Macsimum Awards: Winter NAMM 2007

Posted by Daniel East Jan 23, 2007 at 5:33pm

By Daniel East, Contributing Editor
With guest reporters, Laura Burstein and Mitch Mestel

Last weekend in Anaheim, California, the 2007 Winter NAMM show presented quite a few innovative and unique products for musical instrument retailers, sound reinforcement, manufacturers, publishers and music industry professionals. Special artist appearances by All-American Rejects, Teddy Geiger, Warren Haynes, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Janet Robin, Stevie Wonder, Graham Nash, Kenneth Crouch, Andrew Gouche, Paul Stanley, Rick Nielsen (fresh after Macworld Expo), Nikki Sixx, Sinbad, as well as vendor events with Los Lobos, Robert Randolph, Ok Go and many others draped this year’s event keeping the industry-only crowd in full whiplash mode as they eagerly turned heads along every isle. 

Of course, Apple had a big presence at the conference showcasing a wide range of their products at their theater booth and demo tables showing off what keeps them at the forefront of so many studios, tours, houses of worship and in the industry overall. That said there were some incredible products that our Macsimum News team felt were standout items for our Macsimum Awards at this year’s 2007 Winter NAMM Conference.

MacVideoPro by MacProVideo.com: This Canadian-based company has created intuitive pro-audio based training software for music industry professionals. Simplified learning for Final Cut Pro, Reason, Motion, iLife and more using real time animation that actually shows the user how it all works.

Rat Bastard Guitar by Fritz Brothers Guitars: This completely hand-made and stunningly great sounding guitar jumps out in more ways than one.

D1226PW Djembe by Mountain Rhythm: This small drum delivers big sound along with their patented tuning system and elegant walnut finish. Goat skin drum head sits in place with powder coated steel rings for a gorgeous tone, look and feel that stays a few beats ahead of their competition.

Saturn IV Electric Bass by Dan’l: According to the designer, his instruments were designed by modifying an original bass body for his own preferences in shape, size and sound. While this is not uncommon, the end results are and the tone, feel and look of the Dan’l Saturn IV have their own signature that creates the sense of an upright bass with the appearance of a stunning custom instrument. They feature Bartolini pickups, Shaller bridge, and Schaller tuners that are the highest quality to contribute to these very fine instruments.

DVZ RT Realtime Orchestrator by Audio Impressions: This impressive orchestration software, although PC-based, combines incredible pitch spread and time spread along with proportionally scaled instrumentation based on velocity. The accuracy is stunning and the sound quality exceeds anything we heard at the show. This is professional orchestration software at its best. There is an excellent video demo on their web site as well.

MusicPad Pro Plus by Freehand Systems: You may recall that the original MusicPad was one of our “best of’s” at a previous NAMM show and, once again, the people at Freeverse have stepped up with their latest product and v. 4.0 software for both Mac and PC. Not only does this impressive sheet music tablet allow performers to view their music (see full review of previous model), but to download, transpose, notate and transmit it in the blink of an eye. Their new agreements with music publishers allow for instant – downloading of sheet music from their massive libraries. Great for educators, musicians, and just about anywhere you’ll want to have your sheet music accessible.

UGC102 USB Guitar Interface by Behringer: Plug in, turn on, jam out with a very simple interface that allows you to connect your 1/4 inch instrument cable to your computer via USB 2.0. The product includes Native Instruments Guitar Combo (Behringer Edition) and Audacity along with some additional software so that you can play along, record or just drop some ideas down for future reference.

Cleartone Bass Strings by Cleartone: Strings are like picking the tires for your car or the skates to a hockey player (or figure skater…). After being thoroughly impressed by their Cleartone strings, the new bass edition offers their impressive EMP coating for longer life and with a feel that doesn’t seem coated at all. 

Reel Tape Suite by Digidesign: With all of the digital technologies today, it is now possible to go backward in time to recreate the sounds of olde for ProTools, Avid and VENUE systems with this RTAS, TDM and AudioSuite plug-in set. Emulating the tape saturation in digital recordings is something that many producers and engineers have longed for and this new suite answers the call.

Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition by IK Multimedia: IK has come a long way. Each year, their product lines continue to improve and impress the public and this new module adds another component to their expanded product line. 1.5Gb of samples and 250 items in the sound library bring a huge amount of classical possibilities to the Mac or PC. Samples were compiled in the Dvorak Symphony Hall and do an impressive job of expressing the feel of the instrumentation.

I want to thank our special contributors, Laura Burstein and Mitch Mestel, for their insights, time and assistance so that we could cover the huge scope of the show in order to find these products.

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