Travel Report for Michael Bierylo
NAMM 2006
Overview
Every year I approach NAMM with certain expectations of dazzling new technologies, innovative products or a very least, some clever marketing strategies. However, by the time I actually hit the floor, I was once again reminded that change in the musical products industry, regardless of any hype, is really evolutionary. Hence, I'll remember this show as "the year of actually shipping stuff." My observations this year are also influenced by what I saw at the Fall 2005 AES Convention in New York. NAMM this year seemed like a rerun of AES with many of the same booths– only without the rain. It's really remarkable how similar the product lines represented at these two shows really are.
My impression this year is that many of the innovative products shown at last year's NAMM took much longer to bring to market than had initially been expected. So with new products shipping in late 2005, many manufacturers had little time to prototype their next big thing. Case in point: last year, Access was absolutely convinced that the Virus TI would ship in March 2005. That was until they actually started writing the drivers. It seems that this was a far more daunting task than initially imagined, and the TI became available in time for AES. At NAMM this year, they announced RTAS support and commented privately that the delay was due to the revised RTAS spec in ProTools 7, which is a big departure from previous versions. Likewise, Hipno, Cycling 74's next addition to the Pluggo line that was first shown at last year's NAMM, didn't make it's debut till right after AES; and the Muse Receptor's Uniwire technology is now in public beta.
Since Apple's entry into the audio world, all eyes are on the Macworld show right before NAMM, to see how their next wave of technology will impact the audio and musical instrument industry. This year, Apple's surprise Intel processor announcement took many manufacturers off guard. The first words out of anyone's mouth who was even remotely connected with products that ran on Apple computers, was their release schedule for universal binary versions of their applications or drivers. The word from most manufacturers was that the transition would be far easier for the audio industry than the move to OSX. Privately, there was some speculation that at some point Apple computers would run the Microsoft Windows OS.
In software, there is a distinct move to capitalize on the sound, if not the name, of classic, high end consoles. Around AES last Fall, SSL started giving away a plug-in version of the compressor they used on the talkback mic their early consoles. The LMC-1 is available as a free download, and it's undoubtedly in their interest to capitalize on the rich history of their products. At NAMM this year, plug-in manufacturer WAVES announced that they would be the exclusive developer of plug-ins based on SSL design. Universal Audio, who is already in the business of bringing classic equipment to a new generation, announced a similar arrangement with NEVE. Both of these join SONY, who markets TDM plug-ins from their Oxford line of consoles. Mackie 1604 EQ plug-ins anyone?
This also was a watershed year for guitarists. Just about everyone has some sort of amp modeling technology in their product line. Software companies like Native Instruments, Waves, and Line 6 include some sort of hardware as a dedicated audio interface, making these complete recording and/or performing systems. In addition to amp modeling, some of the standout guitar products included the big buzz item this year, Tronical, a self-tuning system that can be retrofitted to just about any guitar, and provides "perfect" tuning in about two seconds. Also on display was the Gibson digital guitar. As you can imagine, Gibson has a mammoth area at NAMM, where they only admit dealers and guests. One would think that this "ground-breaking" technology would be on display here. Well, no. The digital guitar had a small booth on the main floor that really seemed like an afterthought. It's clear that not much has changed from from their stewardship of Opcode, as Gibson is still publicly unclear on what role high technology will play in their company.
As in the past, this year's report makes no claim to be an exhaustive analysis; rather it is a collection of impressions from the show. For a more complete round up of new products, I highly suggest the following:
Hardware
Synthesizers
Perhaps the most conservative sector of the electronic instrument industry is the big three hardware synthesizer manufacturers – Korg, Roland, Yamaha. Recent innovation here is often in how technologies are packaged and how they integrate with other studio components. This year was no different, and in terms of sound synthesis technologies, it was for the most part, "steady as she goes." Yamaha's MO line has the identical sound engine as their current flagship, the Motif. Korg's new Micro X and X50 both look like they contain a subset of the Triton sound-set and architecture, while Roland's new offering the SH-201 repackages their analog modeling technology that dates back to the JP-8000. This year's models all include some sort of USB connectivity. What we're seeing here is ability to control synth parameters in these devices from various types of DAW plug-ins. This essentially relieves one of the need to be digging through a synthesizer's GUI for many functions, and allows the user to keep their focus on the computer. This type of technology is what we see with the Access Virus T1, however the big difference is that in the case of Korg and Roland, we can't stream audio directly into a DAW. With Yamaha's Studio Connections technology, this is possible by connecting the outputs of a synthesizer to the inputs on an audio interface. Yamaha has yet to fully implement this, but promises that it will allow their hardware synthesizers to function as VST plug-ins, complete with latency compensation.
