Winter NAMM 2013
PRS Guitars Same as last year. PRS had nice guitars but the light in their booth really doesn't like any of my cameras. So, I apologize for the quality of the pics.
Here are a row of two colored PRS guitars. When it comes to color, wood grain and finish it's hard to beat PRS. It's hard enough to even keep up with them for the "other guys".
More two-toned beauties!
One of the typical marks of a PRS has always been birds. Now we got to see a number of guitars with a bird engraved in the top.
Yet another bird.
A whole flock of birds.
One of the more interesting guitars at NAMM was this Brent Mason Signature with its special pickup setup and slightly different body shape.
Great players at the PRS press conference. Tony McManus and Neal Schon.
More cool players. Drummer Christoffer Nermark and monster bass player Gary Grainger.
Randall
Randall made the headlines this year with an entire new amp line aimed squarely aimed at the heavy metal player. All designed by well know amp modification guru Mike Fortin. These amps sound brutal. I heard a demo with an 8-string that shook my inner organs.
Barnd Manager, Joe Delaney, stands proudly in front of the new amps.
Same sound in a preamp pedal, all according to Mike Fortin.
RawKits
I've always wanted to build a guitar but never knew exactly where to start. With RawKits you may not be a builder in the true sense of the word, but being an assembler may be a good start.
Rickenbacker
Roland
While new guitar stuff was not overflowing the Roland booth, I really like the concept of this small and inexpensive Cube Lite.
Sandberg
When I think of great basses at very reasonable prices I always think Sandberg. According to the salesman, this bass has the possibility of sounding like a Jazz Bass and a Presicion Bass. Or both. Or a mix. I actually believe him!
Schecter
This year Schecter surprised me with a line of amps. From the looks of them, they are aimed at the heavier end of the market.
New guitars from the people who once started the custom parts market. At least they seemed to do so back in the day in Sweden.
Slate Digital
Steven Slate demoed his Raven digital mixer based around a giant tougch screen with multi touch functionality. Interesting idea.
Snake
I apologize to the builder as I didn't get his name so I'll just file this under Sanke until further notice.
This is the head of the guitar. And the snake!
Sonic Clamp
There were very few really good guitar oriented apps at NAMM and even fewer new ones. What was found in abundance, however, were products made to help you fasten you iPhone or iPad in various ways to better use it during a performance or in the studio. The coolest one , I think was Sonic Clamp. It allows you to clamp your device onto your guiatr withourt harming either the device or the guitar. The demo guy Brooks ,who's also the owner and inventor of Sonic Clamp, had three iPhones clamped to his tele, all running different apps. Appove he's seen jamming along with a loop in one iPhone also running Amplitube while he's also jamming with a robot in another. Great fun to be had!
Stylophone
I passed by this booth several times to find out what this was all about. Twice they were busy chatting with other people about other things and once the booth was attanded but a guy who was covering for the real guys and he coulnd't answer any questions. What I did find out was that this is the new version of the Stylophone. I know it's a synth that you used to have to use a pen like object to play it, hance the name. In this incarnation you can play it using your fingers. The price indicated that this far more than a toy so next NAMM, I will try to find out more.
Tom Anderson Guitarworks
This faded transparent purple caught the eye of many.
One more purple and a Bulldog with a Floyd. (!?!)
The man, the myth, the legend and the man behind the guitars. Tom Anderson himself!
Tone Bakery
Most of the space at the Tone Bakery was occupied by this huge automobile.
Their pedalboard did provide some mouth watering goodies like the Double Creme which is a Klon clone and an OD in one box to be had for a rather small amount of money. The drum and percussion area of NAMM is not the optimal suroounding for judging tone but the Double Creme did sound nice.
TV Jones
The day I will buy a TV Jones is coming closer and it will be difficult to choose what color to get as they all look great.
Two Notes Engineering
Two Notes had this interesting reamping product called the Torpedo Reload. It's a very interesting take on reamping as it has a Match feature that ensures that the signal level coming out of your DAW is the same as the guitar connected directly to your amp. Reload includes a special edition of Two Notes plugin package with speaker simulation.
Wampler
Brian Wampler builds great pedals and two of them grace my gigging pedalboard. Thus I'm always interested in what Wampler shows. Here's a prototype of the Dual Fusion. I would not be surprised in the least if this one ends up being a great success.
Washburn
The end At the end of the NAMM show I'm alsways elated by the people, I've met, the music I've heard and the isntrumets I've had the pleasure to play. After having returned to Sweden I'm jet lagged out of my skull that I can barely function for a few days. That's when I think I'll never return to NAMM again. Then in September when the all too short summer is definitely over I start to think that it would be great to take a break from the bleak grey winter weather and return to NAMM once again. Because despite what the say at Disneyland across the street from NAMM, during these four days NAMM is the happiest place on earth So while still feeling the effect of the time difference, I thank you for sharing my NAMM experience and hope to be able to share yet another journey with you next year.
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