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At 5:21 PM -0800 2/7/00, L Tremblay wrote: >Most all-in-one swiss-army boxes really suck unless you >get something at the very high-end. So your choice depends >in part on your budget. And remember: NAMM just finished, >which means there are now even more choices, and conversely, >more opportunities to buy last years model at blow-out >prices. don't count on too many more choices. Some of the themes for this year seemed to be missing-in-action, mergers-and-acquisitions, barely-saved-from-oblivion, and on-the-deathbed. Everyone knows about opcode. But how about Lexicon? No booth at all. According to ex-Lex people, they've laid off all product design engineers and haven't been doing anything new in most of the last year. In short, they've been "Harmanized." That's a sad story.... And Kawai? Cool additive synths? nope, they don't do pro products no more. no sign of Quasimidi. Hopefull they just decided to stay in Germany this year.... Roctron, saved from oblivion by GHS. (the guitar string company.) who knows what their future is. Hopefully they can get it going again cause I always liked those guys. ART, also saved from oblivion by Yorkville. (or is it Yorktown? whatever.) E-mu and Ensoniq's step-brotherhood under the Creative parent is hanging in there somehow. New E-mu sampler's and sound modules were there. Nothing revolutionary, seemed aimed for lower cost markets. Actually, seems to be all e-mu, not much ensoniq... and the booth is smaller every year but at least there's new stuff in it. Akai, lost in the guitar hall with their exciting updated MPC2000! not much else there except the Jackson girls. Digitech was showing exactly 3 products total. One was the original whammy reissued. Then there was the RP-2000 multieffect pedal and the vocalist thing they've had for a while. The Johnson division's amp simulator thing was a plastic chassis in a sealed case. Continued yoy booth shrinkage there.... More Harmanization? Zoom was about the same as digitech. Crammed in the corner of some distributor's booth, no new products. Crown was apparently bought by Harman, who seems more insatiable than Gibson. Mackie merged with EAW. Ibanez and Tama are apparently both part of Hoshino now. I don't know how long that's been true, but it's the first time I ever saw them stuffed together in one booth. any others? I'm sure I missed plenty of goodies. But get this, Alesis has a real 16 voice analog synth! Jomox and Electrix have moved their cool little analog synths and filter effects out of the K-hall to the big time upstairs, that's good. Novation made it up there too. Electix' stuff is sure fun. The software and dj stuff keeps growing. As does Gemini's outrageousness. And Don Buchla is back with his remarkable Marimba Lumina.... kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ |