Winter NAMM 2019 - part 3
Indiginus
A superbly cool VSTi from Indiginus is the Solid State Symphony (SSS). This is a "symphonic orchestra" made up by sampled synths imitating real acoustic instruments. While it doesn't have the authenticity of fully featured orchestraplugins, it certainly sounds great in its own way and its sonic imprint fits very well in modern music productions. In addition to the more traditional sounds, SSS also offers PadScapes, GatedPad, PitchMod 1 & 2, Bass and Percussion. Sounds that clearly sets it apart from other orchestral plugins and makes it a very good tool to have available. It's also way less expensive than the quality implies.
Industrial Electric
As far as I can remember, I have never seen or heard of Industrial Electric before but I must say I like the designs and the Incinerator makes some very interesting sounds.
Jam
Jam is a Greek company that has displayed their visually very cool and great sounding pedals for a number of years. I always look forward to checking them out. As you can see, they don't disappoint. In the middle tier above you can see two pedals with a clear top so you can see what's going on inside.
This multieffects pedal, wha and the case looks like it could have been on the Nautilus for those rare moments when Captain Nemo wanted to relax and let loose some searing riffs a few leauges under the sea.
James Trussart
Metal art from James Trussart.
Jamstack
Jamstack was one of the very few cool new things displayed down in the legendary Hall E. That's were all the small new companies showed their weird, wacky and wonderful products. Nowdays Hall E is mostly about Chinese companies showing copies of almost every possible product you can think of. But I digress! Jamstack is a little amp that you fasten with a smart connector to you end pin. The guitar chord goes into the Jamstack which is connected to you smartphone so you can jam along with tracks.
JHS
The Clover from JHS is a enhanced copy of the short lived Boss FA-1 Preamp. JHS have added the possibility of selecting how much (if any) of the eq facilities you want to use. Sounds wonderful!
The Whitey Tighty FET compressor is also new to the brand. I liked that too!
James Tyler Guitars
In my humble opinion, James Tyler builds the coolest and best feeling guitars in the whole world. His ´59 carve neck is legendary and it has spoiled many users and made it difficult to play other brands. This unusually understated matte black Studio Elite looks awesome and felt just like any great Tyler.
This spalted maple top Studio Elite with top monted picups looks elegant.
Here's a top example of James Tyler's quirky finishes. A Burning Water over Jimburst.
This finish is called Wine-Ou.
The Alien Guando is not for the faint of heart.
The much talked about Tyler singlecut.
The even more talked about Tyler semi-hollow. This is a wonderful instrument that I would love to own.
One of Tyler's famous shmear finishes.
This Studio Elite HD comes in a Worn Green finish.
K-Line
Chris Kroenlein is a much respected luthier who builds bolt-on guitars faithful to tradition and som not so faithful but oh so charming variations of his own.
I like this red three pickup DelMar and the very cool Truxton Byrd made me smile.
K-Line now offers their own line of pickups.
Chris holding his new short scale bass, popular among guitarsist who want toplay a bit of bass.
Kauer Guitars
Keeley Electronics
Keeley Electronics has a mix of more "normal" pedals with more whacky sound generators. Synth-1 definitely belongs in the latter category. The Aria (top right) was news last NAMM but is still is a wonderful pedal.
Kemper
A big draw to the Kemper booth this NAMM was the Kemper Kabinet equipped with the Kemper Kone. There's isn't enough time or room to tell you all about it but suffice to say that it's a very unique solution to the issue of using frfr or a guitar cabinet. Sounded very good however they set it.
When set to Kemper Kone you had speaker imprints (note that these are not IRs) of a number of speakers for you to use according to what you feel like using at the time.
The Kemper Editor was very much big news. I have personally never felt the need of an editor as I think the KPA user interface is so easy to use, but after having seen the beta of the editor I'm actually looking forward to trying it out.
Christoph Kemper together with their Japanese marketing guy Moto Kuboyama.
Klein Acoustic Guitars
Steve Klein was on hand teogether with his guitars with their very distinct body shape.
Koch
Koch amps are very dynamic and have their own sound. And I really like two-tone designs.
KRK
KRK's Rich Renken was smiling all day long as he was demoing these new KRK ROKIT 5 with kevlar speakers. After listening, I was smiling too.
KSR
Huge tones in a small box. This is Kyle Rhodes holding his new pedal.
Three channels of flexibibility.
The pedal features KSR's signature logotype that changes color when you change channel.
Larrivé
I've been fortunate to play a number of Jean Larrivé's guitars over the years and they never cease to amaze. Both in sound and in looks.
Line 6
Line 6 is also a company that that releases product over the year and not necessary at NAMM. Having said that, they did premiere the RelayG10S which has a few extra requested features.
Lunastorm
Danish company Lunastorm is made up of a lot of people from the original tc electronic company. Therefore it's not surprising that the Dynamic Delay is a take on the legendary 2290 digital delay. Next to it is the prototype Hammer Drive which has two overdirvies in one box.
Malinoski Guitars
Peter Maliniski is not only a visionary luthier not afraid of doing his own thing but he's also a great conversationalist and certainly not afraid of discussing his methods. I could have stayed a lot longer just enjoying the conversation.
Mr Malinoski makes almost everything himself, including the pickups.
This guitar-as-art diplay by Malinoski includes the display with the included amp and will et you back €30.000.
Mastro Valvola
I once talked to a number of pedal builders and they all agrred that one of the hardest things for them was to come up with names for their pedals. Considering that, I really do like the name "Love Buzz".
Maxwell Custom Guitars
It's really cool to see that some luthiers realy challenging the traditional designs. These guitars made by Maxwell were just fabulous.
Mercury Labs
At Mercury Labs you can get your aluminum desires satisfactorily settled. As you can see, they can provide you with hollow body resonators of many styles. They also make aluminum electric guitars.
Meris
Meris seems to me to be a pedal company that aims at taking rack quality to the pedal people, and with great success.
Minarik Guitars
I can remember seing Minarik Guitars at every NAMM show I've attended. But I've never seen one out side of the NAMM Show. Not even on TV.
NAMM NAMM would just not be the cool event it is without a professional and very effecient organisation arranging it. What's interesting to me is that they are always improving so they really seem to be reading the evaluation questionnaires they have us fill in after the show every year.
Coming here the first day of the show and being a part of this impressive environment certainly sets the mood for a great day.
At 9.00AM sharp us media people are met by happy smiles further enforcing the impression of a great day awaiting us. And every year, that has been true for me.
It's now Sunday and the show is over and this year's badge will be added to all the other mementos for all the other 20 NAMM Shows I've been lucky to be able to attend. As always the NAMM experience is not only about the products. It's also about all the great people who make up the industry, the weather, the food and, of course, the music. So thank you NAMM for another good show to kick off the year and I hope to see you all again in 2020.
National
At National Resophonic they had a jam going on. I alwys wish NAMM was 6 days so I could stop at more booths just to enjoy the music.
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Pickups for all kinds of preferences.
Cool guy making cool guitars. Doug Kauer in front of some delicious guitar art.
