NAMM 2015 Review
Well, the Namm 2015 show, the biggest in the Music Tech and Guitar work is nearly at a close, and here is my little review of what seem to be some of the biggest highlights so far.Well in answer to one of my wishes, Spectrasonics are back, and wow are they back with Omnisphere 2, which fulfils one of my biggest wishes the ability to import your own samples, that is simply wow, the possibilities are now limitless, for someone like me who has a massive library of my own sounds, the ability to mangle them through Omnsiphere is SO amazing, and to go along with this is the inclusion of 400 new DSP waveforms for the synths oscillators, how is there enough time in the world to explore all the possibilities?? And not only that, but new FXs, improvements to the Arpeggiator, Granular synthesis, wavetable synthesis, 10,000 new sounds (again how much time in the world?), check out their website for all the details, but it is amazing and I can't wait!Next up the Jim Dunlop mini wah!! Wow finally a little wah pedal, I have wanted something like this for years. The wah is an integral part of my sound and always on my pedalboard, but wah pedals are rather big and do take up quite a bit or real estate, as such it means have to make choice about which pedals can fit on a small board, meaning some have to be taken off due to the size of the wah. Well not now!! I am well chuffed about this.DAW timeWell Apple aren't throwing Logic away it would seem and have been doing some work on Logic X 10.1, some really interesting things in the update, including VCA faders, and some audio editing enhancements and much more under the surfaceDigital Performer is to be upgraded to DP9, with some interesting additions, automation lanes (whoo!), some new guitar effects (even more), the MX4 synth is now to be bundles, that is pretty cool, and spectral display in the sequence window (that is very cool too!). Should be interesting to see all the updates....wonder if they will make midi regions (doubt it!)Pro Tools 12 have been announced...meh! Cakewalk's (Gibson) Sonar is now on a subscription basis, interesting times, I wonder how that will pan out!Next up, the Focusrite Clarett range of interfaces with the Red series plugins. These look great, the first proper fully Thunderbolt interfaces, with 1ms latency (wow) and even more wow the inclusion of an ADAT input, so you could easily get away with a smaller 2 input interface and then add 8 additional inputs via adat if you want to track some drums! I really like that!! Plus the Red plugins, since working in MI retail in the early 90's selling the actual RED series compressors and the like, I have always loved them, and so I am dead curious to see how these plug ins sound!!No big news from the major guitar companies really, no new amps or the like,Disappointed that there was nothing really new from TC Electronic apart from two new pedals, will you please please update the Nova system as I have suggested before, I am sure it will be a massive seller for you, it is what the world wants Nova System 2!! Please!All in all a good year, with some interesting releases and so MASSIVE releases, looks like it could be an expensive few months!!EnjoyPeaceNeil