Darwin Grosse

Each year, we attend the NAMM show to chat with distributors, partners and friends. We are also complete hardware/software nerds, and spend a lot of time checking out what is new, strange and exciting. This year, Tom Hall and I spent some time racing around the show floor - and had a chat to review what we saw. Join us as we describe our experiences surfing the new hall, dropping in on the software vendors, visiting with the modular clan and checking out the cymbal section.

 on-board, and we're going to give our annual recap of the NAMM trade show.

Tom, let's kick it off by having you talk about what you saw that knocked you out most. What was the biggest win for you?

That's a tough call. I was very impressed with the 

, to be honest. It's especially appealing to see a major company like Korg open things up with the SDK that they have for the third oscillator that's on board. But just playing the thing is beautiful, and the keybed is very impressive.

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I agree. I don't know if it's just the way that the keybed interacts with the synth engine or if it's just a phenomenal build, but I haven't played one feels that great in a long, long time.

Another thing that stood out to me was how 

 ... It seems almost cruel to reference the old MiniBrute - this thing is just on another level.

It seems like a completely new instrument, quite frankly. There’s also a version that's got a sequencer instead of the keyboard. That's pretty sharp.

Yeah, with three different sequencing lanes that can all run independently. In addition to that you've got the modular matrix, and six different banks with 16 presets. It just leaves the old MiniBrute in the dust.

I didn't look that closely at the companion Euro Rack unit that they have. Did you get a close look at that?

, which is an add-on case system that they've developed. It links up with the MiniBrute 2 and the 

 and it is really slick. It looks like this could be the first step into the modular arena for a lot of people.

That's a great point - there are precious few people that I know who are into analog and modulars that don't already have something from Arturia in the mix.

Right. A funny thing is the Eurorack case always seems to be a sticking point. It is probably one of the most daunting things for a new user because there's still no really cost-effective case. A question like, "How much power do I need for my rack?" isn't easy to answer when you're first starting out.

I hear you. It'll be interesting to see what differences it might make if you can remove those concerns from people's minds.

The power specs for those racks are really beefy. I don't think you could max them out at all, and that's definitely going to be reassuring for new users.

Heading over into the plug-in world, I saw something that reminded me of how much I liked a certain product. We got a chance to stop by the Spectrasonics booth, and I got a chance to talk to Eric Persing - he's just one of the great guys in the industry...

Later, when I was walking past that booth, somebody was just wailing on their 

. It reminded me how something as simple as a great 'standard' keyboard sound with a great player behind it is still an amazing play.

It's hard to believe that they have something that's stepped up to the level of 

, but Keyscape has been huge - I'm seeing it everywhere.

Another thing that I found really interesting this year was that the NAMM show opened up this whole new building - you had this sky bridge you'd walk over to get to it. I ended up spending a lot of time over there, because that's where a lot of the software people and a lot of the pro audio people were located. Last year was really disappointing - there was this well hidden room upstairs that was kind of a software hideaway. This year, they had all of these same people along a wall in the new building. It almost was like a software vendor version of the modular hangout.

I did get over there, and the message felt like, "Software's coming back." Honestly, I felt a little somber after going to the software space in 2017 - I was thinking, "Whoa, this is not good." I got a little scared. As often as I'm seen in public using hardware, people don't see the vast array of software I use when I'm at home in the studio - I couldn't make music without it. It was really great to see pro audio in a better environment, with 

, and the crazy speaker designers. It felt like a very fitting place rather than having them locked away in a back room.

I love that new space. First, the decibel level goes down about 40 db. But there also seemed to be more space. Maybe it was just because a lot of people didn't know it was there, so it wasn't as full as the main halls. You could move around easier. You could peruse things easier and have a conversation.

You know what's interesting, though? On Sunday, it was that pro audio area that was more busy than the main floor - I was surprised.

I wonder if people just literally discovered it over the three or four days, perhaps.

I was very impressed seeing MOTU and Avid and all the different companies - it seemed like they were able to stretch their legs a little more down there. They had some beautiful phenomenal stage setups.

