Musical Instruments

NAMM is BIG and LOUD. Along the way to giving you a sneak-peak at some gear that Best Buy is going to offer you, my francophone co-hort and I came across a few things that gave us pause, made us stop and look or were just … plain weird.

The Marshall name is synonymous with tube amplification and loud gritty rock music. In 2010 Marshall took an exploratory foray into digital modelling with the JMD line but for the most part has remained on the outside of this hotly contested field. That is likely to change with the introduction of the CODE series at NAMM 2016.    

While we’ve been at NAMM, we’ve been hearing about the dreaded Saturday crush from the vendors and NAMM ventrans we’ve talked to. Up until today, it’s been fairly easy to navigate the aisles between the booths. You might get the odd small crowd gathering around a performance, but nothing that would put you out.   Today, the artists showed up for their endorsement deals obligations and the crowds followed.

Whether you want to start learning an instrument or you are a seasoned player, Alesis has you covered with a great lineup of affordable instruments packed with modern features.

The iRig Pre 2 by IK Multimedia is a handy little tool to allow you to use traditional microphones for your content creation needs.

January is a big month for new product announcements. In early January there was CES – the largest trade show for consumer electronics. Many companies keep their new products a secret so they can excite and surprise consumers with their announcements during the conference.  Late January has the NAMM show – the largest trade show in the world for musical instruments. Just like at CES, attendees at NAMM often keep the products they will present under wraps, until the show. What will be the biggest news in musical instruments for 2014. Best Buy will be at the conference to find out for you.

You never know what you’ll see at NAMM. Here’s a rag-tag collection of memories from Day 2 at NAMM.

A guitar and an amplifier, while clearly the most important ingredients in live performing, are but two of the components in this stew. While recipes differ from player to player, this is the core set of requirements that live players require as well as those extra little things that while not requisite, are certainly appreciated. In this blog I will go over some of the accessories that can make your performance truly shine by relieving stress and providing a helping hand when one is needed.

Shure Microphones are dependable and solid. They make arguably the most popular dynamic mics. Model Numbers like the SM7B, SM57 and SM58 are the bread and butter of any major studios’ microphone closet.   Shure has some great new offerings for not only the professional musician and studio owner, but the home studio owner and weekend warrior.

Yamaha’s got a lot to offer! In the last post, I talked about seeing the THR series of guitar amplifiers in action. I’ll cover off the rest of our stay at the Yamaha booth – digital pianos, analog mixers, studio monitors, bass guitars and electronic drums. Not too much to cover…