THE NAMM JAM

EXTENSION CHORDS

THE NAMM JAM

by

Allen Hester

The annual National Association of Music Merchants trade show is always, to borrow an adjective from David Letterman, an "extravaganza," and this year's show in Atlanta was no exception. Exhibitors from around the world packed the Georgia World Congress Center with every imaginable musical instrument in Christendom, and then some. As usual, the atmosphere was congenial, and the competition was fierce. When the smoke cleared after four days of heavy negotiating, parlaying, braying, beating and bragging, everyone retired to their respective corners to lick their wounds, count their casualties, and plan new strategies and surprises for next year.

In many ways, music conventions are a lot like any convention; people keep ridiculous hours, talk till they are blue in the face, party harder than usual, crack a lot of bad jokes, and buy trinkers for the kids back home. But where else could a guy see Chet Atkins, Toto, Eddie Van Halen, and Arlen Roth for free? Now I ask ya...

Anyhow, there was an awful lot of new stuff there, see? So much that I'm going to have to condense this mammoth book of notes into something a little more streamlined, get it down to the "Essence de NAMM," if you will. So here you have the latest items and improvements in the world of musical instruments.

Peavey Electronics had . another blockbuster year at the trade show, exhibiting many new items and improvements in their existing line of equipment. First of all, on the guitar amps, they have increased the power output of all the smaller amps— TKO, Bandit, TNT and Studio Pro. On the tube-powered amps, Peavey has dropped the "Saturation" feature in favor of a new signal-modifying circuitry called the "Pump," which adjusts the overload dynamics of the amps for a smoother distorted sound. Their new Combo bass amp has 300 watts of power now, and the TNT has been increased to 130 watts. On all of the two-channel amps, Peavey has made a definite improvement: the normal channel (channel 1) is no longer tied to the overdrive channel through the master volume, so the player can have two distinct, foot-switchable sounds on the amp at all times.

Peavey added several new items to their accessory line, i.e., the shrink-packed stuff such as handles, corners, casters and other incidentals. This line now includes such necessary fundamental items as duct tape (a must for every band) and spray paint (for touching up cabinets, direct boxes and stuff). These guys think of everything!

As impressive as Peavey's big display was, Tom Scholz (the electrical wizard behind the platinum success of Boston ) caused a big stir with only one new item: The Rockman. This tiny gizmo, slightly bigger than the Sony "Walkman," holds five great-sounding effects, including susstain/overdrive,. stereo chorus, flanging and compression. It will accept two headphone inputs, an instrument input, and it is designed for use in studio or home recording. But it is such a great little package, and small enough to carry anywhere, that it is perfect for traveling and rehearsal on the go. This little monster even has a built-in stereo echo chamber, and when you get it all going, it sounds amazingly close to the patented Boston electric guitar sound of Tom Scholz. And it only costs $249.95!

Legend Amps had a gopd idea; actually it wasn't entirely a new idea because they have had it in production for some time now, but the idea has caught on and has begun to spread to other instruments. The idea is this: take a mic cartridge out of a good low-impedance microphone, say a Shure SM-57, and shock-mount the cartridge itself inside a guitar amp, so that the sound engineer can simply plug a low Z cable into the back of the amp and presto! Instance Micing. Slingerland Drums picked up on the idea, and they had similar mic cartridges mounted inside the drum shells of some of their drums. It's a great idea, much to the credit of Legend Amps, and it eliminates a lot of mic stands all over the stage, as well as saving time for the road crew and engineers. (You know, the guys who do all the hard work!)

But the comeback award definitely has to go to Marshall amps this year. The once undisputed giant of .rock 'n' roll' amps, beleagured in recent years by a swarm of little amps that have flooded the market, came back strong this year with a new Combo amp that packs the big Marshall stack wallop at a cost of only $495. This is great news for players who love that big Marshall crunch, but who hate to haul around (not to mention pay fori) those huge amp stacks. Down temporarily but not out, Marshall is back in the fray with a great-sounding amp at an affordable price.

There were a number of new signal processing devices on the market, as well as a lot of new electronic drum synthesizers. Ibanez has a new multi-effects package, the UE-300, which has compressor, limiter, stereo chorus and tube screamer all in one package. Ibanez also had another road case type mouhting package for holding a series of their effects; this setup allows the player to keep everything in line for traveling, and makes it a lot easier and faster to set up guitar effects on stage by reducing the area that it normally takes to put half a dozen effects on the stage, the amount of cable used, and the amount of set-up time.

MXR had another useful item added to their line of effects, a power converter that has four 9-volt outputs for hooking up multiple effects to function off AC power. A batter and time saver, this is a good idea.

Pearl, a company most players know for their excellent drum line, jumped into the effects market this year with a new line of floor units; they also offered a plastic molded carrying case that helps keep the pedals organized during travel and set-up.

Roland/Boss had some nice new effects; they have a programmable device that can be used with any four effects for pre-programmed sounds, as well as a new octave divider effect that gives a great one or two-octave splitting effect. Boss also had a new power supply unit that eliminates the use of 9-volt batteries in their effects.

Drum synthesizers are more popular than ever nowadays, for two reasons: 1) the technology has developed to the point that these once obnoxious and foul devices now sound like real drums, and 2) more people are doing home recording these days, and there is a greater demand for drurh machines. No offense to you drummers out there, but its kinda hard to set up and mic a set of drums in a small apartment. Hence, the drum synthesizer.

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Leading the way in terms of sound (and a fat price tag) is the Linn drum computer, known in the trade as the LM-1. This unit features digitally recorded drum sounds that have programmable dynamics. The drum sounds are triggered by drum pads, so the programmer can get that "human" feel (which is to say, slightly imperfect) by actually "playing" the drum computer with sticks or hands.. The unit has 49 basic patterns, and this year's model has a larger memory capacity.

Remember the "Fanner 50" cap gun? Well Mattel has come a long way in the 20odd years since that was a popular toy; this year the company entered the musical instrument market in a big way with the Synsonics Drums. This unit features the playable drum pads so that the user can create his own patterns, however imperfect they may be. And the user can play along with the basic programs provided. Another company that entered the drum machine market this year is MXR, with a product called "The Kif" Korg also had a new programmable unit, as well as an updated product, the KR-55B, which now has 96 rhythms and a separate fill-in pattern for each one.

Affordable digital delay lines were in abundance this year, with new units being offered by Unicord and MXR. Delta Labs also had a new low-priced digital for under $500.

Among the many new keyboards offered at this year's show, the Memory Moog was a particularly hot item. This keyboard has 75 programs, six-voice capability, with three oscillators per voice. Moog also had a new Taurus II Bass Pedal synth, which is basically a Moog Rogue synthesizer with foot pedal controls instead of a keyboard.

The Trident MX-2 from Korg has a polysix synthesizer section with additional strings and brass voices in an eight-voice configuration.

Yamaha introduced the CS-01 micro monophonic synthesizer, the same size as the little PS-3 (PortaSound) for only $249. The CP-35 and CP-25 electronic pianos have a built-in filter control, six piano sounds and built-in flanger.

Oberheim introduced the OBXpander, a four-voice synthesizer expander module, with each voice individually programmable.

Sequential Circuits debuted the Prophet T-8, which has 76 keys, touch sensitivity, 128 programs, and split or double keyboard capability.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg! There are far too many new items to mention here, even in a sentence or two devoted to each one, so you'll just have to keep .ypur eyes and ears open in the months ahead to catch up on all the new goodies that will be on the market this year. Stay tuned for a full-blown report on electric guitar, keyboards, amps and drums in future issues. Adios, amigos!