So I spent some time over there, and I'll tell you - there's this new-ish company called 

. This year they were coming on with some crazy stuff like a U47 microphone - which I'd normally have to trade my car to get, right? They have 

 for under $1,000 that was pretty amazing sounding in my drive-by tests. I don't normally get overly excited about microphones, but that's one that caught my attention.

People are seeing a market, now, for remakes and emulations of classic hardware.

Yeah, and it seems like they're stepping it up in terms of quality - it's not just a surface emulation, where they're trying to make it look good. Instead, they're diving in and doing a great job with the overall package.

One thing that I did do in the audio/software area was to drop by 

 - I always like to visit them to see what they're up to. In previous years, I've always walked away with one or two good tips for using their plug-ins. When I dropped in over there this year, I got an education on using 

That's the one with the AI stuff built in, right?

: Yeah. They've put a whole bunch of machine learning technology into it, and It sounds incredible. I'd seen the first version of it, and the main reason I stopped by there was because my friend Josh Eustis said that it is one of the main plug-ins he uses now. That's a big time review, so I thought, "Okay, I've got to go over there."

I know some of the guys from Izotope, and I wanted to get some of the lowdown on it. They gave me a few demos - just setting a few tracks. You can now take any music that's been made in the past and bring that into Neutron 2 as a reference point. It will analyze that music and create settings for your music based on that reference.

Yeah, that's a neat way to go - it sounds like they've made some real strides on that package.

It really seems to be hitting the mark with the suggested EQ settings and the compression setup. It's impressive.

Next up - one of the things that we always enjoy talking about, gossiping about, and wondering about - the modular gulch!

It was just as well populated this year as ever. One of the things that happens to me is when I get to that area is that I inevitably run into somebody that I know - so where I might think I'm going to go and see a bunch of gear, I'll end up just talking to old friends.

I met tons of people who've been guests on my podcast and it was great. But I just never get to get as deep of a dive into the gear as I want. You and I did get a really nice demo of the new 

Yeah, Colin Russell gave us an excellent demo early in the NAMM show, and it's impressive. It's amazing what they've put into the box, but they've not packed things in so tightly that you'll need an encyclopedia to remember all the possibilities. It's pretty intuitive, and it seems like you should be able to get it to be memorized pretty fast.

With options like being able to sample in - which was always something you always wanted to do with the first Nebulae - and the new window-in functions, it seems pretty full-featured. From what I hear, they're looking to make it more open-ended so that people will be able to develop their own firmware.

Yeah, I have to tell you - I would love to be able to take some of my weirdo 

-based waveshapers and see what I can do by pouring them into some hardware. That would be fun!

That crossfading mixer module of theirs - the 

 - is also fairly impressive. At first glance, you might think, "Well, there are other modules that hit this same mark." But it offers some crazy crossfading and preset possibilities - you can have up to eight different configurations of different routing that you've created. I thought they had quite an interesting take on it.

On the other hand, there were some over-the-top modules. I saw one that - to me - was just unbelievable. I stopped by Dave Rossum's booth and saw 

. Oh my God - I felt like I needed to go and get a PhD in order to wrap my head around it.

You make an interesting point there. Bana Haffar (an amazing musician and modular user) said to me, "Wow, there's so many modules out now that are basically a computer behind the panel." It's totally going down that road, and I'm starting to wonder are we going to start to see more modular folks crossing back over to using computers and programming in Max and the like. I think the answer is going to be "Yes."

If nothing else, having a nice 15-inch screen for some of these functions sure would beat the heck out of the postage stamp screens you're looking at now. Did you see any other modules that were over the top, in terms of size or density, or anything?

 is pretty impressive. It’s a 16-channel analog spectral editor. And when I say "Over the top," I'm not saying that in a negative sense - it's just amazing to have that audio control within the modular realm.

Something I've always thought about was that I'm certainly accustomed to working easily with 512-band EQs in Max, but I sincerely miss that finite control at times when you go to modular. You can make pretty dense sounds in modular often, but then trying to shape that density within the modular context can be quite difficult. So, seeing something like the Fumana is pretty amazing ... and I guess over-the-top. He told me there's 2,500 components in that module.

