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The coolest music gadgets at NAMM 2018

The coolest music gadgets at NAMM 2018

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Hacky solutions were king

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Anaheim’s National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show featured plenty of traditional instruments, but as always, there was also a lot of cool music tech. From pro DJ hardware to gadgets that upgrade the instruments you already own to innovative music education tools and apps, NAMM showed that now, more than ever, the worlds of music and tech are intersecting in interesting ways.

Aside from checking out the newest pro-level gear in areas like DJing, speakers, and headphones, there were two categories that caught my attention at NAMM. They were products that tackled music education and gadgets that were third-party add-ons for instruments and hardware people already own.

On the education side, Blipblox was one of the more interesting items on the floor. A synth designed for three to eight-year-old kids, the Blipblox has arrow paths on top connecting all the buttons to show the synth’s signal chain. The idea is to get children interested in synthesis basics early on. But, there’s no iconography on the Blipblox itself to hint at what the buttons do, so it’s hard to say how much kids will really learn as opposed to just mashing buttons. The company told me that if kids want to learn more, they can read the manual that comes with it, but that seems to defeat the product’s purpose.

The Dato Duo is another synth for kids that I think is more successful in its design, showing, for example, a giraffe with a short and long neck for the knob that adjusts a note’s length. The Blipblox could benefit from symbols, and although it has shortcomings, it’s nice to see additional companies think about how to make synthesis and music programming accessible for young children.

The ONE Piano Hi-Lite was another education tool that was quite clever. A long strip with sensors on the bottom, the Hi-Lite is placed on top of your existing piano’s keyboard and then connected with an app for iPad or iPhone. It then works Guitar Hero-style to teach you how to learn theory and play songs, with keys lighting up along the strip as notes appear on screen.

There were lots of clever ways to augment the instruments and hardware you’ve got at home

The Hi-Lite also fell within another category that was very popular at NAMM: hacky add-ons for the gear you already have. While numerous companies were debuting new models of synths, turntables, and more, others were showing clever ways they had figured out to augment the instruments and hardware you’ve got at home. OneManBand’s guitar attachment converts signals from the guitar into MIDI via simply pressing strings (it does not require plucking), produces an on-the-fly backing band based on your playing, and more.

Meanwhile, French company MWM showed a prototype for something called Phase, which works with DVS-style DJ software (like Serato DJ) to eliminate the need for a tonearm and stylus when playing off control vinyl. It works with remotes that are affixed to the vinyl that then communicate rotation information via radio signals to a receiver that is connected to your laptop. This was my personal favorite, because not only does it solve all the issues that happen when playing with a traditional tonearm and stylus (everything from dust under a needle to needle skips from someone bumping into your setup), it can be used with any existing turntable. We saw several DJs performing complicated scratch routines using Phase with virtually no latency. Enhancia also made an appearance, demoing their MIDI ring that enables musicians to perform musical effects with simple gestures.

As a little aside, there were a couple companies that were trying to tackle the combination of music and VR. Aerodrums, a company that allows you to drum without a drum set, has just introduced a VR component. Aerodrums works with traditional drum sticks that have reflective balls at the tip and reflective panels that are attached to your feet. A camera then captures any movements made, allowing you to drum without a physical kit (and, when fed into headphones, without making any noise!). The new upgrade takes this same format but now allows for more immersive drumming using a VR headset. Some drumming pros I spoke to said that although they might not use the VR component themselves, they could see it being incredibly useful for beginners, and as a tool for delivering drum lessons. This was the overall vibe I got from most VR experiences — perhaps fun for beginners, but in terms of a viable alternative for pros, not quite there yet (or maybe just not needed).

So, these were just some of the highlights from this year’s NAMM. Yes, we also saw amazing new gear from the likes of Pioneer DJ, Roland, Alesis, Native Instruments, and more, but these two little corners of the show wound up being incredibly intriguing. Companies are not just thinking about how to make music and music-making easy to approach, but how to provide solutions for consumers that enhance the gear they already own and cherish. Most of the aforementioned products fell in the price range of a couple hundred dollars — the The ONE Piano Hi-Lite is $229 and the Phase should retail for around $300 — and these slight investments can have much bigger payoffs for musicians.