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2006 Winter NAMM: One for the Record Books

Feb 8, 2006 5:30 PM, By Mike Levine

A report on the 2006 Winter NAMM show.

A grand total of 81,315 registrants jammed the Anaheim Convention Center over the four-day length of this year's Winter NAMM show, shattering the all-time attendance record. The number of companies exhibiting—1,462—was a record, as well. The show was bustling and busy, with new gear in abundance.

To say that the convention center floor was "buzzing" with activity, would be an understatement. As is always the case at NAMM, the buzz was more like a din. Imagine hundreds of booths inside several large halls, each filled with instruments and gear, much of which is being simultaneously demoed. The resultant cacophony takes a little getting used to, but after walking the show floor for hours on end, you tend to tune it out.

Throughout the duration of the show, but especially on Saturday when the bulk of the autograph sessions occurred, there were celebrities scattered all around the cavernous convention center. From Bono to Herbie Hancock to numerous black-clad, tattooed metal guitarists, musicians were everywhere. click here for NAMM photo gallery.

NAMM did a particularly good job this year providing musical entertainment in the large lobby area that fronts the exhibit halls; it seemed like every time you walked in, somebody was performing, or another marching band was sallying forth through the throngs of people.

Despite all the peripheral activity, the focus at NAMM is the gear itself. The following are some of the product highlights from the show, arranged in categories and presented in alphabetical order by manufacturer name.

SOFTWARE AND SOUNDS

Hall A at the Anaheim Convention Center is where most of the software developers' booths were, and for this EM editor it was like walking through a treasure trove. Here are some of the notable software developments from the show.

Adobe unveiled Audition 2.0 ($349; Win), the latest version of its audio recording software program, and announced that the program has started shipping. Audition 2.0 features a low-latency mixing engine, a redesigned user interface that includes windows that can be docked and grouped, a new Mastering Rack for previewing multiple effects, Spectral editing, and much more.

Arturia disclosed its new soft synth, the Prophet V ($199; Mac/Win). Its designed to be a combination of two classic synths, the analog Prophet 5 and the digital Prophet VS. It features over 400 presets and runs either standalone or as a plug-in. The Prophet V supports VST, AU, and RTAS on the Mac and VST, DXi, and RTAS on Windows.

Art Vista was showing off its very impressive and surprisingly inexpensive soft instrument: Virtual Grand Piano ($120; Mac/Win). The plug-in, which uses a Kontakt engine, features seven basic presets: Classical Piano, Pop Piano, Jazz Piano, Gospel Piano, Rock Piano, Light Piano, and Compressed piano. According to Art Vista, each preset has keyboard response characteristics commensurate with its particular style. You also get effects such as reverb, flanger, phaser, and more. The company was also showing a beta version of a realistic-sounding acoustic bass instrument that it plans to release in the future.

Cakewalk debuted Rapture ($249; Mac/Win), another cross-platform virtual synth that comes on the heels of the company's recently released Dimension Pro. Rapture, which feature a Wavetable synth engine, provides over 500 presets, a flexible-and-easy editing architecture, multiwaveform oscillators with two 16-mode filters on each, 40 envelope generators, a MIDI Modulation Matrix, and much more. Rapture runs under AU, RTAS, and VSTi on the Mac, and DXi, RTAS, and VSTi on Windows. It's scheduled for a February release.

Celemony was showing Melodyne 3 (Cre8 version $369, Studio version $699; Mac/Win), the latest version of its audio pitch-and-tempo manipulation software. The big news with version 3 is that it can now do its magic on polyphonic audio. The new version incorporates a lot of the interface improvements introduced in Melodyne Uno last year. The company also announced that Melodyne Uno and Melodyne Essential would each be upgraded to version 1.5 at the end of January. The new versions will be free downloads for registers users.

We've come to expect cool products with unusual names from Discrete Drums and the latest, Ruff Drumz Bitch! ($TBA) is no exception. This multitrack drum loop collection features hip-hop infused drumming and electro-percussion loops recorded at Philadelphia's Studio Four. It's scheduled for a February release.