That's interesting. Prior to this, I think the only thing that had any kind of spectral manipulation was some 

 modules - we haven't really seen it much in the Eurorack world.

I think we're going to see some of that kind of thing start to pop up in the modular world, because you can only make so many lowpass ladder filters. I think some of the large system builders are going to start digging back into the past in search of what was unique, and trying to bring that stuff back.

For folks that don't want to push into the digital realm, another module that really caught my eye was the 

 - they're coming out with a second version and it has a whole CV recording system in it. You can even add new movements to the existing recording. It's in the same format as the original, and It also has joystick-controlled gates. It splits the forward axis of the joystick into four sections, and each of those is a gate, so when you move to a certain section, you have a gate for that.

That's pretty smart. One of the things I always look for in modules is the sneaky, smart one -

finding something either that you didn't think you needed until you saw it, or that's just formatted in a really smart way. I just felt that way about everything 

 did last year. This year, they came out with

 that really caught my fancy. I thought that that was such a simple move.

Right - who wants a kick, a snare, and a high hat that takes up 40 HP in their case? The reality with drum modules is that no one's triggering them by hand or adjusting them that often. You're often using CV with them, so it's perfect to have them poked away in the corner of the case. Did you also see they have a little sampler there?

Yeah, a little prototype sampler there that runs off a micro SD card in two HP. It has CV control over sample playback speed, and you can select samples off the card. You literally could get four of those, use up eight HP, and have four different samplers.

You start doing that, and then all of a sudden, doing 

-style music concrete in a 42HP mini case seems totally possible.

Did you see anything else that was on the simple side that caught your fancy?

Yeah. One thing - it's new-ish in that it came out a few months ago, but it wasn't a NAMM release. This is one of the great things about NAMM, isn't it? Being able to walk around and actually physically look at things rather than browsing online ... Intellijel had this new thing called a 

that allows you to use guitar effects pedals on a send-receive, but the cool thing is that it deals with all of the gain staging and impedance, and lets you brings some of these crazy guitar pedals into the modular realm.

It works really well, and it allows you to basically take your 

 or something like that, and put it anywhere in your signal chain rather than always having to have it plugged in at the back end of the system. It's so simple.

It's $100 - it's a send and receive setup where you've got a level control, a send gain, and a mix control, so you have a dry-wet mix of the effect. It's brilliant, and it could change the way I work on modular.

Especially when you're dealing with distortion; putting those in the front of the chain before the filter, could be really a new way to embed that effect in your system.

Definitely. I'm so used to having it be the last thing in the audio chain because of the brute power of some of these guitar effects- you just can't put them anywhere else; if you do, you end up with the same distortion sound every time. Having it in the middle of the audio chain and then applying manipulation further… yeah, I just thought it was very simple, smart, and something I hadn't seen before in modular.

Right, right. Yeah, also, talking about modular, over in the software world, I ran across a new modular by some company called 

. It is one of these virtual modulars on-screen, similar to what 

 has done. It appears to be a company that has put together an open SDK, but also includes some really smart decisions. One of the things I loved about it is that it's oriented towards integrating MIDI controllers, sliders and knobs and all that kind of stuff.

If you're like me and have been working with Max - every time you start up a new patch, you must remap all of your controllers. What Voltage Modular has is a mini rack ... like one of those 1U rack sections in a modular system. In this mini-strip is a device where controllers connect, from there, there's little attenuators for each one of the controller connections. Those connections are what hook into your patch, so when you load a new the patch, it changes the connection to the strip, but you don't have to change the controller assignment. It's an intelligent way of putting a wedge between you and the patch so that you don't end up bonking the controller every time you change patches.

It's very exciting, this middle ground that's developing. I just had a young guy this morning ask me for recommendations about getting into modular. I'm pretty adverse to saying, "Oh, go and buy a 

The beauty of modular is when you get into a little bit of it, and you work out what your sound is, what you're aiming for. From there, you build a larger system. I just think it's a real shame when I see some of these new users start with mega-cases. They just get inundated, and that's not fun. They end up not making music. I recommended that this guy go and check out VCV rack.

