This was my 3rd NAMM show event. It has a weird name, based on music marketers. What it is, is an incredible music conference anyone can attend who loves, plays, records, sells music. It’s pretty family friendly, and my favorite thing is seeing a kid who can barely walk trying to figure out a ukulele or drum set. Nerd unite, the NAMM show is a mecca.
To say that NAMM is huge, is an understatement. The first evening was the She Rocks Awards event, at a venue called, “The Ranch.” Catch up on all of that, and why you need to see The Beaches next week at The Shredder, and Judy Collins at Egyptian Theatre. Full blog on She Rocks Awards HERE.
The NAMM show takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center, on 3 different floors. There are additional panels and events at the nearby Hilton. There is non-stop music outside on the huge Yamaha stage. There is non-stop music inside about every 5 feet away at the different booths. There are so many booths! Some people played their amps on 11, making me feel bad for the quiet hang drums, harps, and harmonicas nearby. NAMM thought of everything, with several quiet listening rooms placed on each floor.
I’m going to start a tradition of doing “Guitar Faces of NAMM” videos. Here is my first.
In addition to product demos, NAMM has an impressive offering of educational panels. I took several marketing, branding, and social media panels that went into great depth on analytics.
I think he worst thing a person can do in any kind of media or music business, is become complacent. The marketing strategies I learned last year are very different this year, it’s a field where you have to be on top of your game.
Every style of music is represented at NAMM. There’s a huge area for stage sound and lighting, fog machines, fire effects and concert stage design. Many new products are introduced at NAMM, with special pricing.
There was a huge DJ area, with hundreds of people gathered around to watch Grandmaster Flash do his magic!
The producer panels are some of the best. Brandi Carlile showed up for a surprise panel.
I got to see one of my producer favorites, Bob Clearmountain.
Grammy Award winning engineer Irko has worked with Kanye, Snoop, Diddy, Jennifer Lopez and many others. This Italian-born Engineer ate only bread and fruit the first month he first moved to New York, to afford to stay there. In his workshop he talked about tearing one drum sound into several different tracks, trashing one with distortion on purpose. I love how he thinks, I have dabbled some with this technique playing around with some loops.
Producer Shawn Everett talked about getting signature sounds from guitar players. He was nervous when Weezer guitarist was coming in. He wondered how he would ever be able to create the guitar sound from “Hash Pipe.” He worried and had different amps and guitars, but when the guy showed up he just played through a small amp, and all the sound was there. He kept saying, “It was HIM. It was just him.” His point, being that sometimes all the plugins and modeling amps don’t mean a thing.
I’ll admit to you that I got lost at NAMM probably 4 times. I was able to return to The Donner Music booth the next day for a guitar pedal I’ve had my eye on. I was running out of time to see everything, and sometimes people will stay on an instrument or software forever until you pressure them into giving you a turn.
There’s always something entertaining to see while you wait.
I’ll also admit I had no idea this entire time I was missing a huge area of mixers, software, and plugins. I found it by mistake, having to go upstairs, cross over the top, then downstairs to a north part of the building to find the room I had missed the last 2 times I attended. These are my people, so many buttons! However, NO ONE should ever put a water bottle anywhere near this!
My favorite thing about NAMM is the advancement of ATMOS and Immersive Sound. Just as I couldn’t get a good Shure hologram video that would make you appreciate what I was seeing (a stranger next to me said wide-eyed, “that’s some sh*t!” and I nodded my head). One listening room I went into had a dark garden atmosphere. I stood still as I heard an insect flying around the room and near me. It was peaceful and indescribable. People will pay to zone out in calm rooms like this, or have all the gear in their homes and cars. Movies will soon sound very different.
I noticed this year more than ever, many 3D printed guitars and laser designs. Everyone is looking for their angle.
My final panel was “Learn to Loop Like a Pro by Tiffany Christopher.”
She said before she came in for the panel, that people outside were giving away free samples of weed. I didn’t see that, but I believe her. She gave us a full breakdown of her pedal setup and exactly what order things are connected.
The next step for looping, is connecting loops and beats to Ableton. Ableton is a software I’ve had several classes on, and still struggle a bit to be comfortable with it. It can do so much. A place to learn more about merging loops and Ableton, is Seed to Stage.
I had one extra day after NAMM, so I caught a Lyft to Huntington Beach and watched people surf while surf music played live on the pier. Zoltar gave me my fortune. A stranger chatted with me for quite a while, and seemed to need to be told that he wasn’t going to hell for getting his fortune. I told him it was just for entertainment purposes, and he seem reassured. A teenager in a water polo club t-shirt gave me a rainbow flag, and said that a group in the area is trying to outlaw flags of any kind. This would make it illegal for them to have their Pride flag in May. They were trying to raise awareness and support.
I cannot wait for next year’s show. NAMM happens next year January 25-28, in Anaheim.
Have questions or comments? Email me.