Digidesign announced that it will soon release the Music Production Toolkit ($495; Mac/Win) for Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered systems. The software suite will include plug-ins, and enhanced editing and recording capabilities. Users will get Hybrid, a soft synth from Digidesign's newly formed Advanced Instrument Research Group; TL Space Native edition, a convolution reverb from Trillium Lane Labs, a company whose assets Digidesign just purchased; Smack LE, a compressor/limiter; and more. Toolkit owners will be able to increase track counts to 48 stereo or 48 mono. The company also announced that it will release a free soft synth called Xpand, an RTAS-format synth that was also developed by the new research group. It offers multiple synthesis types including wavetable, analog modeling, FM, and sample playback. You also get over 1,000 factory presets, and onboard effects. Xpand will soon be included on new Pro Tools LE and HD, and M-Powered systems, and also distributed through Digidesign dealers and the DigiStore.

Eventide showed off its Anthology II ($1,195, $299 upgrade; Mac/Win) TDM plug-in bundle, an upgraded version of its Anthology collection. The new bundle features 15 plug-ins (the original Anthology had 9). New plugs include the E-Channel and Ultra-Channel channel strips, the EQ65 Filter Set, the EQ45 Parametric Equalizer, the Quadravox harmonizer, and Precision Time Align, mic-phase alignment tool. Upgrades are free for those who purchased Anthology between December 15, 2005 and January 31, 2006.

E-mu announced Emulator X2 ($399.99; Win) and Proteus X2 ($299.99; Win), new versions of its sample-based soft instruments. The Emulator X2 sampler will include new features such as TwistaLoop, a non-destructive audio manipulator; SynthSwipe, which automatically samples hardware or software-based MIDI instruments and creates presets, and much more. The Proteus X2's features include TwistaLoop, a Morph Filter Designer, and over 3 GB of included sounds.

FXpansion unveiled Jazz and Funk ($249), a 55 GB expander sound set for its BFD virtual drum instrument. Produced by John Emrich, the new collection includes samples of vintage Gretsch drums, played by sticks, brushes, mallets, and more. Jazz and Funk is due out in March. The company also announced v. 2 of its VST to RTAS Adapter ($99), which will work with Pro Tools 7.

The small developer Handheld Sound was previewing a very impressive hand-percussion library called FlyingHand Percussion ($TBA). Two years in the making, it features meticulously edited 24-bit samples of ethnic hand-percussion instruments such as djembe, clay drum, congas, timbales, and ashiko, among others. The instrument programs feature intricate velocity and key mapping, designed to make the experience of playing them from a keyboard as realistic as possible.

IK Multimedia was showing Ampeg SVX ($TBA) its new bass-amp modeling software, which uses the same DSM modeling technology as the company's flagship guitar software Amplitube. Ampeg SVX provides models of a range of Ampeg bass amps, cabinets, and effects pedals including the SVT Classic, SVT4 Pro, B15W Portaflex, BA500, and more. It's expected to be released in March.

Ilio announced that it will soon be releasing four of its collections in S.A.G.E Xpander format for Spectrasonics Stylus RMX. The four are: Stark Raving Beats, Skippy's Noizbox, Skippy's Big Bad Beats, and Ethno Techno. Each comes on a DVD, is compatible with Mac and Windows, and is priced at $99.

JBL announced that it's now shipping the Mac version of its LS4300 Control Center software, which allows user configuration of the company's LS4300 active studio monitors. Previously, only a Windows version had been available.

Mackie was showing off its new C4 Commander software for the C4 control surface. The new software includes a library of profiles for over 180 instruments and processors, and allows for custom user profiles. The new software will be included with all new C4s and is available as a free download for existing C4 owners.

At the AES show in October 2005, McDSP released its Project Studio bundle, which put together RTAS format "LE" versions its plug-ins. At NAMM, the company released another bundle, this one aimed at the higher-end TDM market. The Emerald Pack ($2,795) features full versions of all McDSP's plug-ins in TDM/RTAS/AudioSuite format. You get Analog Channel, it's analog tape machine emulation; Revolver, its convolution reverb; the Channel G channel strip; CompressorBank; FilterBank; the MC2000 multiband compressor; the Chrome Tone amp modeler; and Synthesizer One. All run on both Mac and Windows XP except for Revolver, which is Mac only. Emerald Pack is slated to ship in mid February.

