The 2025 Namm show is over. Each year, manufacturers of musical shells, starting from cult synthesizer brands, such as Korg, to boutiques, manufacturers of guitar pedals, such as Walrus Audio, and even companies that make foggy machines and pens, descend to the anheim to show their latest products. These are chaos in all ways that you expect that the Congress will be the line for coffee in a mile long, the hordes of strangers who will strive for positions around new products, food options that vary from barely edible heart attack. But NAMM is also a special beast. If you ever wondered what eight are out of synchronization of drummers, two guitar solo, acoustic slide-blinom riff and a simple ditty bit, all this would sound like at the same time fighting for your attention, it is good that this only place to test this specific brand of hell. But now, when my legs and, more importantly, my eardruming membranes finally began to recover, I had the opportunity to think about some of the best things that I saw on the exhibition floor. Here are 10 things that attracted my attention most.
Eternal Research Demon Box
Eternal research I launched successfully funded Kickstarter The campaign is back in September, but it was the first time I could see Box for the demon personally. Think about this as a version of Soma Labs Ether, presented in several of our Gift leadershipThe field of the demon does not make a single sound on its own, instead there are three pickups that turn the EMF (electromagnetic fields) into music – or at least an audible noise. Launch a mobile phone, meals with a meal or tuning a fork at the top, and you will get unique mears, prying, clicks and sound signals that can only produce this device. But where the broadcast is mainly a microphone, a drawer for a demon is a tool designed for live interaction and control other devices. In addition to the output of audio, it can also convert these electro -magnetic fields to CV (control voltage) for controlling EURORORACK or MIDI synthesizers to launch a visual synthesizer or all three at the same time. There are many options if you want a rhinial pilot bass, but if you want to turn the invisible radiation emitted by the TV into a central element of multimedia, this is mainly your only option.
Circular guitar
A Circular guitar impractical. It costs more than $ 12,000 (insert grimace emoticons). But it's also just Crazy funInstead of playing it with a peak or finger that plucks strings (although, you can do this, if you want), the strings are pressed on the moving passions that you install inside the spinning wheel. There are sixteen slots that allow you to develop your own rhythm -abrupt, and then under pickups there are six sliders to control the volume of each line individually. This allows you to create complex robotic rhythms, such as a drum machine, but on your guitar. And, moreover, you can synchronize it with DAW to make sure that you are in locking with the road track, even when it stuttering and stops. This is a completely unique creation that has already attracted the attention of artists such as Ed O'Brien from Radiohead.
Akai + native tools
One of the largest announcements from NAMM was actually not a new product, but two industries are uniting efforts. Several series of “Syntition of the NATIVE Instruments” series (NI) and genre sets for the expansion package are transferred to the new ACAI. MPC 3.0 platformThe field although the availability of some of the existing soft synthesizers on some existing equipment may not seem to be a very large transaction, it significantly expands the MPC sound palette and gives another support in the world of autonomous musical equipment after that from Machine+The field choice of sounds is currently limited, with three synthesizers (analog dreams, cloud delivery and nacht) and only one extension (faded coils). But two more synthesizers and four more extensions will be added in the near future, and if everything goes well, I’m sure that they will follow more.
Korg Handytraxx Play
A Handytraxx Play It is the first and only portable rotary table that I know with built -in effects. He has a DJ filter, a delay, and even a simple cock, which, theoretically, in some cases, may negate the need for a separate mixer and even a second turning table. Although I can’t scratch, I always wanted to study, and all in one portable nature of the HandyTraxx game, including the speaker and power of the battery, is quite attractive to the one who just wants to dip their finger and does not want to invest a lot of money and space in a separate setting With a mixer and a double player. In addition, Corg developed a play in combination with the late Toshihid Nakama, the founder of Vestax and Builder of the original Handy Trax (two words, one X), an icon in the world of portableism.
Donner Essential L1 Synthesizer
Over the past few years, the Chinese manufacturer of music shells Donner began to really expand its offers, moving from mainly digital piano and some pedals of bin from bin, to shocking decent DSP, drum machines and even pocket grooves. L1 is the last in the growing line of synthesizers, and it has many promises. It is largely based on Roland Sh-101A cult instrument from the 80s, which has found special benefit among artists such as Aphex Twin, Orbital, Depeche Mode, KMFDM and Canada boards.
