What a wild and crazy year in gear! It started off for me at Winter NAMM in Anaheim in January 2017. As I'm prepping for NAMM 2018, I figure i'd share some of my NAMM experience, as well as a couple of cool items we checked out in the last year!
First off, at the NAMM show, I'm working. I'm a product reviewer for Performer Magazine (www.Performermag.com) , so I'm meeting with companies that would want their products reviewed by our magazine. It's a media event, and since I'm in the media, I'm their target. There are music store owners there as well, looking at companies that they may want to carry their products for their stores. Technically it is a "Music Business" event.
My friends often suggest to me "hey check out these guys.." and I welcome the suggestions. It's tough but I do make notes to see them, and hopefully develop a relationship, but it's very difficult.
However in recent years,NAMM into a bit of a "comic-con" like event. There seem to be more and more people there that just want to check out the new gear, like it's a mega guitar store, as well as possibly meet musician/celebrities for autographs and photos.
As I'm in my mid 40's, I also don't really have any desire to wait in line to meet anyone. It's almost more fun for me to meet or see someone in passing. While walking down an aisle, munching on an overpriced wilted BLT wrap, I saw Dug Pinnick from King's X. I was able to wave and say "Hey Dug", He responded, "whats up man?" I was able to get out a "livin the dream!" between bites. He laughed and moved on. That's the kind of NAMM experience I like when it comes to meeting people.
But the big deal is the gear. It sets the tone for what we'll be able to see in the magazine in the upcoming year. I usually don't get a chance to really try stuff out, nor do I want to, unless It's relatively quiet (a rarity at NAMM), or it's something I can't control myself. Time is a factor, and I usually have meetings every hour. It's like drinking from a firehose that's shooting Jack Daniels. It's fun, but It's gonna be rough. I estimate I walk about 10 miles a day. Usually around November I start doing more cardio at the gym, just to get my legs in shape. It made a difference this past year, as I wasn't as beaten at the end of each day.
So I wanted to share with you all the items we reviewed in 2017, there are links below. Personally I have to say we're lucky to check out so much cool gear from great companies. A few items really stuck out to me though:
1. Fuzzrocious Moth. I love this pedal, it's a great blend of Distortion and fuzz, along with that weird oscillatior. I used this a bit with my cover band when we played "shake it off" by Taylor Swift. It's a fun and wild pedal. LINK
2. Vertex Dynamic Distortion. I like pedals that "blend" and this one does alot, with the sweep of the drive knob; Boost, TS, RAT, Fuzz, all with a really musical tone control. I'm not a fan of the stock tone controls on those kinds of pedals, but this one really works well. LINK
3. EHX Canyon. I always liked simple delays like the boss DD3 and the MXR Carbon copy, but I kind of dreamed of more expansive stuff like Strymons and TC and Lexicon type stuff. But getting such a big box on my pedalboard wasn't my deal. This is a great way to get tons of delay options as well as some extra functions like Octave and string like sounds, while being a smaller pedal! LINK
4.Taylor Guitars. Yes these can get expensive, but the Academy Series we reviewed were Pretty Frickin Sweet (PFS). and quite affordable. Their 810E was positively amazing, but had a amazing price tag at $3400. But it did make me consider selling an internal organ to get one. LINK
5. Supro Amps. we got their 1606R amp, and for a 1x8 combo it really rocked. Enough for me to really consider getting rid of my Fender HRD. Small size, big sound. and all tube. Alot of non amp companies used these to demo guitars, and effects pedals at their booths, as they were low volume, and sounded great! (link to come)
6 Chase Bliss Audio Brothers. You wanna pedal with drive options, yeah they do options on their options. LINK
We got a lot of gear to review this past year, well over 50 items; guitars, amps, basses, effects, microphones, and some cool accessories. So this list above is just a sampling of the stuff we got to check out! I can't wait to see what comes up this year. Drop me a line if anything interests you!
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