Yeah, well, it's interesting, because unlike Max, it very closely emulates working with an actual, physical modular. The downside is it also uses up a lot of space to do that, but it provides an interesting mental connection to the hardware.

Right. I think that's really important, because you can do a lot with a little. Which reminds me - I did a little performance with Qu-bit electronics at their NAMM booth.

I was busy with a lot of other stuff, at NAMM, so I didn't want to take too much gear and have to deal with lugging it around. I just put together a little 104 HP skiff with a few different Qu-bit modules in it.

I first thought, "Oh, this will be fun, but I wouldn't be able to do much." But after having this little skiff together for about week and just playing on it, I was really surprised with what I got out of it. It's always a good challenge to put yourself through something like that - to limit yourself to a few things and really push them to their limits.

I ended up playing a 15-minute set. I've got to say that it's probably one of the more challenging environments I've ever played in - and I've played in a few challenging environments in my time. But when you start a show at NAMM, you already have a noise floor of about 80 dB before you've made a single sound! It was fun to get in front of a different crowd. I looked up, and it was a whole bunch of people that I'd probably never get in front of again, so that was fun.

Well, the Qu-bit booth was actually in a pretty prominent place in a corner right near the front of the room, so you would have been attracting a lot of random people, too.

To close, I've got two quick questions for you.

First, what was the after-NAMM evening party and performance situation like? Did you get to do much of that?

I went to a party in a guy's private car collection “warehouse”. There were about 150 people, and about 50 or 60 rather priceless exotic cars - from American muscle cars through some of the latest Ferraris. It was surreal. It seemed rather challenging for the establishment to try to stop people from touching, sitting in and spilling drinks on the cars.

It just blew my mind that some guy wants to collect these amazing cars but wants to have parties around them all the time - it feels like playing with fire.

I wrapped up my NAMM show on Saturday and I went to the ninth Black Noise show, which is put on by these guys that go under the name of 

. This group puts on a show after NAMM every year consists, and includes Surachai, Richard Devine, Alessandro Cortini and others. This year, it was Richard playing with Surachai, Belief Defect, and a whole slew of guys from the Raster-Noton label.

It was fantastic. The Trash Audio guys really know how to put a show on. One great thing about what they do is that they don't spare anything on the audio or visual quality. They had a 

 PA system in there and a projector that could probably have easily covered the side of an LA skyscraper. It was so detailed and bright - I'm not so sure on the specs, but the visuals looked incredible.

That's awesome. I’ll have to say that I didn't do much partying this year, although I did get a chance to spend an evening with some interesting folks. 

 invited me out to a party where I got a chance to spend a little time around 

, and a group of amazing people. Everybody there had been going to NAMMs for 20 or 30 years and there were a lot of stories to be told, but it was a lot more laid back than the kind of parties you were visiting.

Yeah, but that sounds incredible, too. I'm not sure how I would be in a room with all of those folks. I think that pretty much every one of those people has affected my musical career in some way.

Well, that's one of the things the NAMM show does. It brings together these amazing people that you get a chance to interact with. You get to meet people that have had an enormous effect on your creative life.

One last question before we shut it down. Did you get a chance to venture outside the audio and modular domain? Did sniff around anything bizarre or unique?

Yeah. I did go down to the bottom – to the legendary Hall E, because I wanted to check out 

. This is the company’s first step into Eurorack, and is some sort of tape delay.

But you know what? I didn't really go down just for that. I just love the guitar section. I don't know. I walk around and find a whole other type of NAMM person. There's a lot of black leather, and there are a whole slew of folks who never got the memo that hair metal is over!

 - I've always been a fan of their pedals. They had the coolest little booth with all their pedals on the wall so you could see every pedal they make. It made me realize that they made a lot more than I really knew about. Same with the Zvex booth. The Zvex guys that make those cool pedals with the little almost look like hand-drawn designs. Their booth was super-cool, as well.

