Products From NAMM

Looking back at my time at NAMM, there were a couple products I encountered that really stuck out to me. 

Item #1: M4000D series Mellotrons

Literally the first booth that I stopped at on the main show floor was the Mellotron booth. The Mellotron is a quite old instrument. It is a tape based synthesizer, meaning that each key has a tape playhead that will begin to play the tape that is currently loaded in the instrument. The Mellotron is one of my favorite instruments of all time because of its use in some of my favorite music, most notably, Radiohead’s Kid A. At the Mellotron booth at NAMM, they were showing off their M4000D series Mellotrons, which are fully digital recreations of the original product. The biggest advantage of an instrument like this being digital is the tape change time. One of the biggest drawbacks of the original Mellotron is that any time you would want to change the timbre of the synthesizer, you would have to change the tape itself. This is a lengthy process that involves the machine having to fully wind the tape before unwinding another tape. Digitally, this can be done with the press of a button.

They have three products in this line:

The base model, which is a three octave keyboard with all of the functionality of the original Mellotron. 

The Mini, which as it sounds like is just a smaller version of the base model, is designed to be small enough to be stacked on top of the base model for double keyboards.

The final product in this line is the most interesting to me. That is the rack mounted version. This version does not come with a keyboard attached, but is meant to have MIDI run through it. This one in particular is of interest because of the sounds available. They have the 100 different tape sounds that came with the original model of the Mellotron included at base, but there is also a slot for expansion flash cards that include even more sounds than before. This makes this one the most versatile out of the line.

Item #2: Neumann MT48 Audio Interface

I discussed this item a bit in my Linkedin post from NAMM, but this piece of gear was truly impressive to me. The MT48 is the single most versatile audio interface I have ever come across and it is not much bigger than a 2i2. The most obvious feature of it when you look at it is the fact that it has an integrated touch screen. From this touchscreen, you can access the other cool features this product has. One of the most impressive things to me was the full mixer inside of the MT48 for the 4 inputs it has. With this mixer comes a few on board effects, like compression, EQ, and reverb. 

This interface also has a ton of capability from outside its software. To start, there is a built-in microphone for talkback in a studio setting. There are 2 XLR inputs as well as 2 TRS line inputs. 2 XLR outputs as well as 2 TRS Line outs. In addition, the back panel features MIDI in and out as well as ADAT in and out. There are so many things you can do with this all in one compact package.

All of this versatility makes this the ultimate interface for home studios, as well as some full studios.