Korg had a lot to show this year, and to me their standout product was the RADIUS synthesizer. This is designed as a performance tool sporting a 49-key keyboard with it’s control panel mounted on a sliding rack above. You can think of it as a kind of hybrid of an MS-2000 and an Electribe, complete with a step sequencer. Korg has added a unique vocoder to this package. In addition to live vocoding, the RADIUS can record up to 7.5 seconds of audio, analyze the spectral content and use the formant information to for vocoding effects as part of a patch. The physical design of the synth is unique, with a semi-modular design that allows space for a laptop. I would imagine that there will be other modules that could integrate with the RADIUS, making it a kind of hub for various electronic instruments. Clearly, Korg is acknowledging laptop performance with this model, making it as easy as possible to use their instrument in a laptop live playing situation.
One of my favorite NAMM stops is Analogue Haven. Each year they host a range of analog electronic instruments that they distribute. In addition to classic Doepfer modular synthesizers, they showcase some interesting instruments that fly well below the radar of the mainstream music products industry, such as Future Retro, Cwejman Sound, Analogue Solutions, Macbeth, among many others new and used. Their booth at NAMM is always busy and is a testament to the enduring interest in boutique analog instruments.
Guitars
Line 6, who for years now has sold their amp modeling technology in hardware stomp boxes, is now in the home recording business with their Toneport line of amp and effect modeling USB interfaces. These interfaces are designed specifically for recording guitarists. The processing for the included amp effects models is native, and the system is designed to provide near-zero latency monitoring of the processed signal that is being recorded.
This year a couple of things caught my eye. As we all know, laptop computers can generate a fair amount of heat. To combat this, Rain Recording, a small company that specializes in building PCs for music applications, has introduce the Airfoil. This is an aluminum base for laptops that at once lifts the laptop to provide a more ergonomic position, and also houses two very quiet fans that cool the computer. This looks like a very well-built item that lists for 69.95 and is available direct from the manufacturer.
PreSonus announced Faderport, a new single fader control surface. This USB device, although not wireless, is similar in function to the Frontier Designs Tranzport, providing full transport and automation control. This has a small footprint, and might be just the thing for mouse-mixers who need a fader now and then to perform a fade or ride an automation pass.
Software
Apple
Fresh from MacWorld, Apple's legion of music acolytes descended on NAMM with little in the way of new products this year. They did bring the musical instrument industry a new, if not unlikely, buzzword, however. Say hello Podcast. With the release of GarageBand 3, Apple brings the world of radio and TV style audio production to everyone's Mac. To the seasoned music technology observer, this seems like kind of a left turn. Why would a musician be interested in producing spoken word when they could be producing music? Well, GarageBand 3 introduces one very powerful feature. You can now import video and produce a soundtrack in GarageBand. This turns the venerable music sketchpad into a powerful music for video sketchpad. Although film composers will undoubtedly use a more powerful tools, (see Digital Performer 5) GarageBand offers the ability to quickly put together demos and export them as mixed Quicktime movies.
Logic Pro 7.2 was being billed as a compatibility update with something for everyone. For the professional there was support for Intel-based processors and ProTools HD 7; prosumers get playback of compressed file formats and compatibility with the GarageBand sound set. The benefit of this compatibility is that Logic users will have access to Speech Enhancer, a new noise reduction plug-in that's optimized for voice. On the down side, the additional GarageBand content that now includes generic music beds, stingers and sound effects, will take up additional drive space. One big plus is that with 7.2, Logic finally addresses the ReWire fiasco, where audio streams from guest programs such as Reason or Live, could only be brought in with mono audio objects. This is now fixed to support stereo Rewire input.
The biggest news from Apple Pro Audio was actually from Apogee. At NAMM they announced Ensemble, a multi-channel, 24bit/192kHz Audio Interface that was designed from the ground up to support Core Audio functions on the Mac. Ensemble is tightly integrated with Logic. Controls for all of the interface functions and routing are build into a panel in Logic. Apogee also showed Symphony, a PCI express card capable of providing 32 channels of digital I/O. For large applications, Apogee provides software to set up a virtual routing environment designed to integrate Ensemble with the entire Apogee family of interfaces. Together, these two products provide a high-end professional solution for native audio production on the Mac. Apple has made no secret of its desire to go after a piece of Digidesign's market share, just as they did with Final Cut Pro and Avid. With these Apogee interfaces, Logic really offers a credible alternative to ProTools.
