The device is light weight, knobs and sliders feel ok but the guy doing the tutorial was doing some pretty creative stuff with it. They also announced their partner ship with Serato will be full fledged in April. The cycling '74 guys added something i can't get much into detail about because frankly the guy explaining it to me sucked. It has something to do with output chains and external audio effect plugs. Sorry wish he and i could be more helpful
next up Spectrasonics announced 2 new things. One a new bass module! Trillian, it was AMAAAAAAAAMAAZING. It is based on the same steam engine that Omnisphere is but the load time looked nothing like Omnisphere. It has ALL (count that... ALL) the features of Trilogy plus a lot more natural basses (both stand up and fretless) and something like 50 new synths? Maybe more i didn't write it down. They also announced a new & free Stylus plugin for everyone starting April. Not a free upgrade, a free plug
I stopped by the PSP booth. Those guys rock. Polanders
who knew? They have a series of vintage EQ's coming out in 4 weeks. They sound rock solid, they are somewhat modeled after the classic Neve stuff. I think those will be one of my buys for sure, did not take any pictures as i was twiddlingI got to meet Dave Smith! I wanted to hug it out but that just seemed a bit inappropriate. Instead i stared creepily. Anywho, we spoke for a while... really down to earth guy, you can tell the amount of work he has put into everything has really humbled him as a person. He was the only one working the Dave Smith booth when we got there and i think that speaks for itself. I was playing with the poly evolver and he looked at me and said 'no one ever asks but that poly evolver is by far my favorite creation'. Uhh now i need one lol
Dave Smith contemplating the stars:
On to Celemony. the line was around the corner for this demo, by far the highlight of NAMM i believe. I went and grubbed and came back when the demo wasn't going on because they had 4 work stations set up ready to try it for yourself! Direct Note Access obviously being the showcase here was the most interesting thing i've ever layed my eyes on. They had logic open and a few different guitar sections being played, really intricate musical riffs. Chords into melodies into sweeping sustains and fast strumming. Basically what they have tried to recreate is a full proof engine. Melodyne picks up all of the tones created by the instrument; it then uses a process of elimination and a complex algorithm to try and figure out what is the root tones and what are overtones. Melodyne might here 6 or 7 tones going on but knows its only a 3 note chord with some overtones in it, so it will do what it thinks it is (say a Cmin) and make those regions dark for you (just like what melodyne looks like now). However the overtones show up too as a light shaded area. You have the ability to make that a strong tone in the sequence(same color as the rest), delete it if it is muddying the sound or even MOVE THE HARMONIC OVER TONES. Blew my mind. Blew. My. Mind. I wanted to load up a synth to demo some pads but the Celemony guy ended up talking my ear off (in a good way).
Youtube Video of it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytefTBKDfnw
The new Access Virus TI2 (3.0 Software Upgrade). The New Virus isn't really that revolutionary as someone on this forum already stated. I bugged them at the booth saying USB 2.0 needs to come out already and that the 3rd USB output is problematic for me (saying i get an error stipulating not enough USB bandwidth at times). I took some pics anyways, the hardware does look a little bit different but not much. Needless to say no reason for me to upgrade:
Rob Papen -- hung down stairs with the man for a while. I discussed Albino 3 with him in detail, he showed me the new features in Predator. Basically Predators Filter section has a new face, a 2nd filter that can be used indepedenatly of the 1st and together. It also does not need an osc to oscilate in order for the filter to trigger. He also showed me two new products he's devloped. One is called Bass Synth(something like that). It's based on the predator engine but has more drum sounds under the osc waves. It was pretty cool but nothing that couldn't be done in predator at the moment. He also showed me a synth/rompler he created for guitars. Nothing revolutionary but always quality.
If i was to have a 2nd favorite at NAMM it would have to be from Arturia. I thought the origin was just an over priced hardware version of their software. I LOVE the arturia synths, i use them in all my productions and i'm a very happy with the quality. I thought the origin was basically a way to use the synths in an external DSP manor in order to save CPU resources. I mean in a way it is however they have made the design well worth a second look at. Having the hardware knobs is nice, i know my virus ti sees both a lot of mouse clicks and a lot of thumb spins. What really got me though is Arturia took all their synth recreations (minimoog, prophet, jupiter, 2600, etc) and made them modular in the Origin. That is to say i can take 1 osc from the minimoog, 1 osc from the 2600, put it thru the jup 8 filter, send it to the prophet chorus and so on. That just blew my mind. did it yours? I want one and he told me the first 2 months of shipment have already been bought out. the MSRP is pretty high, its def on my list of things to get but hopefully price will come down a bit. The other unfortunate thing i asked is if my software purchases could be put towards the origin in anyway and the answer was no. The origin does ship with all the software and there will be new synths constantly being added to it for free (AWESOME!). it also has USB 2.0
happy 2009 gear heads - Anthony