MOTU was previewing Digital Performer 5, a major upgrade of the company's flagship sequencer. The new version will feature Track Folders, in which you can nest groups of tracks (or more folders); six new software instruments including a variety of synths and a sampler; independent input monitoring; several new edit tools; a MIDI keys feature that lets you play notes from the computer keyboard; Soundbite Automation for altering parameters within a Soundbite; and more. MOTU was also showing Ethno Instrument ($295), an impressive-sounding, 64-part, cross-platform virtual instrument that can run either standalone or as a VST, RTAS, AU, or MAS plug-in on the Mac; or as a DXi or VST plug on Windows. The instrument plays a variety of ethnic instruments in both MIDI instrument and loop form. (Loops sync to host tempo.). Instruments are grouped by geographic location, and include original tunings and "corrected tunings." Both DP5 and Ethno Instrument are due for late March release.

Native Instruments had the show abuzz with KORE ($TBA), its new universal plug-in platform. The KoreSound universal format will let users open up multiple instrument and effects plug-ins within it. KORE is able to host all VST and AU plug-ins, and can run as a plug-in within a host, or as a standalone program. It features a database that allows users to catalog sounds by musical attributes and more. KORE's hardware controller will allow for switching and controlling of presets. According to NI, KORE should be available some time this spring.

Peterson announced it was now shipping a retail boxed set of its StroboSoft ($149) software-based, chromatic strobe-tuning software. The set will also contain a DVD that offers tips for doing your own setup, maintenance, and intonation. A mini-jack adaptor, for converting a 1/4-inch guitar cable to an 1/8-inch soundcard input, is also included.

Redmatica introduced Keymap Advanced Sampled Instruments Editor ($245). Keymap gives you great flexibility for editing samples in Logic's ESX24. It lets you easily setup layers, splits, loops, key mapping, and other sample setup tasks. Among many other features, it gives you the ability to split loops into pieces and remix them into new ones. It will be available starting in April, either as a standalone or as part of the Redmatica Sampling Suite.

Serato introduced Pitch 'n Time LE ($399), a reduced-but-still-powerful version of it's audio-editing software. According to Serato, the software lets you adjust pitches by ±12 semitones, and tempos between 50 percent and 200 percent. Pitch 'n Time LE will be available as an AudioSuite plug-in for Pro Tools, and as an under-the-hood engine for Apple Logic Pro's Time and Pitch Machine section. It's due to be released in late February.

At the Sonic Implants booth, our attention was caught by Scarbee Imperial Drums XL ($299; Mac/Win), a massive 48 GB drum-sound collection with a Halion 2 or Kontakt front end. A total of 51 different drums were sampled and numerous velocity switches were programmed in. This collection is available now. Also of note was a new instrument called Muse ($499: Mac/Win) an all-purpose Workstation plug-in with 30 GB of sounds over a wide range of instrument categories. Finally, if you're into big-band arranging, you'll appreciate Fable Sounds Broadway Big Band ($TBA; Mac/Win), a very detailed collection of big band sounds that's scheduled for release later in the year.

Over at Sony, Acid 6 ($399.95; Win) was on display. The new version will be out in March, and will offer users multitrack audio and MIDI recording in addition to its loop-based production tools. Some of the highlights of the new version include unlimited audio and MIDI tracks, 20 real-time DXi effects, ASIO driver support, nestable folder tracks, a video scoring track, disk-at-once CD burning, and Media Manager search technology. Sony also displayed the Oxford 6-Pack Bundle ($2,695 HD, $1,075 LE; Mac/Win) for Pro Tools. The bundle includes all the Oxford plug-ins: EQ, Dynamics, Transient Modulator, Inflator, Reverb, and Limiter.

