Conference napalm::commusic_v1

2248.0. "1/90 NAMM Show Tidbits" by AQUA::ROST (Everyone loves those dead presidents) Thu Jan 25 1990 08:37

    The following is about 100 lines about the NAMM show that I picked up
    off USENET.  For those who have better things to do, hit "next
    unseen"...
    
    							Brian
    
    Well, I just spent all of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday
    at the  NAMM show in Anaheim.  What a country!  Frankly, I'm all NAMMed
    out.  By 1:00pm Sunday, I was ready to head back.  I know I didn't see
    everything (too much  stuff!), but I was interested in a wide variety
    of things, since I'm planning  on putting together a home studio
    basically from "scratch" (most of the stuff I have now is really old,
    or really bad).
 
    Fostex 812 Mixer:  The most exciting new product for my money was the
    Fostex  812 mixer.  Listing for $1795 (basic version, w/o MIDI muting),
    this mixer  nicely fills a void in the market that has existed for some
    time.  This 12  input, 8 bus mixer has some nice EQ (finally!  Low and
    mid sweepable-freqs with 10khz shelving hi) along with apparently an
    abundance of routing flexibility.   It's also got phantom power, two
    effects sends, and an auxillary input on all  twelve channels which can
    apparently be used to take twelve more MIDI (or  whatever) sound
    sources while mixing down.  If this is true (the rep I talked  to
    couldn't explain it very well...), one could have a total of 24 sound
    sources on mixdown.  Fostex has also come out with a 16 X 2 line-level
    mixer with gain, pan and 2 sends on each input that lists for $350! 
    This is some neat stuff.
 
    AKG C-100:  If anybody is interested (as I was) in a nice, inexpensive
    condenser microphone for recording vocals in their home studio, I
    didn't hear anything  that sounded better than the AKG C-1000.  What a
    splendid sounding unit...and  listing for only $325, any deal you made
    at the music store would be worth it. I realize this might be old news
    to some of you, but I had never heard it...
 
    Rhodes 660:  Here's some more old (possibly?) but good news.  Roland
    has made  some great stuff in the Rhodes lineup.  The Rhodes 660 was
    the most impressive  keyboard I tried out at the show in the
    price/performance category.  I've never heard it mentioned on the net,
    but man, it has some really nice sounds.  61  "weighted" keys, velocity
    and after-touch sensitive, 128 16-bit RS-PCM sounds  (great sounds, I
    liked the piano, sax, strings, etc. sounds much better than  the U-20),
    30 voice polyphony, split and "dual" modes, six part multitimbral,
    panning and volume for each voice, reverbs, chorus, delays; even a zany
    little  arpeggiator (well, I'm a guitar player, what do you expect?
    ;-).  All this for a list price of $1495.  Only drawback I noticed was
    a mere two outputs, making the very nice drum sounds on board kind of
    tough to work with.  This board was introduced in November according to
    the guy I spoke with, and of course there are already a lot more PCM
    cards for it.  I was looking at the U-20 before the show at the local
    music stores...not anymore.  I wonder if you have to go to those silly
    places where they sell those "home" keyboards to get one...
 
    Proteus:  E-mu has a really nice little unit on their hands with this
    one. Now they've got the Proteus/2.  Just more on-board sounds, as I
    understand it. Unfortunately, their demo room was set up really weird,
    and there was only one Proteus set up that you could mess with...the
    other ones had sequenced demos (very impressive ones) running on them
    constantly.  The Proteus/2's that I heard have this new set of
    orchestral samples that are fantastic...though probably nothing new to
    Emulator users.  On the "Pop" Proteus, the sounds were also great; I
    especially liked the acoustic guitar and the snare samples.
 
    SY77: I did of course want to see what all the hullaballoo was about
    the SY77.   Well, I can tell you it looks great on paper, and it does
    do some nice stuff,  but say what you will...I didn't hear it do
    anything shockingly out of the  ordinary.  I must have seen 2 full
    demos, and parts of one other one.  In fact, it seemed like everytime
    I'd go into the Yamaha room to try the stuff out,  there'd be this guy
    giving a demo on the SY77 at 120db.  Don't get me wrong,  some of the
    sounds were great, but it wasn't like when the DX-7 first came out  or
    anything.  One thing I did notice was the snare sounded kind of
    ratty...just my HO, but I can't believe with all this "new" technology
    that they can't get a proper snare drum out of it.
 
    SY55:  One nice suprise was the $1495 list (that seems to be the magic 
    number) SY55.  This is Yamaha's DX-9 of the SY series.  Less to work
    with, but really capable of some nice stuff too.  I wish they'd have
    pulled out the little bonehead 8-track 8000 note sequencer though. 
    Maybe then it would have listed for $1295 instead.  Again, I tended to
    gravitate to the piano, sax and string sounds which were quite good. 
    Nice D-50 type sounds too.
 
    Korg:  I had to go by the Korg room and hear what the demo was like on
    the M3r. Wow! I can't decide between that and the Proteus.  The
    on-board effects are  really clean and fat sounding too (E-mu...do
    it!).  You could hear some voice- stealing going on, but hey, what do
    you expect for a 1-U box sounding like a  64-piece orchestra?  I also
    took a spin by the Bo Tomlyn booth and listened to  his stuff for the
    M3r.  Bo knows the M3r.  (just had to say it!)  The T-series stuff
    sounds great too as probably most of you know.
 
    Kurzweil:  Their piano sounds were the first to really knock me out on
    Friday. They have a new product called the "Micro-Expander" that's
    supposed to come out soon, listing for $995.  I messed with one.  It's
    supposedly the same piano sound that's used in their more expensive
    keyboards.  It's really great.  Plus this little unit had some other
    synth-type stuff one might not expect from Kurzweil.  I overheard a rep
    telling a store owner that his Micro-Expanders  were going to be
    shipped "soon", and that they had a lot of other music stores on their
    tail too.  By the way, the Micro-Expander comes standard as a non-
    rack-mountable module, kind of like the MT-32.  You can rack it with
    their  little "kit" though.
 