MOTU
Although there wasn't much new in Logic or ProTools this year, MOTU was showing Digital Performer 5, which will be a significant upgrade to their existing flagship product. MOTU has traditionally used the NAMM show to roll out new products, and a new version of DP was no surprise. When Apple announced that all of their existing software instruments were being rolled into Logic Pro 7 a couple of years ago, the expectations for any sequencing package were raised significantly. This year MOTU followed suit by announcing that DP5 would ship with six software instruments. It was inevitably that MOTU would have to include software instruments in DP5 to remain competative, and although the instruments don't approach the level of sophistication found in Logic's arsenal, they are all well designed workhorses that attend to needs of a wide variety of creative tasks. One wonders how long it will be before they take another cue from Logic and bundle their existing instruments Mach 5 and MX4.
Software instuments are only the tip of the iceberg, and this is perhaps the most significant upgrade yet for DP. Many of the new features take some good ideas from Logic such as a track folder architecture, region based automation, and update audio editor functions. The new version in many ways looks like the best of both world. (LP- Logical Performer? With an NI bundle, Logikal Performer? I digress...) Where the new version of DP really distinguishes itself in in the new film scoring features. Film and TV composers are a strong and vocal part of DPs traditional user base, and the new features are definite percs for those users. DP5 adds film scoring aids streamers, punches and flutters that can be inserted as easily as a traditional marker in a timeline. A true visual click and well as enhance click and count-off functions make this version an obvious choice as a tool for scoring to visual media.
Digidesign
MOTU was not the only manufacturer to see the writing on the wall with Logic 7. There are significnat enhanements of MIDI functionality in ProTools 7, not the least of which is new softeware instrument track that stores MIDI data as well as host a plug-in software instrument. At NAMM, Digi announced a their new Advanced Instruments Group. As a result of the purchase of Wizoo, it looks liked German synth whiz Peter Gorges will follow his countryman Gerhard Lengling to Northern California, and spearhead the development effort for Digi. To herald the new initiative, Digi gave out free installers of their first instrument offereing, Expand. The instrument itself is little more than a vast collection of presets that will ship with all new ProTools systems, offering the users an out-of-the-box integrated instrument. Their first retail offering, Hybrid promises to be a more substantive instrument that will encorporate a variety of synthesis techniques. In addition, Digi continues it's feeding frenzy with the acquisition of Trillium Labs. Perhaps the most immediate tangible benefit here is that Digi will now have a credible convolution reverb in it's product line that will show up immediately in ProTools expansion packs.
Digidesign also announced two new expansion options for LE systems. As it was explained to me, the next version of ProTools will include additional capabilities that can be unlocked with for an upgrade fee. The Music Production Toolkit will retail for 495.00 with the most significant additions being 48-track, 96kHz capability, mult-track Beat Detective, MP3 export, and Beat Replacer, among other goodies. A new, updated version of their post-production extensions, DV Toolkit 2 will be available for 1295.00. With these new options, Digi has really set their sights on another tier of users, pros and semi-pro who are will to pay for what have become essential features in the more expensive flagsip HD systems.
In other Digi-related development FXpansion announced and has subsequenctly released a new version of their VST wrapper for RTAS, supporting ProTools 7. One of the unfortunate side-effects of a trip to NAMM is that I usually return with a shopping list, and this little widget was at the top of this year's list.
Native Instruments
Last year's NAMM was a hard act to follow for Native Instruments. With major updates for just about their entire line last year they spent last year solidifying as repackaging their existing technologies, which by this time has cut broadened considerably since their initial offering of an early PC version of Reaktor in 1996. At NAMM this year, the company announced a split into three divisions, each covering a distinct market base: electronic instruments, guitars, and DJ tools. How this will ultimatley affect the marketing and develoment of their products was unclear, but the move is a signal to the industry of their rapid growth as a company.
