Any NAMM Reports Yet?

I went to NAMM for a few hours each of the three days, accompanied at various times by: Alpep, DaveE, Teefus, and Quimby. First of all, thanks to all for coming to Indy, I had a great time. Special thanks to DaveE for the ticket to get in, and the Jellyfish pick.

Famous people we saw:

Michael Angelo, Dean Zelinsky, Bootsy Collins, John Jorgenson, Kerry King, Johnny Hiland, Paul Reed Smith, Seymour Duncan, Gerard Melancon, Bob Taylor, Mike Matthews, and some others I'm forgetting.

Frank Rindone represented Hamer, and had a nice selection of USA models on display. Most notable was the quilt maple topped Newport with 3 Filter'Trons. They also had a Standard Custom, Korina Junior, Monaco III, Monaco Superpro, Monaco Bass, and a few others. The latest '59 Burst and Iced Tea Burst finishes are outstanding. Much more vintage/aged looking than the yellow-orange of earlier '59 bursts.

Gibson and Marshall were conspicuously absent, but most other major manufacturers were there. Taylor's new Electric/Acoustic was the most impressive thing I saw/played. I'd seen pictures and was sceptical, but the demo guy was a lefty and had one set up Hendrix-style. Fit and finish are top level, and tonal options cover a wide range. But they are pricey...

 
Thanks for the hospitality Mike and Regina!!!!! And thanks to Anthony for introducing me to Dora the Explorer and other fun time. ;-)

The show was much smaller than Nashville. It was clear to me that many manufacturers pulled out and others had much smaller booths/rooms. Line 6 had a few of the new tremelo variax guitars that I checked out for Paults and 2 PodXT Live units to demo them through. That was IT! I liked this guitar much better than the original from a playing standpoint.

There were a few cool things, but overall the show was very bland. I think Austin will be much better and I now need to go to Anaheim.

I heard Ben Lacy several times. Cool stuff. Local shredder Rob Marcello was shredding for Boss nicely. On my way out, I caught Paul R. Smith, Johnny Hiland and a bass player (I forgot who it was) jamming and it was freaking awesome.

Keep your eyes out for a small tube amp from Visual Sound with some VERY cool features and a very nice street price.

l8r!

 
The summer NAMM show is not a really attractive show for dealers like myself. Few new products are introduced and the Nashville location was cramped, leading to reduced presences by the manufacturers. I didn't bother with Indy, but I will probably hit Austin since I have friends there and the night life will prop up a wak show.

Gibson doesn't need the NAMM show anymore, and they feel slighted by the move from Nashville.

 
i was able to secure a couple of last minute tickets and quimby and i ended up meeting davide and mike lee for a while on sunday. it is neat to be able to catch the shwo regardless of the size and it is always great to talk to the hamer guys (frank rindone and jeff genzler this time) and the makers of some other gear i use and like. i guess most notable to me was who was missing. paul rivera, rob from valvetech (he probably was a visitor though), eminence, proco, barber and sib/smf. the show fit better into the rca dome than the gaylord center in nashville and was organized pretty well overall. no gibson booth as david e pointed out to me.

 
another weird thing i saw was blue tubes. whoever is the importer for jj and sed is offering blue glass bottles, or at least they appeared to be. the booth was occupied by someone who wasn't interested in answering questions. anyway, there were blue glass kt88's and el34 (they looked more like 6ca7 style with bigger bottles). no biggy.

 
I NEED to see a pic of that 3 'Tron Newport!

That is part of what I was going for in a current order...

Anybody snag a shot of that one?

 
i am not a bigsby fan but that is one purty guitar. not sure hat the filtertrons will sound like in a maple top but i would give it a shot. here's a shot of the hamer usa booth with the GOO guitar and all else.

hamer.jpg


it is hard to see here but there is some nice inlay work on the GOO monaco.

 
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Members of HFC.

Went to NAMM both Saturday & Sunday. I thought that the Hamer kiosk was a

little small.I talked personally with Mr. Rindone.He liked the fact that i was wearing

my The Ultimate Hamer t-shirt.Could not have been a nicer gentleman.Gave me

a Hamer factory tour DVD.I absolutely fell in love with the flame-top iced tea

burst Monaco with f-holes.I'll be pefectly honest,i never cared for the Monaco until

last weekend.I wonder if that would be considered a custom order?Oh,well.So much for guitar lovin' lust.

Thanks.

 
Ooh...what's that light colored Monaco III without the F-hole? Is that Korina, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

Drool...

-Jonathan

 
That one was korina with tortoise shell binding. I'm pretty sure it was still semi-hollow, just no f-holes.

I can see what Greg means about few new product introductions at the summer show. I agree with Teefus that the Indy Convention Center / RCA Dome have plenty of room left over. The show was very spacious and open, and there are many rooms that were unused. Seems like a lot of people sat this one out because they didn't know what to expect. Hopefully there will be another Indy show two years from now with better turnout.

The show coincided with the Midwest Music Summit, which went from Thurs-Sun. 400 bands at around 30 venues throughout the city. So there was plenty to do in addition to all the other stuff downtown.

 
I just remembered something. I think the Korina Monaco was a Subtone also.

 
Hi Teefus,

I did not go to the Indy show after all, Ikebe that distributes my amps in Japan decided to just come here so they could wind up the amps with out the volume restrictions you would have in the covention center. Also,I decided to go to the Tampa tone fest next month and really didnt want to try to swing both events so close together.

Those guys said the show was kinda lame overall, so it does not sound like i missed much.

Rob

 
no, you didn't miss much really. i don't think you can really wind amps up at namm. i was listening to a stack of isp p.a. speakers (sounded great by the way) and after about 3 seconds the people from the booth across the aisle asked them to knock it off and turn it down. it was worth the trip (1.5 hours from my house) but only because we got to hang with mike and david and the hamer guys for a while.

 
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