Thread January 16, 2016 editorial: comments

Music Gear in the Land of Disney

Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again, when thousands of people from the music-gear industry descend on Anaheim for the NAMM show, turning the land of Mickey into the land of guitars, amps, compressors, microphones, recording software, and a lot more. Anaheim’s usual contingent of tourists heading to the Magic Kingdom (I’ve seen adult Disneyland visitors walking around town with mouse ears on, I kid you not), is supplemented with hordes of music types.

To give you a sense of what the show itself is like, imagine several interconnected and very large exhibit halls, filled with the din of thousands of people talking at the same time, not to mention the simultaneous demoing of guitars, basses, amps, effects, trumpets, synthesizers, and other pieces of musical gear.

Within the various halls are different sections dedicated to different types of instruments or gear. If NAMM gave out a “noisiest hall award,” it would probably go to the drum area, where countless drummers are independently and simultaneously testing out or performing on drum kits. If noise bothers you, that’s probably not the place to be.

If you spend enough time on the show floor, you’re likely to spot some music celebrities walking around. I’ve seen Stevie Wonder several times, and once saw Bono (well, I thought it was Bono, but it turned out to be a Bono impersonator), as well as Herbie Hancock, Edgar Winter, John Petrucci, Slash and many others. A lot of music celebs make appearances at various booths. This can result in long lines of people waiting to get an autograph or take a selfie with a famous musician. The biggest number of these appearances happen on the Saturday of NAMM, and the show floor sometimes becomes so crowded, it looks like a sea of people.

But this year, something different is happening in one of the upstairs exhibit rooms, which are away from the craziness of the main show floor. Called Software.NAMM, it will feature exhibits by a group of key software companies. The exhibit space will allow show goers to see software demos and meet the manufacturers in a quiet, calm environment, which should be of benefit to all concerned. Audiofanzine is proud to be one of the sponsors of Software.NAMM, and I’m looking forward to visiting the new space.

We’ll start our complete NAMM coverage in the middle of this week, so look for the product videos we shoot to begin appearing on the site on Thursday evening, and product announcements even sooner. Our coverage will continue through the end of the show. We’ll have announcements and links on our Facebook and Twitter pages, too.