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Sweet Notes Early Fall 1998 Page 3
5335 BASS RD. • FT. WAYNE, IN 46808
FAX: (219) 432-1758 sales@sweetwater.com www.sweetwater.com
(219) 432-8176
By David Stewart
Wow! Just when we thought it was safe to hop in the
van and start driving again, what happens? We end up
in Nashville at the Summer NAMM Show. This year
there were no helicopters or Lear jets to get us to
the show as in the past; just a trip in Chuck's luxu-
rious van. Trips that we take together are always
interesting. Even when we try to talk about some-
thing other than work, we still end up back at the
same place — work, and how we can better serve
our customers. You'll hear more about these new
ideas in the coming months.
NAMM shows always have a very festive mood
(lets face it, musicians
do
know how to party) and
this one was no exception, with great bands playing up
and down every major street and great concerts every
night. But in the end, fatigue (partly due to information
overload) always wins at the show.
The theme of this year's show was once again gui-
tars, with a notable presence of groove or DJ-oriented
equipment and digital peripherals. In spite of walking
what seemed like 50 miles per day and listening to ev-
ery sales pitch known to man, I’m sure we missed
things. This report is in no way meant to be the defini-
tive all-inclusive text on the matter. Before you enter
remember this: List prices (where available), model
names, release dates, colors, sizes, power ratings,
specs, weights, knob per dollar ratios, cool guy fac-
tors, and everything else are all subject to change. Space
prevents us from covering everything in these pages,
but a more detailed report is available on our Web site
at “
www.sweetwater.com/reports/summer-namm98/
”.
AKAI. The S5000 ($1995) and S6000 ($2995) samplers appeared to be working
perfectly. They aren't shipping yet, but Akai expects them to be ready by October or
November. These beasts are the latest incarnation of the S-series, and they can
hold up to 256 MB of RAM, have 64 voices across 32 MIDI channels and sport a
nice removable front panel that doubles as a remote control (a la Fostex recorders).
They look to be the de facto standard in sampling machines for the next few years.
AKG showed a new satin silver version of their popular C1000S microphone. It
comes with a second capsule converter that provides more presence and ships
along with the standard hypercardiod modifier. They also changed the color of the
C3000 to satin silver as well. These new colors will probably not show up in the
field for a few months. Also of note was their new IVM-1 in-ear monitoring system,
which is the most advanced application of their Individual Virtual Acoustics tech-
nology, using binaural processing technology to achieve an extremely natural sound.
ALESIS. The M20 is shipping! Actually we've already sold a bunch of them, so
it’s not news to us. They were also showing various M20 support products such as
the CADI Controller ($1299) and the RMD 32 channel remote metering option ($799).
They were also thrilled to report that the wait for the Q20 effects processor ($999)
is almost over, as well. They expect to roll them out in
August. The new QS6.1 ($999) will be taking over the low
priced keyboard duties (see Page 8 for additional infor-
mation). David Bryce gave us a great demo of the new
DM Pro drum module ($899). This baby sports four times
the ROM memory (16 MB) of its predecessor, the DM5,
holding 1600 instruments spread across 64 mapped
drum kits, with 256 different snares. It has six outs
and 16 trigger ins that are controlled by a separate
microprocessor running some very sophisticated
software. Availability is early October. Oh yeah, it
sounded fantastic. In other news, the Studio 32
mixer is going down in price to $999.
ART is now in full production on the new
TubePac and TubeEQ (both $249). They have a dual
tube EQ ($449) coming out in September and in October
they’ll be announcing a single rack space channel strip
for around $499. We were shown several products at the
drawing stages that look very impressive. Stay tuned.
AUDIO TECHNICA was showing their soon to be re-
leased 4060 ($1695) large diaphragm tube microphone.
It sounds incredible and I found out that a prototype has
just been used on the current Celine Dion album.
AXON. Anyone serious about controlling MIDI instru-
ments with a guitar needs to check out their stuff. The
AX100, the latest in a series of neural net guitar to MIDI
converters has the most consistently fast tracking I’ve
seen in a system that works with any guitar. The SB ver-
sion adds hundreds of sounds and effects. Unlike other gui-
tar synths, it’s just as fast triggering external MIDI modules
as it is its own internal sounds. Works great for bass, too.
BIG BRIAR. Winning my award for coolest product
name are Bob Moog’s “Moogerfooger” products: the Ring Modulator ($289) and
Lowpass Filter ($299) are analog effects with genuine Moog designs. The knobs
(oh yeah, there are knobs) are the same type as used in the original MiniMoog
keyboard. They also had the handmade Ethervox MIDI Theremin working ($3500).
BOSS. Their newest tuner, the TU-2 ($139), is housed in a floor pedal style case
with LED's that can be seen in full sunlight. It doesn’t use battery power until acti-
vated by stepping on the pedal. The output can be muted or passed through while
tuning. The AD-5 acoustic guitar processor ($249) has a very unique feature coined
at the show as “Reverse Amp Simulation” which allows an acoustic guitar to be run
into a standard guitar amp and make it sound like a full range speaker. Release date
is scheduled for October. Can't afford an MC-505? Boss has the answer with the Dr.
Groove ($495). The DR-202's waveform memory incorporates 24-voice polyphony,
with its 207 drum and 49 bass samples arranged into 128 Preset drum kits plus
over 400 Preset patterns ready for instant triggering. From Hip-Hop to Acid Jazz and
Latin, practically every genre of Groove music is represented in these Preset pat-
terns, all with street-level authenticity. There's a 3-track sequencer with a 13-part
The Nashville Convention Center, home of the 1998 Summer NAMM Show
(above) and an overhead view of just one of the exhibit halls (at right).
— Continued on Next Page