14 DAY TRIAL // Now that the 2007 winter convention has closed its gates we can relax, re-view what was to be seen and heard there and draw a line while trying to answer the obvious, yearly question: where do we go in what audio and sound tech are concerned?
For those who don't know, the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) has held its 105th edition in Anaheim, California. Also, for those who don't know (yet) the NAMM conventions are one of Earth's biggest events when it comes to everything related to music; music products, music-related production, both software and the hardest hardware and generally speaking everything you could connect to music is to be found in one of the NAMM's thousands of booths and locations.
Not the best nor the most sparkling edition of the NAMM conventions, this year's winter assembly has had its ups and downs as somehow expected (after all, you can't be golden every year...) and there were some guidelines which were quite noticeable such as entirely digital DJing products, MIDI and FireWire interfacing. It's quite interesting what will 2007 bring in the DJ-related area on an already saturated market, full of both exceptional and suck-a-lot software especially since the 2007. This NAMM edition hasn't gifted us with notable presences of highly innovative DJ softwares, but was rather filled up with variations of existing code so that the "spinners" could bridge their CD and vinyl, work with digital environments of the PCs and operating systems. Nothing really groundbreaking in spinning the wheel, but better connectivity to computerized and computer-assisted systems so, overall, a plus.
One of the great absences was the new version of Reason; nevertheless, the good news was that Propellerhead are really working on it (so the rumors were true!) and who knows, maybe we'll see it released at the summer Texas NAMM! This winter edition has brought fewer software synthesizers, but this was somehow expected since each passing day brings in our lives more emulating/simulating modules than the previous and I also guess that it's quite hard to make a break in the solid and rather dense market with something which isn't genius.
Another thing in which the winter NAMM abounded was the MIDI and FireWire interfacing, as I have said before. Lots (and I mean LOTS) of producers have presented a multitude of devices with whose aid the music producers can better interlink the analog sound with MIDI routines and viceversa as well as better transport their projects and data by means of the FireWire technology. I can't really tell now (it's too soon) if this NAMM has had a proper star but hopefully the press and those who are completely into "dissecting" each bit of code would crown one.
As a final consideration, along with other voices reporting about this year's winter edition of the NAMM, I have to say that the giant leaps we were used to some 10 years ago have ceased to appear during such events - technology of music has become fully-grown already and there are little things which can expand the borders of sound tech to far distances as they did years ago. In shorter words, neither you nor me can really "expect the unexpected" as often as we did before, because what we used to call "future" and only dared of dreaming is already here! And we're using it thoroughly!
Stay tuned for further reports from the 2007 winter NAMM and maybe we'll get to see this year's first half favorite.
Photo credits: NAMM