Wow, that's interesting. I didn't get a chance to spend much time down there. What I got that was an interesting newbie experience for me was having my friend 

 take me for a walk around the drum and cymbal area. That was a hell of an education, because he's a longtime (and serious) drummer. He showed me around different kinds of drums and explained how certain companies are going back to drum construction ideas from the '50s, while other companies are coming back with the plexiglass shells from the '60s... There are all these different, weird drum technologies.

He also introduced me to the world of cymbals, which was unreal in its variety. This was capped off by the 

 booth, where they had a guy that was hammering these dimples in the cymbals by hand. It was inspiring!

I did see the Sabian cymbal guy and was I was blown away by him. I realized they didn't need to have a heavy metal drummer bashing on a kit in the booth - the cymbal maker was more captivating. I also saw that all over social media for the next several days, as well.

I think for a lot a lot of people, it's like going to the supermarket to buy milk - you don't think that it comes from a cow. I think it's the same way with cymbals - you don’t realize they are the creations of individual people - a thing someone makes.

Each year, we attend the NAMM show to chat with distributors, partners and friends. We are also complete hardware/software nerds, and spend a lot of time checking out what is new, strange and exciting. This year, Tom Hall and I spent some time racing around the show floor - and had a chat to review what we saw. Join us as we describe our experiences surfing the new hall, dropping in on the software vendors, visiting with the modular clan and checking out the cymbal section.

Darwin: 
Hi all! I’ve got Tom Hall on-board, and we're going to give our annual recap of the NAMM trade show. 

Tom:
That's a tough call. I was very impressed with the Korg Prologue, to be honest. It's especially appealing to see a major company like Korg open things up with the SDK that they have for the third oscillator that's on board. But just playing the thing is beautiful, and the keybed is very impressive.

Darwin:
I agree. I don't know if it's just the way that the keybed interacts with the synth engine or if it's just a phenomenal build, but I haven't played one feels that great in a long, long time.

Tom:
Another thing that stood out to me was how Arturia really stepped up with the MiniBrute 2 ... It seems almost cruel to reference the old MiniBrute - this thing is just on another level.

Darwin:
It seems like a completely new instrument, quite frankly. There’s also a version that's got a sequencer instead of the keyboard. That's pretty sharp.

Tom:
Yeah, with three different sequencing lanes that can all run independently. In addition to that you've got the modular matrix, and six different banks with 16 presets. It just leaves the old MiniBrute in the dust.

Darwin:
I didn't look that closely at the companion Euro Rack unit that they have. Did you get a close look at that?

Tom:
That's the RackBrute, which is an add-on case system that they've developed. It links up with the MiniBrute 2 and the 2S sequencer and it is really slick. It looks like this could be the first step into the modular arena for a lot of people.

Darwin:
That's a great point - there are precious few people that I know who are into analog and modulars that don't already have something from Arturia in the mix.

Tom:
Right. A funny thing is the Eurorack case always seems to be a sticking point. It is probably one of the most daunting things for a new user because there's still no really cost-effective case. A question like, "How much power do I need for my rack?" isn't easy to answer when you're first starting out.

Darwin:
I hear you. It'll be interesting to see what differences it might make if you can remove those concerns from people's minds.

Tom:
The power specs for those racks are really beefy. I don't think you could max them out at all, and that's definitely going to be reassuring for new users.

Darwin:
Heading over into the plug-in world, I saw something that reminded me of how much I liked a certain product. We got a chance to stop by the Spectrasonics booth, and I got a chance to talk to Eric Persing - he's just one of the great guys in the industry...  

Later, when I was walking past that booth, somebody was just wailing on their Keyscape virtual instrument. It reminded me how something as simple as a great 'standard' keyboard sound with a great player behind it is still an amazing play.

Tom:
It's hard to believe that they have something that's stepped up to the level of Omnisphere, but Keyscape has been huge - I'm seeing it everywhere.

