Barry Wood's NAMM Oddities 2009 Edition

 Packrat Barry

Other Goodies

The Monster & The Dead Horse

The artwork on The Monster is reminiscent of Ed Roth's work. I just love the cateye knobs.

Oh yeah, they sound pretty darn good too. At least what I got to hear before the dB police busted them.

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The Monster & The Dead Horse

Amp Deco

These amps do look as good as they sound. You get all the tone you'd expect from a boutique Class A tube amp.

There probably wouldn't even be any spousal hesitation to leaving the amp in the living room, just make sure you have plenty of coasters.

  • Trillium Amplifier Company
  • 4357 W. 96th St.
  • Indianapolis, IN  46268
  • (317) 362-2707
  • www.trilliumamps.com

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Amp Deco

A Clever Lure

Impaling a dummy head might be a reasonable way to display your frets, but what the hell are the eyeballs doing?… other than attracting people who create web pages dedicated to promoting odd stuff seen at NAMM.

Protruding eyeballs aside, these are interesting frets, check out their website for some actual information.

  • Belden Village Music
  • 6787 Wales Ave
  • North Canton, Ohio 44720
  • (330) 497-9292
  • www.jetfretz.com

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A Clever Lure

Pointless Picks

Yes, of course they are.

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Pointless Picks

Dirty Boy Pedals

I'm sure that all the blah blah germanium blah blah circuit blah blah transistor blah blah stuff is really cool but they've got a pedal called the "Ball Buster."

Sometimes I feel like such a Beevis… "uh huh huh huh, he said ball."

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Dirty Boy Pedals

The Sit-Taur

Everything the gigging musician needs. This is your guitar stand, stool, foot rest, mic stands and cup holder, all on wheels. The handle comes out and slots into the front giving you two easily positioned mic booms.

They just need a model that's got a built in amp and battery, then they could call it the BuskMobile.

Update: I've been told there is an amplified version in development :)

  • Unchained Studios
  • 949 N. Cataract Ave., Suite K
  • San Dimas, CA 91773
  • (888) 748-8287
  • www.sit-taur.com

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The Sit-Taur

All Wound Up

Tireless in their quest to reduce the wrist fatigue of musicians everywhere, RoboKey was not satified to simply aid drummers with speedy lug replacement. Now guitar players can speed up string winding with The Snake.

With its integral belt clip, this is destined to be the pocket protector equivalent for guitar techs everywhere.

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All Wound Up

Tunerguard

Once you've got your axe in tune, you can use one of these to prevent troublemakers from returning your guitar when you're not looking.

If they had a bass model it would be the perfect setup for this joke…

A guitarist arrives at the rehearsal and finds the bass player and the drummer fighting. "What's going on?" he asks. The bass player replies "He de-tuned one of my strings!" "That's OK" says the guitarist. "You can just tune it back up again" to which the bass player replies "No I can't, he won't tell me which one!"

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Tunerguard

The String Cleaner

Two pieces of washable microfiber material sandwich the guitar strings for easy cleaning.

This is cool enough that I've already bought one of these for my daughter to clean her strings with.

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The String Cleaner

1) The Guitar Hanger

Here is where we start our coverage of the latest innovations in guitar stand technology.

The first entry is the Guitar Hanger which is, well, a hanger for your guitar. Since guitarists are likely to have more guitars than shirts it's a great way to make use of that underutilized closet space.

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The Guitar Hanger

2) The Case Brace

With one of these in your case you'll never be without a guitar stand. The Case Brace will lock your case open at fixed angle giving you a sturdy platform from which to hang your guitar.

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The Case Brace

3) The iStand

"Minimal" seemed to be the theme for new guitar stands. The iStand is unique in that it will fit in a gig bag. In a pinch it would probably work as a discus or hockey puck too.

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The iStand

4) Standplifier

The last guitar stand Oddity breaks ranks with the minimalists and provides you with a practice amp with a built-in mp3 player. It does fold up into a fairly tidy package.

Don't be misled by the rought appearance, this is just a mockup of the real product.

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Standplifier

Stomp Box Lego Kit

The Lava CPS (Configurable Pedal Board System) allows you to build your pedalboard into the size and shape that works for your particular pile of pedals.

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Stomp Box Lego Kit

A Dizzying Array of Choice

Not satisfied with just three or five pickup combination choices? This rotary switch essentially gives you different "banks" for your pickup selector. It's got microswitches that allows for many more permutations (12, 20, or 36 depending on model) that put pickups in series or parallel, splits coils, and puts pickups in or out of phase.

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A Dizzying Array of Choice

Edible Inlays

The Fret Candy people have come up with an acrylic-like material for use in creating inlays. As you can see from the photos, you can pretty well cover your neck completely in inlay which would be impossible to do with natural inlay materials.

  • Fret Candy
  • 185 Industrial Dr.
  • Chickamauga, GA 30707
  • (877) 800-3738
  • www.fretcandy.com

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Edible Inlays

Graphite Gets Fancy

Graphite neck lovers are no longer constrained to the colors offered by Henry Ford. Moses has figured out not only how to do inlays on graphite necks, they've also got a super-flashy color coat that can be added.

Since I knew that they do the manufacturing for the Stick XG I asked the Moses guy if they could do the same thing for the Stick. With a sparkle in his eye he said "Oh yeah, that would be fun!"

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Graphite Goes Technicolor

Welcome to the Jungle

I'd be afraid of using the camouflage-painted stands on an outdoor gig for fear of never finding them again.

  • Ningbo Stronger Electronic Science & Technology Co., Ltd.
  • No. 599 Qiming Road, Yinzhou Innovation Center
  • Ningbo, China 315104
  • +86-574-88167672
  • www.stronger-audio.com

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Welcome to the Jungle

Look Ma, No Knobs

This clever bit of mechanical engineering provides push button stand and boom extension and no screws to tighten down.

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Look Ma, No Knobs

Protecting Your Backside

The Scratch Pad adhears to the back of your guitar without using static or any adhesive. It looks like an easy way to protect the finish.

They got a growing number of designs available including one that says "Beer Me." That one will be very popular with some friends of mine (yes, I'm talking about you Geoff & Bill).

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Protecting Your Backside
Next Up: Percussion

©2009 Barry Wood