NAMM was interesting this year because the industry is in an odd place (pour one out for Native Instruments). Everyone had a rough year, and spent energy on surviving instead of investing in new products--it's hard to make a business case for a new product when you don't know how much it will cost to make, import or export, so there just wasn't the amount of new stuff you're used to seeing. This is compounded when companies like Universal Audio simply aren't there.
With that in mind, our normal top 10 is now a top 5, because while things like new compressors and a reissue of a famous Neumann microphone by actual Neumann (start saving!) are cool, we decided to pull a reverse Academy Awards and keep the list tight.
Korg Phase 8
This was my personal favorite at the show because it’s genuinely something new and musical. It combines analog synthesis with actual physical vibrations. It incorporates swappable and tunable steel resonators, providing a monster of sound design that you can actually feel. This was a very fun and expressive instrument to play, and I’ll be getting one of these myself soon.
Stylophone Voice Sampler
If you grew up playing with those little Casio keyboards with sampling capabilities, this will spark some of those core memories. You can record anything and turn it into music. It’s portable, battery powered, and a ton of creative fun.
More on the Stylophone website.
Polyend Endless
The Endless is a user programmable effects pedal that lets you load whatever you want on it at any given time. There is a library of effects you can choose from, but if you have a bit of coding capabilities, you can create your own using their SDK, and it’s inevitable that a community is going to spring up around this to start sharing effects. Also, with this little thing called AI, you'll be able to create your own effects even if you don't know how to program--you’ll be able to tell our future robot overlords to make you your own effects. There's some skepticism how good these AI created effects will be right now, but that's just going to get better.
Beyerdynamic Headphone Lab
You may be wondering why this is included in a list we pointed out was for new stuff, well dear reader, it's one of those rare times when a company invests in software to make products they've already sold even better--that's new, because they're not making money up front on this, this is a pure long term goodwill play. It's refreshing and deserves being called out.
If you already own Beyerdymanic headphones (which I do), they’re giving us a plugin, yes, giving–it’s free–a solution that optimizes the headphones for mixing and to simulate a well treated studio. While the purpose of these isn’t to emulate different spaces like certain modeling headphones, it will help take your Beyerdynamics to the next level and improve your headphone mixes if you can’t mix on studio monitors.
More on the Beyerdynamic website, including download link.
Roland TR-1000
I’ll just get this out of the way–this is too expensive for what it is. That said, it’s awesome. It’s fun to play, everything on it sounds good, and is a great culmination of all the Roland drum machines up to this point. If you have the coin to drop nearly $3K on a drum machine, this is your ticket.
Honorable Mention: Casio SX-C1
This is an honorable mention because it’s vaporware, but if it happens, it’s the heir apparent to the SK-1 sampler. PLEASE MAKE THIS.