Steinberg released Virtual Guitarist 2.6 ($299.99, Mac/Win), which is designed to automatically generate authentic-sounding guitar parts from its 6.8 GB library of electric- and acoustic-guitar audio. Its Part Editor feature allows for user manipulation of both rhythm and pitch. It's scheduled to ship this month. Also noteworthy was the announcement of Wavelab 6 ($699.95, Win), which is slated to ship sometime in February. The new version of the audio editing application will include a Spectrum Editor featuring "Surgical" mode, enhanced time-stretching and pitch-shifting functions, and much more.

Submersible Music was showing DrumCore 2.0 ($249), the new version of its drum-loop-arranging/MIDI-drum-module software. New features include separate outputs for the MIDI drum module and syncing to host tempos with ReWire, and the exporting of loops as REX files. You also get more loops, fills, single hits, and drum kits. The new version adds country loops from Lonnie Wilson, odd-time-signature loops from Alan White and prog rock loops from Terry Bozzio. A full collection of Bozzio loops, Terry Pack ($79.99), has also been announced.

TC Helicon introduced a new effects plug-in called Harmony4 ($745 PowerCore; $995 TDM; Mac/Win). Designed to run on Pro Tools TDM and TC Electronic's PowerCore platform, Harmony4 leverages TC Helicon's expertise in vocal processing. The plug-in allows users to create up to 4 part harmony parts, controlling gender, vibrato, and other parameters. Harmonies can be generated through scale-based parameters or by applying MIDI notes. Harmony4 is scheduled to be available in February.

There was big news over at the Tascam booth. Among other new products, the company announced the upcoming release of two new virtual instruments based on its Giga technology. GVI ($369) is essentially a plug-in version of GigaStudio but with less editing capabilities. GVI can read GigaSampler libraries and features GigaPulse technology, 24-bit, 96 KHZ audio, and a Dynamic Expression filter, among other features. It's due for release this spring. GigaViolin ($269) is a virtual violin instrument (offering a selection of modeled violin bodies, room sizes, bowing techniques, and more) that can also work as a violin library for GigaStudio owners. It's due to ship in April. Both GVI and GigaViolin are slated to initially run as VSTi and RTAS plug-ins for Windows only. But the big news is that Tascam plans to develop Mac versions, which will probably be out later this year. Clearly, a Mac version of GigaStudio is not too far off, either.

Universal Audio announced that it has entered into a licensing agreement with AMS Neve Limited, the upshot of which is that UA will be developing software emulations of Neve processors for its UAD-1 platform. The first will be the classic Neve 1073 Equalizer. Pricing and ship dates have yet to be announced.

Uberschall was showing a number of new virtual instruments including The Voice Volume 1 and 2 ($199 each), which are from the company's Liquid Instrument series. Compatible with VST, AU, and RTAS, and based on Celemony's Melodyne engine, the plug-ins offer highly editable male and female vocal samples. Volume 1 is made up of 300 vocal phrases (2 to 8 measures in duration) designed for use in pop, dance, and R&B productions. Volume 2 features oohs, aahs, and uhs. The voices can be used individually or in harmonized groups.

VirtusoWorks was demoing the soon-to-be released Notion 1.5 [$599; Mac/Win], which brings Mac compatibility to the notation program. Notion features samples from the London Symphony Orchestra and allows users to "conduct" the tempo (if desired) by tapping keys on the computer keyboard. Version 1.5 is scheduled to ship in February.

Waves announced a new suite of plug-ins that emulate the sound of vintage SSL consoles. The SSL 4000 Collection ($800 native, $1,600 TDM; Mac/Win) includes three plug-ins that, were developed under license from Solid State Logic, and were carefully modeled from the original consoles. You get the SSL G-Master Buss Compressor, the SSL E-Channel (channel strip) and the SSL G-Equalizer, a 4-band EQ. Waves also showed off a new version of its GTR amp emulation software, GTR 2.0 ($600 native, $1200 TDM; Mac/Win). It includes three new amps and seven new cabinets. It will be a free upgrade for GTR owners. Also announced was Z-Noise ($800-native only; Mac/Win), a new noise reduction plug-in that's based on an entirely different algorithm than the company's existing X-Noise plugs. Both GTR 2.0 and Z-Noise are currently shipping, and the SSL 4000 Collection should be out by mid-February.