Darwin:
Another thing that I found really interesting this year was that the NAMM show opened up this whole new building - you had this sky bridge you'd walk over to get to it. I ended up spending a lot of time over there, because that's where a lot of the software people and a lot of the pro audio people were located. Last year was really disappointing - there was this well hidden room upstairs that was kind of a software hideaway. This year, they had all of these same people along a wall in the new building. It almost was like a software vendor version of the modular hangout.

Tom:
I did get over there, and the message felt like, "Software's coming back." Honestly, I felt a little somber after going to the software space in 2017 - I was thinking, "Whoa, this is not good." I got a little scared. As often as I'm seen in public using hardware, people don't see the vast array of software I use when I'm at home in the studio - I couldn't make music without it. It was really great to see pro audio in a better environment, with Avid and MOTU, and the crazy speaker designers. It felt like a very fitting place rather than having them locked away in a back room.

Darwin:
You know what's interesting, though? On Sunday, it was that pro audio area that was more busy than the main floor - I was surprised.

Tom:
I wonder if people just literally discovered it over the three or four days, perhaps.

Darwin:
Yeah, that might have been the case.

Tom:
I was very impressed seeing MOTU and Avid and all the different companies - it seemed like they were able to stretch their legs a little more down there. They had some beautiful phenomenal stage setups.

Darwin:
So I spent some time over there, and I'll tell you - there's this new-ish company called Warm Audio. This year they were coming on with some crazy stuff like a U47 microphone - which I'd normally have to trade my car to get, right? They have a nice emulation of it for under $1,000 that was pretty amazing sounding in my drive-by tests. I don't normally get overly excited about microphones, but that's one that caught my attention.


Tom:
People are seeing a market, now, for remakes and emulations of classic hardware.

Darwin:
Yeah, and it seems like they're stepping it up in terms of quality - it's not just a surface emulation, where they're trying to make it look good. Instead, they're diving in and doing a great job with the overall package.

Tom:
One thing that I did do in the audio/software area was to drop by Izotope - I always like to visit them to see what they're up to. In previous years, I've always walked away with one or two good tips for using their plug-ins. When I dropped in over there this year, I got an education on using Neutron 2 -
 that thing's incredible!


Darwin:
That's the one with the AI stuff built in, right?

Tom: Yeah. They've put a whole bunch of machine learning technology into it, and It sounds incredible. I'd seen the first version of it, and the main reason I stopped by there was because my friend Josh Eustis said that it is one of the main plug-ins he uses now. That's a big time review, so I thought, "Okay, I've got to go over there."

Darwin:
Yeah, that's a neat way to go - it sounds like they've made some real strides on that package.

Tom:
It really seems to be hitting the mark with the suggested EQ settings and the compression setup. It's impressive.

Darwin:
Next up - one of the things that we always enjoy talking about, gossiping about, and wondering about - the modular gulch! 

I met tons of people who've been guests on my podcast and it was great. But I just never get to get as deep of a dive into the gear as I want. You and I did get a really nice demo of the new Qu-bit stuff, and especially the new version of the Nebulae, however.

Tom:
Yeah, Colin Russell gave us an excellent demo early in the NAMM show, and it's impressive. It's amazing what they've put into the box, but they've not packed things in so tightly that you'll need an encyclopedia to remember all the possibilities. It's pretty intuitive, and it seems like you should be able to get it to be memorized pretty fast.

Darwin:
Yeah, I have to tell you - I would love to be able to take some of my weirdo gen~-based  waveshapers and see what I can do by pouring them into some hardware. That would be fun!

Tom: 
That crossfading mixer module of theirs - the Synapse - is also fairly impressive. At first glance, you might think, "Well, there are other modules that hit this same mark." But it offers some crazy crossfading and preset possibilities - you can have up to eight different configurations of different routing that you've created. I thought they had quite an interesting take on it.

Darwin:
On the other hand, there were some over-the-top modules. I saw one that - to me - was just unbelievable. I stopped by Dave Rossum's booth and saw the newest ASSIMIL8OR sampler. Oh my God - I felt like I needed to go and get a PhD in order to wrap my head around it.