    Alesis:  Yes, the 1622 does have alot of inputs.  Big deal.  It was
    sitting in a glass case like the Hope diamond.  "It's shipping..." they
    said.  We'll see. Again, no new stuff that I saw, though their booth
    was quite useful for leaning up against as you ate your hotdog. 

    
    The best part is at the end. Read it.
    
    :)
    
    rr
    

    Another excerpt from USENET for Hammond fans:
    
    So I went off to the Hammond booth. Believe it or not,  folks, the
    Hammond B-3 is *still* in production. Well, sort of. They  stopped
    making the mechanical tone generator in '71 or '72. This model,  called
    the Super B, has one row of drawbars for each manual, several  presets,
    MIDI, a card reader, and a bunch of other whiz-bang features.  What's
    missing is the half moon Leslie switch, two sets of drawbars, and  a
    lot of soul... the digital synthesis they use just doesn't quite get 
    the right Hammond tone (I later found out that there a control to
    switch  between summing Hammond tones and (apparently) sine waves. I
    wish I had  known about this while I was still at the show. The Leslie
    cabinet was  solid state, and like all solid state Leslies, doesn't
    have the proper  growl... it could still be that with a proper (ie,
    tube) Leslie and the  Hammond tones engaged (if they weren't already
    when I saw it) this could  be quite the hot setup. Paul Shaeffer, Chuck
    Leavell (Allmans, Stones)  and Brent have all had MIDI setups
    retrofitted to their Hammonds....  maybe this is the machine of the
    90s??? Anyway, I'm sure that all the  old folks in the piano and organ
    section didn't know what to make of the  idiot in the dancing skeleton
    shirt blasting out Gimme Some Lovin'...
 
    Some of the exhibits got a double-take out of me... there were lots of 
    soundproof booths with demonstrations (lots of drummers) by big-time 
    session players & Genuine Rock and Roll Stars, though I admit I didn't 
    see anyone I recognized ("they all have MTV hair and look the same to 
    me..."). In one display there was a silent band jamming... they were
    all  wearing headphones... and there were about 40 pairs of headphones
    for  the audience. A really weird thing to see. Without the headphones
    all  you could hear was the drumsticks hitting the drum pads.
 
 
-- 
            Who: Dave Chesavage
          Where: [email protected]
     Disclaimer: "If you get confused listen to the music play"

    
    Motto of the Audio Luddite Society:
    
    	"Wiggle air, not speaker cones"
    
    

    'Audio Luddite' - I love it !

    
    Some more hot NAMM News:
    
    From Kawai:
    
    XD-5 rack mount "Percussion Synthesizer"
    
    KL-1 14 voice (??) 16 bit synth, keys or rack 
    
    K4000  a K4 with 88 weighted keys
    
    From Roland:
    
    The SPD-8 is described as "an Octapad with built-in sounds", no photo,
    availability or price given.
    
    They are "working" on a four-track digital deck.  Not DAT, though,
    *direct to hard disk*.  Supposedly DAT is too little, too late!!??!!
    
    Other:
    
    Waldorf has found a US distributor (Russ Jones Marketing)
    
    DOD to be purchased by Harmon International (Harmon/Kardon, JBL, etc.)
    
    Paul Reed Smith showed his Harmonic Generator amplifier, 70 watts,
    vintage tone and *all transistor*.
    
    The Danelectro Coral Electric Sitar has been reissued (by who??)
    perfect for those Stylistics covers.....
    
    
    							Brian

 ATARI MIDI-FEST '90 
 Atari and American Music, a large music store in North Hollywood, CA,
 held "MIDI-FEST '90" last Thursday, August 9th in the Ballroom of the
 Beverly Garland Hotel, also in North Hollywood.  Live MIDI
 demonstrations were presented for a crowd of as many as 400 customers
 and music mavens.  The speaker list included Mick Fleetwood, Jimmy Hotz,
 Scott Gershin (sound for many motion pictures including BORN ON THE
 FOURTH OF JULY and HONEY, I'VE SHRUNK THE KIDS), members of TANGERINE
 DREAM and THE POINTER SISTERS band, and other musicians who
 enthusiastically demonstrated the use of the Atari and its software in
 professional applications.  It was also the retail commercial debut of
 the HOTZ MIDI Translator, produced under the ATARI name.  The program
 was very similar to a combination of that presented at the ill-fated
 "concert" at last year's Disneyland World of Atari show and the demos
 shown at the more recent NAMM shows.  It was well received by this
 audience, made up of professional (and some quite famous) musicians,
 songwriters, producers, film score makers, and serious musical
 hobbyists.  The display again established Atari as the technology and
 price leader for MIDI.  Surrounding the demo/concert floor were many
 displays of equipment and software for MIDI use on the Atari computers.
 Steinberg-Jones, C-LAB, DR. T's. Hybrid Arts, MIDIMAN, and other
 representatives showed their wares, and American Music offered Atari
 Hardware (including NINE Stacy Laptop ST computers!) for sale.  The
 evening was arranged through Atari's Frank Foster, who had the
 misfortune to have his car broken into the day of the show, losing his
 personal STACY.  We wonder if the thief is still trying to get to the
 "C:>" prompt.  Help in setup for the show was provided by volunteers of
 the Southern California user groups, coordinated by John King Tarpinian,
 who is also the Glendale Show manager.  American Music, 5100 Lankershim
 Blvd., North Hollywood CA, (818) 762-9749.