Music Thing: NAMM Oddities
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:
The NAMM trade fair finished last week. The buzziest new things were the Korg Radias, a weird-looking, retro-inspired digital synth with a flip-up aluminium front panel like a Minimoog, and the OpenLabs Miko - a $2,000 PC-in-a-synth
However, the real action is away from the big stands. Hidden away in the less expensive areas you’ll find the weird stuff. Every year, Barry Wood visits the show to write his NAMM Oddities website. This year he has a bumper crop:
Virtual church organ
Real, big church organs are phenomenally expensive ($250,000 and upwards) but Audio Impressions PC-based virtual pipe organ won’t be cheap. It has four keyboards, touch screens to control the stops and a full bank of foot pedals. Underneath the hood, it needs 8 dual-processor 3.6ghz machines with 8gb of RAM in each to pump out 192khz/24bit samples recorded in 7.1 surround.
Tiki Ukulele
It doesn’t need a reason, it’s just a Tiki Ukulele, for $174.
Krappy Guitars
Surprisingly without a stand at NAMM this year, Krappy Guitars sell custom-designed, hand-made guitars for $74-$100. "Our instruments are built for frugal people who aren't very concerned with regard to quality, construction, materials, or safety." They only have two strings, normally tuned a fifth apart, so every chord is a power chord. Their range of custom options is awesome. The Swiss Army model comes with flip out beer holder and ashtray.