Tom:
You make an interesting point there. Bana Haffar (an amazing musician and modular user) said to me, "Wow, there's so many modules out now that are basically a computer behind the panel." It's totally going down that road, and I'm starting to wonder are we going to start to see more modular folks crossing back over to using computers and programming in Max and the like. I think the answer is going to be "Yes."

Darwin:
If nothing else, having a nice 15-inch screen for some of these functions sure would beat the heck out of the postage stamp screens you're looking at now. Did you see any other modules that were over the top, in terms of size or density, or anything?

Tom:
The new Frap Tools Fumana is pretty impressive. It’s a 16-channel analog spectral editor. And when I say "Over the top," I'm not saying that in a negative sense - it's just amazing to have that audio control within the modular realm.

Darwin:
That's interesting. Prior to this, I think the only thing that had any kind of spectral manipulation was some Buchla modules - we haven't really seen it much in the Eurorack world.

Tom:
I think we're going to see some of that kind of thing start to pop up in the modular world, because you can only make so many lowpass ladder filters. I think some of the large system builders are going to start digging back into the past in search of what was unique, and trying to bring that stuff back.

For folks that don't want to push into the digital realm, another module that really caught my eye was the Intellijel Planar 2 - they're coming out with a second version and it has a whole CV recording system in it. You can even add new movements to the existing recording. It's in the same format as the original, and It also has joystick-controlled gates. It splits the forward axis of the joystick into four sections, and each of those is a gate, so when you move to a certain section, you have a gate for that.

Darwin:
That's pretty smart. One of the things I always look for in modules is the sneaky, smart one -
finding something either that you didn't think you needed until you saw it, or that's just formatted in a really smart way. I just felt that way about everything 2HP did last year. This year, they came out with these little drum modules that really caught my fancy. I thought that that was such a simple move.

Tom:
Right - who wants a kick, a snare, and a high hat that takes up 40 HP in their case? The reality with drum modules is that no one's triggering them by hand or adjusting them that often. You're often using CV with them, so it's perfect to have them poked away in the corner of the case. Did you also see they have a little sampler there?

Tom:
Yeah, a little prototype sampler there that runs off a micro SD card in two HP. It has CV control over sample playback speed, and you can select samples off the card. You literally could get four of those, use up eight HP, and have four different samplers.

Darwin:
You start doing that, and then all of a sudden, doing Pierre Schaffer-style music concrete in a 42HP mini case seems totally possible. 

Tom:
Yeah. One thing - it's new-ish in that it came out a few months ago, but it wasn't a NAMM release. This is one of the great things about NAMM, isn't it? Being able to walk around and actually physically look at things rather than browsing online ... Intellijel had this new thing called a Pedal I/O that allows you to use guitar effects pedals on a send-receive, but the cool thing is that it deals with all of the gain staging and impedance, and lets you brings some of these crazy guitar pedals into the modular realm.

It works really well, and it allows you to basically take your Proco Turbo Rat or something like that, and put it anywhere in your signal chain rather than always having to have it plugged in at the back end of the system. It's so simple. 

Darwin:
Especially when you're dealing with distortion; putting those in the front of the chain before the filter, could be really a new way to embed that effect in your system.

Tom:
Definitely. I'm so used to having it be the last thing in the audio chain because of the brute power of some of these guitar effects- you just can't put them anywhere else; if you do, you end up with the same distortion sound every time. Having it in the middle of the audio chain and then applying manipulation further… yeah, I just thought it was very simple, smart, and something I hadn't seen before in modular.

Darwin:
Right, right. Yeah, also, talking about modular, over in the software world, I ran across a new modular by some company called Voltage Modular. It is one of these virtual modulars on-screen, similar to what Softube or VCV Rack has done. It appears to be a company that has put together an open SDK, but also includes some really smart decisions. One of the things I loved about it is that it's  oriented towards integrating MIDI controllers, sliders and knobs and all that kind of stuff.

Tom:
It's very exciting, this middle ground that's developing. I just had a young guy this morning ask me for recommendations about getting into modular. I'm pretty adverse to saying, "Oh, go and buy a Make Noise Black and Gold shared system."

