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We went, we saw, we drank lots of Starbucks. The NAMM Summer Show 2005 at the Indianapolis Convention Center, while not as large and star-laden as NAMM’s winter show in Anaheim, was a great time and a real honor for the Hoosier state. Accompanied by SD webmistress Rhoni Haggard and fellow guitarist Stan Garrison, I traveled the mere hour to the center of Indy to once again take in the music industry’s premier exposition of new gear and services for professional musicians, and as usual was not disappointed by the vast array of merchandisers trying to convince me that I should be opening my wallet in the months ahead. And I have to say—some of them will no doubt succeed. One of the best parts for me, however, was not the show itself, but rather the rare opportunity to hook up with a couple of old California buddies whom I haven’t seen in over 5 years; retired navy man, SD Left-Coast Rep and sales god for Taylor Guitars, Steve Parr, and the luthier of my dreams, Rick Turner. Here’s a couple of pics of our too-brief reunions:
Steve Parr and I ran into each other totally by accident. Shortly after catching the keynote address at the opening of the show (and loading up on the free breakfast), Rhoni and I went outside so I could take a smoke, and I looked up to see the old sailor coming out the door to do the same. After catching up, having a few laughs and enjoying our tobacco, Rhoni and I followed Parr inside to the Taylor booth, which as always was tastefully furnished and brimming with one gorgeous guitar after another. I finally got to try out their newT5 guitar, an axe that uniquely bridges the divide between acoustic and electric guitars. A really sweet axe indeed, and it had just the kind of neck I like. Steve brought out a nifty display construction showing the interior wiring of their new high-end acoustics and the attention to detail which has made Taylor Guitars the big gun on the block when it comes to top-quality American acoustic guitars.
Our dear webmistress, Rhoni, has played piano and woodwinds for many years, but since taking up with me has embraced the guitar as well. Here’s a shot of Rhoni strumming one of Taylor’s exquisite Presentation Series guitars (don’t even ask the price, you can’t afford one):
I also wanted to check out Turner’s latest project, a collaboration with Seymour Duncan. Rick explained that Seymour Duncan approached him last year with an invitation to drop by and discuss the future of acoustic pickups. Rick told them that as far as piezo technology was concerned, he felt that the pinnacle of development has basically been reached, and that the future had to encompass the processing side of the audio stream to clean up the inherent inability of piezos to realistically convey the sound of an acoustic guitar. Seymour Duncan apparently liked what they heard, and offered to start a new business with Turner to develop products based on Turner’s acoustic processing ideas. The result is D-TAR (Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research), and the D-TAR “Mama Bear” Acoustic Guitar Preamp, a modeling-based processor designed to improve the sound of piezo-driven acoustic guitars. It’s a small preamp with preset “bodies” you dial up which takes your acoustic guitar into the digital realm, neutralizes the pickup, and then restores the natural body resonance and phasing which piezos don’t capture. I gave the box a quick spin using a standard Ovation, listening through headphones (see the pic above), and was surprised by the subtle yet undeniable refinements it made to the straight piezo sound of the axe. Dial up a Dobro model, for instance, and you can hear a definate dobro-esque quality imparted to the acoustic output. Looks very promising, and I hope to get a Mama Bear through Rick sometime soon and give the device a proper review.
Besides catching up with my buddies, I had a couple of priority visits to make, most notably to the Roland booth. My Roland guitar synth, an old GR-09, is due to be replaced, and I wanted to see if Roland had anything newer and better than their GR-33 coming out. The GR-20 is newer, but is a scaled-down model designed to be easier to use for newbies to guitar synthesis (which description wouldn’t apply to your tireless webmaster). The GR-33 remains their most advanced and fully-featured guitar synth, and according to Roland’s reps will be phased out within a year, but not replaced for at least a couple more years. I don’t want to wait that long to upgrade, so I’ll be shopping for a GR-33 soon. Another product by Roland that caught my ear is the BOSS RT-20, a rotary speaker simulation device which reproduces that classic Leslie speaker sound. When I’m jammin’ in a band context, I play a lot of organ on my guitar synth, and the GR’s modulation pedal doesn’t do a very good job of giving that authentic speed-up and slow-down of a Leslie. The RT-20 is a reasonably-priced effect that does the job nicely, plus has what has got to be the coolest light display in the history of effect boxes.
Once I had my requisite stops under my belt (including an interesting and informative seminar on website development), it was time for Rhoni and I to stroll about looking for oddities, and as usual, NAMM delivered. Of all the oddities we encountered, none blew my mind as much as this guitar (which oddly enough, I’m not really sure who made it, possibly the guys at L Benito Guitars). It’s a two-faced guitar, basically, with no back! Here I am playing the classic side of things, but flip the guitar over and you get another guitar, this time a steel-string. Predictably, the tone suffers somewhat due to the fact that there’s no hard back projecting the sound out of the soundhole, but it actually didn’t sound half-bad, and certainly was an eye-catching instrument.
I may be in the market for an electric banjo sometime in the next year or so, and liked the METEOR by Nechville. It’s kinda salty at $3500, but I was very impressed with both the playability and the amplified sound of the instrument. I figure if it’s good enough for Bela Fleck, it’s good enough for me.
Here’s how Nechville describes this instrument:
For those desiring a lightweight, affordable, and amazingly portable keyboard, Rhoni and I stumbled across just the thing. According to their website, the Hecsan Rollup Piano is;
Voted the show’s “most disturbing guitar” was an axe created by De Gennaro Guitars. Very personable fellows hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan, I spent some time chatting with them and had a good time trying out their unique instruments. These are creations out of either one your best dreams or worst nightmares, depending on your perspective. Extremely creative concepts coupled with pretty fair execution equals guitars that may seem a bit pricey unless you’re really into the visual aspect of things.
My “good idea gone bad” award goes to the STAKK guitar. This is a double-neck electric which projects the second neck out in front of the first neck, creating a sort of 3-dimensional axe that I found awkward, cramped and poorly-rendered (the pups on the demo I tried didn’t work… and neither does the website URL on their promo). It feels front-heavy on a strap, there’s not much room on the back neck for your picking hand, and the front neck limits the range of arch on your fretting hand (your wrist hits the back neck if you raise your thumb very much, plus you have to really reach for it). A novelty axe in my opinion, and best left hanging on the wall.
Noone can take in all of a NAMM show—can’t be done even if you spent all day, every day combing the aisles. As I had two gigs to make over the course of the weekend, we had to overlook the entire percussion area, all the amps, sound reinforcement, brass, keyboards, etc. Hell, I never even got hooked back up with Parr for those beers I owe him, so now I figure I owe him yet another one to make up for my negligence (what’s that make it, Sailor… am I up to a 6-pack yet?). But I was able to hit my priority stops, catch up with a couple of good friends, do some much-needed research, and managed to have a great time cruisin’ the show with my honey, so for me it was “mission accomplished”. Next summer the show will move to Austin, Texas, so I doubt I’ll make it, but in 2007 NAMM is slated to return to Indy, and I hope to make it again. It’s always a blast.
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NAMM Summer Show 2005 Review
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