NEWS
Wham, Bam, Thank You, NAMM!
A Music Editor's Take on the Noisy Annual Trade Show
by Michael Jay
 Michael Jay at the Yamaha booth at NAMM 2008. Photo by Jessica Wood. |
Many editors are likely to have kept up with new and improved technology by attending trade shows such as NAB (see preview) or even the super-sized Consumer Electronics Show (CES; see story). But for a music editor—or any musician––there’s a special draw to NAMM, an association of 9,000 retailers and manufacturers of musical instruments. NAMM now holds its huge annual trade show in Anaheim, California in mid-January, and with about 8,900 of those members seeming to be blasting sound at the same time, you can imagine the experience is both amazing and overwhelming.
An obsessive musical enthusiast from childhood, I once took a summer job at a manufacturer of primitive electronic organs and, in the line of duty, was treated to my first NAMM convention. That show, circa 1974, filled much of Houston’s Astrodome and established my baseline experience. The kid-in-a-candy-store feeling has remained as I became a recording engineer and then music editor, while the technology progressed from dinky rhythm boxes to virtual instruments. Thus, I am delighted to give a music editor’s perspective on this year’s NAMM show (January 17-20)––even if I had to see it all in a single day.
 Audioease GUI for Altiverb. |
Below are some of the highlights that caught my ear, including several which should be of interest to all sound editors (picture editors should note that neither Avid nor Final Cut Pro exhibited at this show). But before I get to the electronic goodies, let me trace a bit of my path, past the entire hall of grand pianos, past the jumbo marimba, the gleaming flutes, the 110 cornets, past (as quickly as possible) the hall of drummers drumming and almost past the $50,000 Martin guitar (no, that’s not a typo and, yes, as with the marimba, the engineer in me did stop to plunk a bit). One lasting impression is the look on the face of a 12-year-old boy as he put on headphones and sat down for his first taste of Roland’s virtual drum kits. Priceless.
AudioEase
I’m an owner of Altiverb (www.audio
ease.com/promotion/#anchor-49575), which was one of the first
plug-ins to produce reverberation via convolution. Convolution produces
life-like reverb, with results analogous to the superiority of sampled
versus synthesized instruments, and it has put truly world-class reverb
in the hands of the masses. AudioEase’s website features free
access to samples (“impulse responses”) of tons of amazing
spaces, from closets to the finest concert halls and recording studios.
In fact, it just released an impulse of the Todd AO Radford scoring
stage, which was sampled before its demise. Originally an RTAS plug-in,
Altiverb has for some time been produced for TDM (thank goodness!)
and the latest version now features greatly improved viewing and access
of the preset library, plus a very intuitive 3-D view of the space
and your adjustments.
Speakerphone
Speakerphone (www.audioease.com/
pages/speakerphone/speakerphone.html) is a new convolution product
from AudioEase, and it focuses on, well, speakers. With impulses from
diverse sources such as cell phones, bullhorns and PA systems––plus
equalization, compression and built-in samples of crowds and other
ambiances––this plug-in represents an invaluable tool
for “worldizing” your material and really selling your
temp’s source music cues.
Digidesign
While many sound editors may have moved to Pro Tools 7.4,
this latest version was new to this year’s NAMM. 7.4 (www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=234&itemid=28112&ref=74-f)
features many music creation elements, including a suite of virtual
instruments, but most intriguing is Digi’s new time compression
feature, Elastic Time, which features a choice of
algorithms (rhythmic, polyphonic, etc.) and, in general, appears very
intuitive.
Mbox Micro
Also new to NAMM, but undoubtedly already in use by many editors,
is the Mbox Micro (www.digidesign.com/
index.cfm?langid=100&navid= 220&itemid=5343&ref=micro-f),
essentially a studio in a USB dongle for $279 list price, including
Pro Tools LE 7.4. For those who couldn’t afford the cartage
to lug around one of the earlier Mboxes, the Micro is big. You just
can’t record; it’s playback-only.