Darwin:
Yeah, well, it's interesting, because unlike Max, it very closely emulates working with an actual, physical modular. The downside is it also uses up a lot of space to do that, but it provides an interesting mental connection to the hardware.

Tom:
Right. I think that's really important, because you can do a lot with a little. Which reminds me - I did a little performance with Qu-bit electronics at their NAMM booth.

Darwin:
Oh, that's cool. What did you do?

Tom:
I was busy with a lot of other stuff, at NAMM, so I didn't want to take too much gear and have to deal with lugging it around. I just put together a little 104 HP skiff with a few different Qu-bit modules in it. 

Darwin:
Well, the Qu-bit booth was actually in a pretty prominent place in a corner right near the front of the room, so you would have been attracting a lot of random people, too.

To close, I've got two quick questions for you. 

Tom:
I went to a party in a guy's private car collection “warehouse”. There were about 150 people, and about 50 or 60 rather priceless exotic cars - from American muscle cars through some of the latest Ferraris. It was surreal. It seemed rather challenging for the establishment to try to stop people from touching, sitting in and spilling drinks on the cars.

I wrapped up my NAMM show on Saturday and I went to the ninth Black Noise show, which is put on by these guys that go under the name of Trash Audio. This group puts on a show after NAMM every year consists, and includes Surachai, Richard Devine, Alessandro Cortini and others. This year, it was Richard playing with Surachai, Belief Defect, and a whole slew of guys from the Raster-Noton label.

It was fantastic. The Trash Audio guys really know how to put a show on. One great thing about what they do is that they don't spare anything on the audio or visual quality. They had a Funktion-One PA system in there and a projector that could probably have easily covered the side of an LA skyscraper. It was so detailed and bright - I'm not so sure on the specs, but the visuals looked incredible.

Darwin:
That's awesome. I’ll have to say that I didn't do much partying this year, although I did get a chance to spend an evening with some interesting folks. Mark Vail invited me out to a party where I got a chance to spend a little time around Jack Hotop, Roger Linn, Michael Boddicker, and a group of amazing people. Everybody there had been going to NAMMs for 20 or 30 years and there were a lot of stories to be told, but it was a lot more laid back than the kind of parties you were visiting.

Tom:
Yeah, but that sounds incredible, too. I'm not sure how I would be in a room with all of those folks. I think that pretty much every one of those people has affected my musical career in some way.

Darwin:
Well, that's one of the things the NAMM show does. It brings together these amazing people that you get a chance to interact with. You get to meet people that have had an enormous effect on your creative life.

Tom:
Yeah. I did go down to the bottom – to the legendary Hall E, because I wanted to check out Strymon's Magneto. This is the company’s first step into Eurorack, and is some sort of tape delay.

I really loved the big but cheeky Earthquaker Devices - I've always been a fan of their pedals. They had the coolest little booth with all their pedals on the wall so you could see every pedal they make. It made me realize that they made a lot more than I really knew about. Same with the Zvex booth. The Zvex guys that make those cool pedals with the little almost look like hand-drawn designs. Their booth was super-cool, as well.

Darwin:
Wow, that's interesting. I didn't get a chance to spend much time down there. What I got that was an interesting newbie experience for me was having my friend Dave Hill Jr. take me for a walk around the drum and cymbal area. That was a hell of an education, because he's a longtime (and serious) drummer. He showed me around different kinds of drums and explained how certain companies are going back to drum construction ideas from the '50s, while other companies are coming back with the plexiglass shells from the '60s... There are all these different, weird drum technologies.

He also introduced me to the world of cymbals, which was unreal in its variety. This was capped off by the Sabian booth, where they had a guy that was hammering these dimples in the cymbals by hand. It was inspiring!

Tom:
I did see the Sabian cymbal guy and was I was blown away by him. I realized they didn't need to have a heavy metal drummer bashing on a kit in the booth - the cymbal maker was more captivating. I also saw that all over social media for the next several days, as well.

On The Road: NAMM 2018