What makes L1 especially intriguing is that this is the first entry in the new SNAP2ConNECT (S2C) SNAP2ConNECT (S2C) system. The keyboard is attached to the synthesizer magnetically, allowing you to leave it if you want, or use it as a separate MIDI controller with your DAW or other synthesizer. But Donner also says that he plans to add other tools to the S2C system, so you can buy a module based on, say, one day of the Juno-60 and just take it on the keyboard that you already own.
Enjoy Defeel's electronics
Defeel is hard to explain. The company calls this a “modular monotonous degenerator”, which is extremely accurate and extremely useless. In fact, you stick this thing between your Sequencance And yours synthesizer And this accelerates the incoming resume to generate fillings, stuttering and all kinds of barely controlled chaos. In short, it requires the stone sequence that you programmed, and makes it less monotonous. This can overestimate your sequence or add modulation. You can draw modulation curves using a 4.3-inch touch screen or even turn them into a X/Y pillow for lively performance. It is developed mainly taking into account the EURORACK synthesizer, but is also available as a separate block in a stylish wooden case.
Melbourne Instruments Rotocontrol
At first, rot control cannot seem the most exciting device. This is a MIDI controller with eight handles and keys on the right side, as well as several other buttons on the left for navigation on the device. But what makes it special is that these handles are motorized – if you change the parameter in your Daw or SoftSynth, which physically affects the controller. It can sound a little useless, but in fact it is incredibly useful.
You see, the handles on the controller or synthesizer, as a rule, are two tastes: pots and coders. The pot, or potentiometer, has the beginning and end. Thus, if you change pre -installed or switching tools, this can no longer reflect the actual setting. Codes have no beginning or end. Since they do not indicate a specific position in space, there is no need to worry about the disagreement between the position of the handle and the actual value of the parameter. But they are also not perfect for a live performance. To judge how far you need to turn to make this filter, just right, and the coders, as a rule, have a less smooth response than a pot. Melbourne solves this, just moving pots to where they should be.
Roli Piano & Airwave
For several years I said that he would finally learn to play the piano. But I am a busy dad two, a half -time bartender and a full -time working. Honestly, I do not have time or disposable income to relate to piano lessons. And options based on applications or videos that I tried were a little not enthusiastic. I don't know what The roles of piano And Air wave Of course, they are more effective than a melody or duolingo in training, how to play, but it seems that there is more potential. Where most applications for musical education are mainly glorified versions Guitar heroRoli uses the Airwave camera to track your whole hand, telling you if you are not able to if your wrists are at an inappropriate angle or if you use the wrong fingers. This is probably not as good as having real vocational training for you ropes, but probably better than a re -profiled video game attached to any elementary lesson of music theory.
Oh, and as soon as you feel quite comfortable with the game, Roli unite the piano and air waves to create the most extensive MPE controller in the market.
Studio of recursion of entropy and sons
Video synthesizers Not new, but they are also not the most common things on the planet. And the recursion studio from entropy and sons is probably one of the most capable that I saw when I saw. On the one hand, this is not any simple visualizer, where it is manipulated by the main clip of animation, all visual effects are generated live, algorithmically. In addition, he can process the incoming video, distort images and respond to an incoming audio, he even has several oscilloscope modes.
For those who like to stain their hands, there are more than 300 modules that can be combined to create user visual patches. But on board there are also about 1000 presents on board, so you can quickly get some visual effects to immediately go with your synthesizer. And the company constantly updates the device and adds new functions.
SoundToys Spaceblender
SoundToys is one of the largest names in the effectiveness of plugins. They are used by all from Radiolab's Jad Abumrad to Kenny Bitts and Construction Rebel. The plugin of saturation of the company's Decapiter is one of the best things that when they happened to the drums, and Echoboy is a mandatory delay. But this does not introduce new effects terribly often. SuperPlate was added to the list in mid -2023, but this was the first new addition to Little Plate in November 2017 – the company did not waste its time.
Spaceblender is SoundToys to take on the surrounding granular reverb. This is not actually a straight granular plugin that breaks your sound and spits it back into small pieces, instead it is a bunch of delays that are united and spread into something ethereal. He even has an interactive envelope designer that you can manipulate in order not only to hone the form of your reverb, but even have potential as a living productivity tool. Spaceblender is not yet quite ready for release, but even in this early connection it sounded phenomenally and seemed quite stable.