Winter NAMM 2019 - part 5
Ruokangas Guitars
It's been many years since the world saw a new type of guitar pickup but better late than never. Juha Ruokangas showed a few guitars with the new Valvebucker. I wanted very much to try it but every time I was at the both the guitars were in someone else's hands. I did hear David Torn play it for a bit and that sounded promising. Juha promised me he would bring it to the FUZZ Guitar Show so I can have my time with it then.
The Emma Maria is a masterpiece sjowing Juha's skill as a craftsman.
As beautiful from the back.
Big headstock as fits the style.
Fretboard inlays brings memories of stories of princesses and elfs, read to me when I was a child.
Sadowsky Guitars
I did try to get into the Sadowsky booth to get some close-ups but it was so busy. Knowing the quality of Roger's work I get why it was busy.
Sankey Guitars
Sankey guitar sculpture clearly reminding us that the guitar is made out of wood.
Shabat Guitars
Since I saw one of the very first guitars Avi Shabat built, I have been a fan of his guitars. A few years back he showed me a metallic blue Tele with a carbon pickguard that I still dream about. The two guitars in the picture above are also mouth watering goodies.
Avi himself with his signature hat and a P/J style bass.
SIM-1
When I first heard about the XT-1 I was very interested. What if someone could do as successfully with guitars as Kemper has done with amps? So I visited the SIM-1 booth and got a demo of a prototype and while it sounded good it also left me with a few questions. 1. Would it really sound good and "real"? This year I was invited to a proper demo and I was also given some time to try it for myself. The guitar was an American built Fender Strat. And during the demo I found the answers to my questions.
Is this the ultimate duo? I'm hoping to find out very soon.
New at NAMM 2019 was this XT-B for bass players. I didn't get around to playing it, but I met a bass player who had tried it and he said he liked it. I just bought a new bass guitar so this could be a good idea for my birthday.
Sonarworks
This is without doubt the plugin to get if you are at all serious about recording and mixing. With the microphon you can easily measure your room and the the program will correct the eq so you get a good sound. What was really amazing was how good their headphone correction worked. I'm really looking forward to getting into mixing with this. Both with monitors and headphones.
Sonic Scores
I write/arrange of orchestral score for different situations and I'm always miffed at how time consuming it is to set up and load even if I have templates for all that. Therefore I was extra happy at NAMM at finding the Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra by Sonic Scores. It loads fast, is a relatively small install and is not very expensive. That's takes it a long way in my book but what makes me give it my NAMM 2019 Top Virtual Instrument Award is the user interface and the presets. In the screen shot aboove you have the Dynamic Orch loaded. When an instrument is played the corresponding section on screen lights up helping you see as well as hear what's going on and in this particular preset the instruments played are decided by the velocity of your playing. At low velocity you only have strings but as you increase velocity you get woodwinds, brass and at the higher ends of the velocity curve you get percussion as well. While I realize that this doesn't replace traditional arranging with separate tracks for each instrument/section it makes it so very easy to quickly get ideas down for when you need to pitch an ide to an artist/producer. All you need is one instance of Amadeus and start playing. If you find that you don't need the brass on a few notes or a section, you just decrease the velocity of those notes. I can't wait to seriously get into Amadeus.
Source Audio
Another synth in a pedal format. This was a prototype wiout labels and only partially finished, but what I heard keeps me interested in hearing the final product when it comes out.
Spalt Instruments
When it comes to guitars as functional art, Michael Spalt is one of my absolute favourites. Every time I see his guitars my head spins with visual delight.
This cupboard with an amp in the bottom part would be a nice addition to any room.
Open it and there's your matching guitar.
Another of Mr Spalt's creations.
Two geniuses at work. Michael Spalt to the left and the astounding tech master Thomas Nordegg to the right.
Spiral Electric
Spiral Electric is the brain child of Tom Cram who until fairly recently headed up the pedal team at DigiTech. Now he back on his own and displayed these dirt boxes.
And here's the man himsift. Tom Cram with his new creations.
Strandberg
Ultamodern guitar design meets old style pickup configurations. Rumor had it that they would display a guitar with True Temprament frets in a new material. The guitar was ehiter not there or just placed where I couldn't see it. I'd have loved to try it.
Strymon
The new Strymon Volante delay pedal drew crowds all day long. And understandably so. I had hopes for a guitar synth or a amp modeler/multi-FX and was at first disappointed when I hard that it was a new delay. But that was before I got to play it. This is truly a very nice delay.
Supro
This good looking Supro Blues King 12 is a small but not timid single ended 15 watt Class A amp based on the famous 6L6 tube. It has a high gain mode using a series of cascaded FETs to get to a gain level not usually associated with the kind of look. I really liked what I heard.
The Supro Delay has a story. The man behind this pedal is none other than Howard Davies who was the man responsible for the EHX Deluxe Memory Man and later the Pigtronix Echolution. The man obviously knows his way around a circuit board. The interesting thing about the Supro Delay is that they use a new kind of a bucket brigade chip which is a high wattage chip and thus you get superior fidelity and much better headroom. The filter control is used to get everything from the darker type of BBD delays to brighter tape style delays.
SVL Guitars
I first heard of SVL Guitars when I discovered Matt Schofield. This NAMM was the first time I got to play one and it felt so nice.
Synclavier Digital
Back in the day when I was partially making a living as a synth programmer, the dream machine was the NED Synclavier. The company folded after a few years but the Synclavier made a lasting impression on me and during its life span it was heard on an uncountable number of hit records in an amazing variety of music styles. Now the Synclavier is back, both in the form of an iPad app and as a VST plugin through a cooperation with Arturia. The sounds are the same as in the original Synclavier but with an improved user interface.
