2007 Summer NAMM Show

The 2007 Summer NAMM Show has wrapped up, and while there was some interesting new gear introduced, the show itself seems to be in decline.

Attendance at the annual summer event is in freefall, with only 12,845 people attending. This is a significant drop from 2006, which had a much lower attendance than 2005.

NAMM is putting a positive spin on it, noting that fewer people and fewer exhibitors meant that there was still a decent buyer-to-seller ratio.

“For the thousands of NAMM Members that made the commitment to come to Austin this year, most reported a positive business experience,” said Joe Lamond, NAMM president and CEO. “Many dealers told us they enjoyed the slower-paced quality time with their suppliers and peers to build relationships that are important and necessary for future business endeavors.”

Lamond continued, “NAMM remains true to our guiding principle that as long as there are NAMM Members who want and need this show to keep their businesses strong and growing, NAMM will continue to provide the venue. For us, producing this show is a service decision, not a financial decision. NAMM will announce the timing and location of the 2008 Summer NAMM event in August.” Read more…

Tascam today announced three new drum libraries developed by multiple Grammy award winning musician and recording Engineer Larry Seyer.

The new POWERkits Volumes 1, 2 and 3 libraries from Larry Seyer Digital, focus on providing high quality musical instrument drum sounds with very low computer processing power requirements. POWERkits is the first plug-in library to be released in a new series of plug-ins from Larry Seyer Digital’s POWER line.
Packaged in groups of 10 drum kits per library, the POWERkits instrument series offers the same sound quality as the original Larry Seyer Acoustic Drums library which used to require a dedicated computer and GigaStudio 3.

“Now in a stand alone software product and Powered by GVI to function, POWERkits drum libraries provide the musician and producer with a sound palette of uncompromising quality while requiring very little processing power,” said Johnny DeLeon Tascam’s Musical Instrument Channel Manager.

POWERkits are priced at $99.00 each, and will be released this month.

At the Summer NAMM Show, Tascam introduced the new MP-BT1 Bass trainer and the MP-VT1 Music and Vocal trainer. The new MP3 trainers feature Tascam’s VSA technology (Variable Speed Audition (pitch control w/o affecting key).

“Tascam’s family of MP3 trainers is the world’s first music player for musicians, and we’ve completely designed it to fit your instrument,” said Johnny DeLeon, TascamProduct Channel Manager. “The new MP-BT1 for bass players and MP-VT1 for vocalists and other instruments gives musicians, students, and teachers, the ability to play and learn their favorite songs by slowing down the song without changing the pitch.” Read more…

Summer NAMM: Roland introduced a new desktop hardware synth today, the SonicCell. According to Roland, the SonicCell puts the power and legendary sound quality of a Roland hardware synthesizer on your desktop. According to us, it’s the most hideously ugly synth we’ve seen in a long time.

Here’s the details….. Read more…

2007 Summer NAMM Show: Open Labs announced that it will be substantially upgrading the previous software bundles for its MiKo and NeKo keyboard production stations.

The V4 sound library for the NeKo LX in particular, features E-MU’s new Proteus X2 Streaming Sound Module V2.5 with over 5,500 instruments including the following:

• E-MU Proteus 2000
• E-MU Mo’Phatt
• E-MU Modular System
• ARP 2600
• ARP Axxe
• Roland JD800
• Roland Jupiter 8
• Roland JX-8P
• Roland TB-303 Bass Line
• Roland Juno 60
• Moog Memorymoog
• Mini Moog
• Moog Taurus Pedals
• Sequential Circuits Prophet 10
• Sequential Circuits Prophet 600
• Elka Rhapsody
• Mellotron Mark II
• Korg MS20
• Solina
• Oberheim OB & X
• Hammond B3
• Rhodes Electric Piano
• Hohner Clavinet
• Yamaha CP-70
• Wurlitzer Electric Piano

The 25GB NeKo LX V4 sound library features 22,784 high quality presets.

The street price for the bundled software and sound libraries is $3,003, which includes $487 worth of Open Labs Special Edition plugins, optimized by the software developers for use with the NeKo LX. Read more…