The High-Tech Music Mecca of NAMM 2000 - National Association of Music Merchants Show - Industry Trend or Event

Emedia Professional, April, 2000 by Mark Fritz

The annual NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show is the music industry's version of Comdex--loud, crowded, and chaotic. This year (Feb. 3-6), over 1,200 exhibitors and 62,000 attendees occupied nearly all of the Los Angeles Convention Center's million square feet. Strictly a forum for buying and selling, you're more likely to hear people at NAMM talking about which salesperson has sold the most pianos, cymbals, or guitar picks than what's new on the digital audio technology front.

Nevertheless, if you look carefully, you can find new technology at NAMM. The entire West Hall, in fact, seemed devoted to music's high-tech, though most of it was aimed at DJs. Electronics manufacturers are catering to this market by producing CD players with very specialized features. Denon, for example, was showing the new DN-2600F, a dual CD player that allows DJs to change tracks or cue points instantly, and make the machine "stutter" with the press and release of a button. The DJ can also add frequency filters, reverb and flanger effects, and write and play 16-second samples.

But the DN-2600F's real claim to fame is its durability. To demonstrate the machine's "shock-proof" memory feature, Denon--at its booth--employed a special device that every 20 seconds would raise the player five inches and let it drop. While speaking with Wayne Dolnick, Denon's national sales manager for professional products, I naively expressed surprise that DJs have advanced from using turntables to get their scratch sounds to using dual CD players, and Wayne informed me that Denon has been making these dual CD machines for 10 years.

Another example of a focused use of CD technology is Yamaha's new CDR1000, a CD recorder for professional recording studios. What differentiates this rack-mount model from ordinary CD recorders is its wide range of built-in features and connectors. For example, it includes a built-in Apogee encoder, a sample rate converter, and SPDIF and analog XLR connectors. Its word-clock input provides AES/EBU in-and-out connection pass-through. It sells for $1,799.

Tascam, TEAC's pro audio division, was showing a similar "pro" recorder (its CD-RW700) and a dual CD player (the CD-302) to compete with Denon in the DJ market. The company also debuted its CD-D4000MKII, an 8x CD duplicator. All Tascam equipment uses CD mechanisms supplied by TEAC. Interestingly, Tascam was also offering special "CD Burner Bundles" aimed specifically at musicians.

"Tascam has put together the CD-R Pro and CD-R Deluxe burner bundles to give musicians extremely powerful tools to use the CD-R format as a creative tool," says Tascam general manager Gene Joly. The higher-priced Pro bundle includes the following Windows software: SEK'D Red Roaster 24 for audio recording/editing and audio CD authoring; Adaptec Easy CD Creator for data CD authoring/recording; MyNet SonicBurn for burning MP3 files to Red Book Audio CD standards; QuickTime 4 for advanced multimedia capability with MP3; and Xing AudioCatalyst 2.1 for MP3 compression. A comparable software package is also available for Mac users. Tascam's lower-priced Deluxe burner bundle features a 6X TEAC drive (compared to the Pro bundle's 8X drive). It features the same software package as the Pro bundle, minus Xing AudioCatalyst 2.1 and Adaptec Jam! (which is included in the Mac Pro package). Also, Red Roaster Lite is substituted for Red Roaster 24.

Other examples of the use of advanced CD technology in the music industry were shown by Superscope Technologies. Its PSD230 portable CD player allows musicians to change speed and pitch in their recordings. They can make tempo changes of up to 50% and key changes of up to one octave. They can also create rehearsal loops from selected start-and-stop points. A voice reduction system can be used to reduce lead vocals so a player can better hear the instrumentals. A mic/line input allows a microphone or instrument to be plugged in and mixed with the CD. Superscope was also showing its nifty PAC770, which combines a CD player, cassette recorder, and mixer into a single unit.

NAMM seemed rather subdued on the software front, with few revolutionary new product announcements. Cakewalk introduced a full-featured multitrack recording suite meant to compete with Digidesign's Pro Tools in the high end of the digital audio software market. The Cakewalk Pro Suite package costs $829, and bundles Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 digital audio and MIDI software; NemeSys GigaSampler LE sampling/ synthesizer software; Cakewalk Audi FX 1 Dynamics Processor; Audio FX 2 Vintage Analog Simulator; Audio FX 3 SoundSate Designer; and Musician's Toolbox III--a collection of digital audio and MIDI loops, digital video libraries, and sound production tools.

Another new software tool aimed at the high-end digital recording is the Nuendo Media Production System from the German company, Steinberg, which is best known for its popular Cubase VST software for music recording and editing. This new advanced tool is capable of 200 tracks, 24-bit/96kHz digital audio, and surround-sound mixing and mastering. (This latter capability should make it appeal to DVD producers.) Nuendo lives up to its subtitle "media production system" by going beyond the mere audio-only capabilities of other competing tools; it offers the ability to synchronize video and audio devices via TLC or VITEC, and gives the user control over most Sony 9-pin devices. It costs $1,295.