Mr Cameron Jones, who wrote the original code for the Synclavier is now responsible for the resurrection of the dream synth. He found a way to port the original code. I wish I had more time to spend with this man because I'm sure he has some really cool stories to tell.
T-1 Picks
Every NAMM Show I go to has a number of booths with new picks. Most interesting new pick this year was the T-1 Pick. A thin pick only .3 mm made out of stainless steel. I usually favor thicker picks but I'll give the T-1 a serious go as, for some reason, it doesn't feel so thin.
Taey Kang Guitars
A Strat style guitar with three gold foil pickups looks like an interesting proposition.
Tausch Guitars
Rainer Tausch makes some very instruments. Also, if you are into using local sustainable woods, Rainer is more than willing to discuss the options.
Rainer also sported rock style shoes.
Teuffel Guitars
I first met Ulrich Teuffel at the Frankfurt Musikmesse many. many years ago where his Birdfish guitar caught my eye. Since then he has made a number of significant designs but the Birdfish is still my favourite.
This view of the back shows that you can move thepickups to the position of your choise. The Birdfish come with single coil pickups and humbucker pickups in the same kind of housing and are easy to swap thanks to a quick connector solution. You can also exchange the tone bars for other tone bars made out of other wood.
The Gig
The Gig is a smart solution to keeping your instruments in place when you work on them.
Thorpy FX
Thorpy FX from Great Britain their pedals. Looking good - sounding good.
Timespeed
I don't know exactly what Timespeed does but I do know that Thomas Nordegg is involved and therefore it's bound to to be both cutting edge technology and very interesting. Mr Nordegg is a music industry veteran and has worked as a guitar tech for Frank Zappa, Dweezil Zappa and Steve Vai just to mention a few. A few years ago he showed me a guitar he had customized for Steve Vai and it had every piece of modern tech built into that thing.
A pedalboard that probably can produce more sounds than I can fathom. I consider myself fairly tech savvy but I would hesitate before taking on a board like this.
Tiny Boy
I'm quite sure the title refers to the bass and not the player. A ukulele size bass for travel and other situations that necessitates a smaller instrument.
Tom Anderson Guitarworks
Tom Anderson has been making great guitars for a long, long time. I my world, he was one of the very first boutique builders.
Two-Notes Engineering
Two-Notes released a new version of the Torpedo C.A.B. called Torpedo C.A.B. M. It's smaller in size and has an XLR output and an enhanced user interface. Due to size constraints it loses the MIDI port of the first (bigger) version.
In the screen you can see the new dual layer user interface. It makes it easier to go from one parameter group to another when you edit.
They also showed the latest version of Torpedo Remote. I have now used it for a few days with the original Torpedo C.A.B and it's a fantastic update as the second microphone makes it so versatile and it's so much faster to get a good sound.
Two-Rock
It was the first time I've seen the Silver Sterling Signature. It clearly takes its inspiration from the Dumble Steel String Singer with its massive headroom and gorgeous clean sound. 150 watts using 6550 tubes equals serious power.
Victory
Victory introduced dual channel tube preamp pedals based on their amp models. This is the Countess which is based on the V30 Countess amp they developed in collaboration with Guthrie Govan.
The Sheriff is aimed at us who like Plexi style sounds.
Vintage
I think the Vintage V100PBB to the right looks really classy and would make an excellent way into P90 territory. I'm tempted. The Mick Ronson inspired V100MRN looks just like Ronson's guitar. It was my dream guitar when I was a teenager saw Ronson on stage with it.
The V100CSB will undoubtedly appeal to lovers of Kiss and if you want to project an Angus image with an extra pickup you can get the VS63 CR.
Walrus Audio
Walrus Audio showed old and new designs and all with great graphics.
Wood
In case you want to build your own guitar from scratch, you can find nice wood of all kinds at NAMM.
A German company has found a way to inject epoxy into the wood to make drastic patterns.
According to the company they manuafacture all the headstock overlays for Gibson and Gibson Custom Shop which I found to be a slightly strange claim since I saw Gibson making their own overlays when I visited the Custom Shop. It may be a recent decision to outsource.
Xotic Guitars
Xotic has a very comitted user base and they are all vocal in their praise of the Xotic Guitars. Having tried some of these guitars , that seems a very reasonable response. This year Xotic brought the new XTC series and I see no reason why it shouldn't be as popular as the XSC.
Yamaha
Yamaha showed new entries in the Revstar series. The Bigsby equipped model is now available with humbuckers or P90s.
The P90 equipped Revstar with the distinctive tail piece now comes in a few other finishes. The lighting makes it hard to see but the light blue see through to the right looks top class.
Yamaha usually displays a few guitars especially build by their Custom Shop for the express purpose of showing them at NAMM. Here's a Pacifica and two Revstar.
This blue Pacifica with a metal pick guard really hit the spot for me. This guitar was really resonant and I'd love to have it.
The end "All good things come to an end!" That's what I was told as a child when summer vacation was over. Same thing goes for another NAMM show added to my experiences. I will bring home many happy memories of products in all categories. Cool, weird, quiry, crazy, strange, unthinkable, unusable and most of them wonderful in many weays. I will cherish all the meetings with so many people who are in their proper element when they get to show the fruits of their loving labor. I have nothing but respect for these dedicated individuals and feel privileged to know them. I hope you have enjoyed reading my report and even though the jet lag keep getting worse with every year, I will do my very best to return to Anaheim in January 2020 to collect the info for yet another report. So until next time, I wish you all peace, love and creative freedom! Cheers, Mats N
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NAMM The Classic Reverb is not new but it's certainly drool worthy.
