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Scrotum Smasher After the Butt Probe made its debut in '05 at NAMM, I didn't think that Metasonix would be able to top that. How little faith I had in this bastion of all things Odd! If you think that labels for the controls are over the top, you're wrong. They are actually very accurate descriptions of what this device does to your audio. And BTW, don't bother asking Metasonix for a Butt Probe, because once you've moved on to scrotum smashing a Butt Probe is a little tame. Metasonix |
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Audiocubes You can use these cubes to create MIDI messages that can be routed to your DAW to control effects and virtual instruments. Their cubes' orientation and relative positions can generate all manners of control data. This might be just the thing to make performances by laptop jockeys a tiny bit more interesting. Percussa |
SoundAbout This is one of the coolest Mac OS extension ideas I've ever seen. Audio Ease wasn't showing a running version of their new utility SoundAbout, they were just showing a demo movie on a loop in their booth. Check out the demo movie to see what a great utility this is going to be. Normally I wouldn't cover something that wasn't even running yet, but Audio Ease has proven themselves to not be a company that pushes vaporware. Update: It's one year later and this product has finally been released. It's now called "Snapper". Audio Ease |
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Big Boy Woodburning Set If you've got $10k-$45k you can be the proud owner of your own laser etching machine. The Epilog folks have a couple units there at the show doing all sorts of damage to dead trees. The smell in the air near the booth recalled painful childhood wood-burning-set memories. Epilog Laser |
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Axis Natural Keyboard This isn't your father's MIDI controller, unless your father happens to be someone like Don Buchla. The Axis reorganizes the 12 tone piano keyboard into a two-dimensional matrix, which allows for the chord shapes that work in all keys. While I applaud the innovative take on MIDI controllers, using it is like playing music on a QUERTY keyboard. The Axis has a way to go before it's something that feels good to play. C-Thru Music Ltd. |
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The Wag At first I thought this was a something like the Hot Hand that I saw at NAMM in '06 but it's really something completely different. The Wag consists of a ring and a base station. The ring detects how open or closed your hand is while wirelessly transmitting information to its base station. The base station takes that data and outputs MIDI messages of your choice. The simplest use of the Wag in action is as a controller for a Wah-Wah effect. With the ring on your strumming hand you can make use of those extra fingers that are not gripping the pick. Unlike the Hot Hand, the tracking on this is extremely fast. Xpresense LLC |
Surfin Step Sequencer I don't have any idea how "surfin" applies to a step sequencer, let alone one made in Düsseldorf, a city that's not exactly known for it's surf breaks. In any case, this is a very well executed sequencer with a number of features tailored to live use. Surfin Kangaroo Studio |
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The Octopus This is one monster of a MIDI step sequencer. It holds 144 patterns, each containing up to 10 tracks with 16 steps in each. The firmware is at v0.98 currently and when they hit v1.0 they intend to go open source with the source code so the user community can take it from there. genoQs Machines |
Continuum CV/Gate module I first saw the Haken Continuum at NAMM in '04 and was very impressed. It's not often that someone is able to come up with a new idea for a MIDI controller that really feels good playing right off the bat. They have continued to refine the design and this year were showing a CV/Gate interface that should make the modular crowd happy. Haken audio |
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Ebbe und Flut This is a two-channel filter module that's capable of doing all manner of nasty things to the audio that you feed it. Their demo turned an old Yamaha drum machine into a thing of terrible beauty. Dipl.Ing. Carsten Schippmann |
Resonator Neuronium I suspect this is an interesting device, as it looks like significant thought went into it. Plus, it's got an intriguing name. It's just too bad that nobody at the booth had any idea of what it actually did. Jayemsonic |
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Keyboard Elevator One of these stands will come in handy when the gig goes a little too long and you just have to sit down. You can lower your entire keyboard rig at the touch of a footswitch. Solidstand, Inc. |
A Little Too Odd Toward the end of my first day at NAMM this year I was attempting to take a picture of the Fleenalele and got this image. After several power cycles, reseating of batteries and the memory card, my camera still refused to work properly. I started getting a little worried that this years Oddities were in danger. As a last resort, I used some light percussive maintenance to bring the camera back to life. |
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NAMM Oddities '07 Home | Guitars |
Other Goodies | Percussion |
| Don't be surprised if you find that the product or the company you see
on these pages has ceased to exist, particularly as the pages get older.
One function of the NAMM Oddities is that of a historical archive of
attempted products. These web pages are not associated with or sponsored by NAMM |
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©2007 Barry Wood