The only major product announcement at NAMM was for KORE, what the company is calling a universal sound platform. This was heralded by the unveiling of a hardware unit that for the most part looked like a control surface. Details on what this actually was were quite sketchy, with product specialists working the floor, hearing about it the day before. As is often the case in music technology, a mysterious black box will always generate some buzz. KORE appears to be a hardware software hybrid system that will consist of the control suface which sounds like it will have onboard DSP to run software instruments, as well as a new type of software interface that will integrate and manage sounds from different programs. Again, the details here were sketchy, but the company promises full disclosure by Musikmesse Frankfurt, the European equivalant to NAMM. Leading up to this, NI is posting an installment each week that will highlight one componenet of the new system. All in all, this looks like a very new and unique approach and was one of the few indications of innovative thinking I saw at NAMM this year. How it will actually play in the open market is anyone's guess.
Other News
Melodyne 3 from Celemony is shipping and in their demo this year they were showing off the new version's ability to process polyphonic material. The results here are impressive and represent a major step forward in this technology.
Another high performance processor, Serrato announced an LE version of their flagship plug-in, Pitch and Time, which will be fully compatable when it ships. In addition, the company has made a unique arrangement with Apple to offer it's technology as an add on to Logic in the new 7.2 version. This is not an Audio Unit plug-in, rather it provides an addition option in the existing Time and Pitch Machine environment already in Logic.
Cycling 74's booth this year was once again focusing on the now-shipping Lemur control surface along with a substantial software update, as well as surround processing. The company is making a big commitment to multi-channel audio with their suuround dynamics processor, Octirama, and Upmix, a plug-in that incorporates various schemes of up-mixing stereo material to surround format. These are very practical tools that are in a way a departure from the more experimental types of products the company is known for.
No news from Propellerheads on new developments for Reason. They continue to maintain the admirable attitude of "we'll release somthing when it's ready." It was nice to see some familiar faces this year as a result of Line 6 taking over distribution. Music Synthesis Alumnus Chris Petti is now the Northeast regional sales manager, and Tim Self, a who is quite familiar with Berklee from his days at Opcode, is in charge nationally. Both have made recent visits to the college, and one would hope for good things from Line 6/Propellerheads. One question I always had about Reason was the sequencer resolution. With most of the development team on hand, I thought it might be a good opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. Unfortunatley, noone really knew. One engineer seemed to think in was around 14,000 ppqn, but wasn't sure. Go figure...
Soundware
Supermodels
Gary Garritan, who visited the Music Synth department last year, predicted the fall of sampling technology as a tool for acoustic emulation. Well the first of the wave of products predicted my have surfaced at AES and again at NAMM this year. Arturia, who is already well known for their modelled emulations of classic electronic instruments, have now set their sights on acoustic instruments. Their first offering, Brass is a modelled brass instument based on technology developed at France's IRCAM. The instrument comes with models for a trumpet, trombone, and oddly enough given the name, a saxophone. Although it's hard to tell on a tradeshow floor, there are probably better sampled instruments if you are going to just play back sequences, but the real strength here is in how the instrument responds to real-time control. Even with basic velocity, pitch bend and mod wheel control, the instrument comes alive. Of particular interest is how Brass handles performance techniques like falls and growls. This technology has a ways to go, but this initial commercial offering adds creedece to Gary's prediction.
In addition to Brass, Arturia premiered the Prophet V. If this was merely another knockoff of the venerable Sequential Circuits warhorse, there would be no real news here. However, Arturia has rolled soft versions of both the Prophet 5 and the Prophet VS into one instrument. The VS was the direct ancester to Korg's Wavestation series of instruments since part of Sequential's development team went to Korg after their demise. Either of these instruments can run, and there is a mode where both can operate as one big hybrid. As with all their other classics, this instrument sounds great. With Yamaha as their new US distributer, Arturia should benfit from distribution and promotional capabilities of a large enterprise, and could very well assume a higher profile in a crowded sector of the industry.
Garritan
So what's Gary up to now? Well at NAMM he was a very busy guy nearly impossible to find. His newly released jazz band library was the centerpiece of his NAMM exhibit, but what was interesting to me was a deal he made with Steinway. It appears that Gary is going to produce the first piano sample library sanctioned and supported by a maker of the real thing. It what's a kind of interesting twist, Steinway recognized that not everyone will be able to use their piano, and that if sampled instruments were going to be used, they wanted to lend their name to an "official" quality product. This might be the start of an interesting trend, where makers of acoustic instruments partner with the select developers to produce official software knock-offs. But, for the time being, it looks like Gary is still hot on sampling.
