Griffin Avid at Winter NAMM 2008Too many companies and wicked products to name ... Lots of video and audio recorded and dumping to our You Tube channel over the next couple of days.
Software:
New updates and buzzing booths….
Cakewalk Sonar 7
Motu Digital Performer
Ableton Live 7
Sony Acid Pro demonstration was hot.
Digidesign: Enormous buzz from their Elastic
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=3&navid=54&itemid=28539
Spectrasonics Omnisphere. A 50 gig ($500.00USD) Super/uber synth/ROMpler/Sound designers' secret weapon. Multiple types of synthesis and formant editing. FM and tons and tons of control. Simple editing screen similar to Atmosphere that opens up in layters and gives you precise control over every parameter. Multiple ways to shape and choose oscs and envelopes. http://www.spectrasonics.net/omnisphere_teaser/
Addictive drums: 3 Gig library of drum sounds with an incredible array of sound shaping effects. Loads and swaps sounds/kit pieces incredibly fast. http://www.xlnaudio.com/?page=products
Plectrum. VST/library of incredible, organic sounds. Saw this at AES, but there was still a good deal of buzz. Imagine 185 instruments you have never played before.
Imagine sounds made by plucking, strumming, tapping, scraping, and flicking a range of prepared instruments and found objects. Imagine stretched strings, glass vessels, water filled cups, breaking twigs, and much more, sounded out and recorded in thousands of full length, high resolution samples. Imagine these sounds tuned and voiced, under your fingertips, transformed into inspiring keyboard instruments. Imagine what you could do with such instruments. Imagine Plectrum.
http://www.ilio.com/varts/plectrum/index.html
Native Instruments. KORE was popular, but Kontakt 3 stole all the attention.
http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=kontakt3&ftu=c4774515c8901d8
33 GB KONTAKT library, containing instruments from each of the six categories - Band, Orchestral, Synth, Urban Beats, Vintage and World. Dive deep into the sampler architecture with the new effects, drawable zone envelopes and much more.
Big Fish Audio: New loop series additions and lots of talk about Urbanic.
http://www.bigfishaudio.com/4DCGI/detail.html?1455
SONY Creative New loop libraries. Producers buzzing off Drums from the Big Room
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/loop_libraries/default.asp
Hardware:
Access Virus SNOW: Desktop module that…just….sounds…great!
Plays patches from EVERY virus product- ever..It's a baby TI.
1 less chip/half the polyphony, but still can handle any previous preset.
ATOMIZER. Stunning realtime audio streaming…audio…um…mangler.
Stutters the audio and puts out some crazy sounds. EVERYONE was taping this.
AKAI MPC 5000: http://www.akaipro.com/prodMPC5000.php
I'll let everyone else argue about this one.
Dave Smith Instruments: Prophet 08 Rack unit. Lindrum II was a non-working model (that someone 'ahem' still wanted to buy…).
IK Multimedia: Lots of cats lined up to play their new STOMP box. And tons of people waiting to demo the ARC room correction system. Very popular area. Video of the SamplMoog in action coming soon.
KORG: Ill rebate on M3 where you get a 300 dollar rebate or the Radias card. 73 key; $500 rebate or RADIAS (the hardware) add on. Lots of attention and talk about the OASYS. Kaosillator was also very popular.
Propellerhead Reason 4. We couldn't even get neat their booth from the crowds the first day. The last day eased up and we were able to poly. Lots of artists and sound designers said Reason was their 'go to' tool and the Combinator was their secret weapon.
ROLAND: Fantom-G. New 'Rolls Royce' Flagship. http://www.roland.com/synth/Fantom/
Lots of talk on the ARX series of expansion cards. The cards are actually DSP chips. They say:" Fantom-G is the first instrument equipped with Roland's revolutionary ARX expansion-board slots. Each ARX board is a synth itself, powered by Roland's proprietary SuperNATURAL sound technology for organic, motional expression. Optimized effects and custom graphic interfaces are exclusive to each ARX board. ARX allows you to create unique instruments with the highest-quality sounds and organic control." Drum card info: http://www.roland.com/products/en/ARX-01/
YAMAHA: Motif XS was everywhere being played by everyone.
X-Factor unveiled. They say:" The X Factor DVD contains new HALion One sounds from Sonic Reality, the S90ES piano sample from Yamaha in HALion One format, a special edition of IK Multimedia's Sample Tank with sounds from over $3,500 worth of IK Multimedia's premier products like the Miroslav Vitous Orchestral library, Sample Moog, Sonic Synth 2 and more. In addition, there are special versions of FXpansion's BFD Drum VST and Arturia Analog Factory 2 with sounds from Arturia's masterful collection of Virtual Analog Synths. Audio Loops from Sonic Reality and MIDI loops from Keyfax New Media round out this huge collection of digital content."
An accompanying website, www.XFactorVST.com, is a community where Yamaha and Steinberg customers, as well as VST developers and content partners, can come together and discuss how to make the most of these powerful tools and offer continuing access to more VSTs, sounds and promotions.
MIDI controller ZAP from the ZENdrum people. Ultra fast and responsive drum controller instrument played from the finger tips. New model with closer pads (more like firm contact surfaces) http://www.zendrum.com/catalog.htmlzap
Tons of music stars in the house. Stevie Wonder, Teddy Riley, Slash…and many more including Playboy playmates Swedish Twins and a few models.
Tough call on the freebies. Crane Song probably had the best T-shirts http://www.cranesong.com/ while SONY Creative had the best neckers with a little flashing Acid Pro pendant. Best badge holder goes to Roland because EVERYONE was using it. Another company was handing out pen sized hand sanitizers, but I can't remember off hand who right now…Roland probably had the most rockin booth, but there was A LOT of people saying "Did you see the guy on the OASYS?!"
A great deal of live DJin and Turn work.