My first trip to The NAMM Show was, in a word, overwhelming! There was a lot to see and, I don’t think I could’ve visited every booth I wanted to if my life depended on it.
Still, it was a very exciting time for me to witness the hustle and bustle of this iconic show. NAMM is an annual event, described as “The World’s largest trade-only event for the music products, pro audio, and event tech industry.”
⚠️ Order (or pre-order) the stuff you hear in today's podcast: https://passionatedj.com/hookup/namm
NAMM stands for the “National Association of Music Merchants”, and was founded in 1901.
It’s a business show which caters to dealers and distributors, with the main draw being product exhibits where manufacturers show off their latest in music products and technology.
Of course, only a very small percentage of the NAMM displays are DJ-related, but it was still pretty difficult to cover all the bases. Ultimately, I decided to focus on a few key items that I thought would be most important to our Passionate DJ audience, and cover those well (going deep rather than wide).
So, I got on a plane from Ohio, where there was snow and ice on the ground, flew across the entire country… over the snow-covered plains and beautiful Rocky Mountains, and many hours later I was enjoying the sunny low-70s weather of the west coast... in January. And it was glorious.
Anaheim was beautiful and the convention center is located almost on top of Disney Land. The walk to-and-from the show was a sea of convention badges and mouse ears.
Inside the convention center, I barely knew what to do. You can go in any direction, up any escalator, and there will be another part of NAMM there just waiting to be explored.
Here's what we will mostly focus on today:
• Denon Prime 4
• Akai Force
• Rane Twelve & Seventy-Two
• Reloop Elite
• Technics SL-1200mk7 vs. RP8000mk2
• Phase DVS
• Traktor DJ 2
Gemini also showed off their all-in-one unit called the SDJ-4000. It seemed to have decent build quality, uses Gemini’s own software, and is essentially a cheaper alternative to the Prime 4 or the Pioneer XDJ-RR.
Speaking of Pioneer, while their entire DJ lineup was well represented at the show… they didn’t really have anything new on display.
Besides all the new Traktor news, Native Instruments also released a new three-octave keyboard called the M32, which is compatible with their Komplete Kontrol plugin and contains transport controls, touchstrips, and so on to control your studio software. NI also released the Audio 1 and Audio 2 sound cards, for very basic connections for those needing inputs on stage.
⚠️ Order (or pre-order) the stuff you hear in today's podcast: https://passionatedj.com/hookup/namm
Episode 135: DJ Etiquette
Episode 134: Interview With KRANE
Episode 133: Acid Attack - Dance Music and the 303 (with Matt Freeman)
Episode 132: Love of the House Party
Episode 131: Pick 3 Dance Classics
Episode 130: (The Return of) Bad DJ Gigs
Episode 129: Sharing the Booth
Episode 128: State of the Music Industry
Episode 127: Mashing It Up with DJ 2nd Nature
Episode 126: The Google Episode II
Episode 125: Inspiration
Episode 124: New Year's Special 2018
Episode 123: Holiday Record Exchange
Episode 122: Reflections
Episode 121: Diving in to Glitch Hop
Episode 120: Know Thy Cables
Episode 119: Spicing Up Your DJ Mixes
Episode 118: Thanks for the Advice
Episode 117: Ask Us Anything (Part 2)
Episode 116: Fall 2017 Bulletin
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