GigaStudio
Perhaps the bigest news on the software instrument front was that Tascam will release a plug-in version of their sampler Gigastudio. The initial release will be for RTAS and VSTi on Windows. The Gigastudio Virtual Instrument, or GVI as it's called, will have a finilar feature set to the standalone Giga 3, including their convolution reverb, however, latency and programming functionality will be compramised. Perhaps the biggest news here is that a MAc version is currently under development. And once again, the answer to what's become the most asked question at NAMM is that the standalone version of Gigastudio will not be ported to the Mac.
Locally-based Sonic Implants has been a strong supporter of the Giga platform will release MUSE, a massive 30 gigabyte library as a plug-in that uses the Tascam GVI technology. The library will contain virtually every type of instrument used in commercial production, from a subset of their orchestral libraries to a wide range of rhythm section, electronic, and ethnic instruments. This is designed to be the gold standard for all encompasing sample libraries. At the astonishing 499.00 list price, this should be on everyone's shopping list this year, and might make an ideal collection for the writing division major bundles.
People
As usual, the show floor at NAMM was peppered with Berklee MTEC alums who are working in some aspect of the music industry. Newly minted Synth majors from last summer, Greg Trippi and Jessika Zen had no trouble finding work in the film and TV industry. Also, we shouldn't forget the MTEC majors in the music products industry when counting our success stories. It wasn't that terribly long ago that MP&E grad Chris Hammond was working as a sales assistant at Parsons Audio. He's now the national sales director at Digidesign.
This year's party scene was a bit slow. No shrimp from Apple and no House of Blues hang from Digidesign. Native Instruments had a party at a warehouse in LA. Although staying for the entire show is a real stretch for mere mortals, Stephen Croes, Kurt Biederwolf and myself managed to stop by and see some alums, as well as catch a really great DJ set from Richard Devine. It seems that NI is one of the stops on the underground railroad to life in the music industry for a number of Synth grads. Brian Cass is now working for Native Instruments and also has an relationship with API as a consultant. Ronnie Pelham is also gainfully employed by NI, working the Southeastern US. Christian Kjeldsen who is now an alum of NI was on hand, and is enjoying a new life designing sound for games in SanDiego. Also in the house were Matt Ganucheau and Matt Moldover. All of these students have their own stories to tell and are quite aware of the value of the time they spent with us.
Gary Karlsrud from M-Audio spent a good deal of time with the Berklee contingent this year. I had an enjoyable lunch with him where he talked about some of issues facing the industry, and his belief in the power of relationships with educational institutions. He related the heart-breaking story of how the touch pad control surface they announced a couple years ago never made it to market when a outside contractor failed to deliver the needed software. Gary stressed that M-Audio's goal was to bring innovative products to the marketplace and he expressed an interest in hearing ideas from the Berklee community.
I usually try to get to LA a day before of the start of NAMM to check in alums and/or facilities. This was a banner year for both. The high point of this trip was really a visit with MTEC alum Jonathan Belzley who is now working at Doug Sax's original mastering facility in Hollywood, The Mastering Lab. He is working with engineer Gavin Lurssen in the Mastering Lab’s original room. When I say original, I mean original. Although I/O is digital, the internal signal path is the original class-A tube circuitry designed and built by Sax and his bother in the late 60's . We had the opportunity to listen to some mixes I've been working on in the room where much of the music from my misspent youth came to life. On the way out, Jonathan said he had something to show us, and he emerged from a back office holding the original master tape for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Talk about finding the holy grail. It seems the tape was on loan to be re-mastered for a high definition re-release. Jonathan's boss was particularly interested in this item since he was the intern with the Sharpie who originally labeled the box. Tones at the top anyone?
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of re-uniting with Berklee alum and former Music Synth lab manager Matt Temple. On this trip we had the opportunity to check out his surround design suite at a facility he owns with his partner. Matt has quite a list of credits since his days cutting sound effects for Baywatch in a basement room on the Sony lot. He's had runs doing sound for several TV series' and did the sound design for Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ.
Bob Moog
Somehow NAMM just isn't the same without Bob Moog. He was always at the booth and anyone could just hang with him, regardless of whether you were Stevie Wonder or someone working at a music store. There always seemed to be a connection between the simple elegance of his instruments and who he was, and people just loved him for that. Moog Music featured a display with a montage of pictures from his life and career, as well as a large poster where anyone could add their thoughts. It filled pretty quickly...
Once again, thanks for reading this and please let me know if you have any comments.
eMBee
February 2006