M-Audio
Avid/Digidesign also now owns M-Audio, and their neighboring booth
featured the new MicroTrack II (www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack-main.html)
hand-held digital recorder. With a street price under $300, it’s
amazing to get balanced, +4 mic and line inputs, resolution up to
24 bit/96k and built-in phantom power. If you had shown such a thing
to a classical engineer or field recordist way back when, they would
have thought it had been beamed down from orbit.
 Euphonix MC Control screen. |
Other Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Controllers:
Euphonix
This company, which of course makes dub stage-size mixers and control surfaces,
has entered the workstation market with its MC Control ($1,500) (www.euphonix.
com/artist/products/ mc_control/). The MC features “EuCon,”
a high-speed control protocol over Ethernet that offers 250 times the speed
and eight times the resolution of MIDI. This very sexy unit, which includes
a customizable touch screen, provides potential control for a large degree
of DAW functions.
Mackie
The latest incarnation of Mackie’s ubiquitous DAW controller
is the MCU Pro (www.mackie.
com/products/ mcupro/index.html), which debuted about a year ago.
While limited to communication via MIDI, the MCU Pro lists for about
$300 less than the aforementioned Euphonix controller.
Mackie has made some good strides with its modest speakers, and brand new to this show was the MR8 self-powered monitor (www.mackie.com/products/ mrseries/index.html). While it may not be in the stratosphere of self-aligning monitors from JBL and Genelec, at least one thing makes these Mackie’s noteworthy: Their street price is under $500 a pair.
Serato
Serato’s Pitch ‘n Time Pro 2.4 (www.serato.com/products/pnt/),
released last year, includes a new algorithm, “V mode,”
tailored for vocal signals. 2.4 also supports sampling rates up to
192k. Now, I wasn’t going to mention it, but Serato’s
own website notes that 2.4 “also fixes a few bugs” that
were in 2.3 (nothing like having your reality validated.)
Yamaha
We’re rounding out our look at DAW controllers are the new n12 and n8
mixers from Yamaha. While in the price range of the Euphonix controller, these
Yamahas are different creatures; namely, full digital mixers, including 12
and eight analog inputs, respectively. They are not, however, full controllers.
But they do offer DAW control for Steinberg CUBASE AI4 (bundled), including
transport and some other key features, such as track selection and record
toggle. It’s an interesting hybrid approach, and certainly a nice mixer.
 MOTU Digital Performer 6. |
Other Workstations:
Logic, Digital Performer, Nuendo
Logic 8 (www.apple.com/search/?q= logic+8) is likely known to many by now, with Apple notably having finally “remastered” the program’s idiosyncratic window sets to provide for operation on a single screen. Nice to see an interface that looks like it’s from the 22nd century. I’ve asked both Apple and Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) to include support of sample rate pull-downs in their sequencers; we’ll see…
MOTU was demonstrating the features of its forthcoming Digital Performer 6 (www. motu.com/products/software/). I was a de facto beta tester for DP version 1! DP 6 will include several new features of interest to those working to picture, including XML file interchange with Final Cut Pro and support for 23.976 frame rate. Note that DP 6 will include a convolution reverb.
Nuendo 4
And, finally, Steinberg premiered Nuendo 4 (www.steinberg.net/1409_
1.html), which features a new media bay for library searches and
new high-quality VST3 plug-ins geared for post work (EQ capable of
extremely narrow 30db notches). Most intriguing to me were the program’s
new automation modes, such as a Preview mode, which suspends your
current mix state and lets you quickly audition a new one, such as
that intended for a perspective change. Very cool.
 Michael Jay plays the Moog at a NAMM show long, long ago. |
Okay, if you’ve had enough, imagine how I felt. It was time to retrace my steps, past the banks of guitar straps, the rhythm training devices, the––wait, is that a new model Leslie? Wow, let me listen to that guy play blues on a Hammond for a while…(there’s nothing like a real B3).
Michael Jay was music editor for El Cantante, Leon Ichaso’s recent retracing of the genesis of salsa music. In his work as a recording engineer, he engineered the first TV show to be mixed digitally (for a Neil Young concert on HBO), and the first album to be recorded to PC, for the band Yes.
[ return to top ]