Over here across the brine, the big annual trade fair for electro-music products is the NAMM International Music and Sound Expo. In case you don't know what NAMM is (and there's no particular reason why you should), it stands for National Association of Music Merchants. Americans are crazy about acronyms.

Anyway, this extravagant event occurs every summer, usually in Chicago, a city known for its disgusting weather and great blues bands. Most of the business types that show up for the NAMM Expo, however, couldn't care less about scouring Chicago's South Side for blues clubs. They seem to prefer the cavernous confines of McCormick Place, the huge exhibition hall that houses the Expo.

As usual, hundreds of U.S. electro-music manufacturers - large and small, old and young, rich and poor, thick and thin (stop this!) - came to Chicago to introduce their newest wares. And, as he does every year, your intrepid reporter set out, notebook in hand, to wander the innumerable aisles of exhibits seeking the latest in electro-musical gear.

As my feet felt the first twinges of pain, I happened upon the Moog Music exhibit, where the company was proudly demonstrating a microprocessor-controlled, programmable monophonic synthesiser called The Source. Actually, the Moog people have good reason to be proud - it's a very nice instrument.

The analog section of The Source is a two-oscillator lead synth with LFO, noise generator, full modulation effects, single/multiple triggering, and Moog's exclusive 24 dB/octave filter. There are two digitally-generated four-part contours and a digital sample/hold circuit. The keyboard spans a full three octaves and there is an additional switch for extending its range down one octave.

Other good things about The Source include 16 programmable voices and two digital sequencers, each of which is capable of storing up to 88 notes in real time.

Another new feature stores any sequence of voice program changes to automatically change programmed "voices" during the playback. The Source also boasts a new kind of arpeggiator which permits the player to change arpeggio patterns in the middle of a performance. All programs, note sequences, program sequences and arpeggios can be saved on tape with a standard cassette recorder.

The Oberheim people had some things to be excited about, too, namely their new DSX Digital Polyphonic Sequencer and DMX Programmable Digital Drum Machine. The DSX has powerful storage capabilities - it can record up to 3,000 notes polyphonically and in real time (expandable up to 6,000 notes). It also includes eight independently controllable CV and GATE outputs with both Oberheim and Moog triggers, not to mention complete editing and overdubbing capabilities.

The DMX Programmable Digital Drum Machine is, according to Oberheim, "ideal for composers, recording and live performance". It allows the user to create complete drum arrangements with realistic feel and sound. Song structure, time signature, sequence length, dynamics and tempo are all programmable. When putting together your drum arrangement, you have 24 sounds to choose from, including bass drum (soft, medium, loud), snare (soft, medium, loud), hi-hat (closed, accent, open), six tom toms, three cymbals, handclaps, rim shot, tambourine, shaker, etc.

For smaller companies, the NAMM Expo is an important marketing event. Since such manufacturers have severely limited advertising budgets, the trade fair provides a rare opportunity for catching retail merchants by the sleeve and making them buy something. And it is often the smaller concerns that have the most interesting new products.

One example is a new company on the U.S. East Coast called ElectroSonics. Their pride and joy is something called the Mojo Bone, an audio interface device that provides nine separate functions. One of its uses is as a portable practice amp in conjunction with two standard high fidelity speakers or headphones. If the user wishes to play along with records or tapes, his lines will be mixed in. The Mojo Bone is also useful as a program source amplifier, recording mixer/monitor, in-line power booster, PA monitor driver and effects device. It runs on a nine volt battery and costs $130.

Getting back to the synthesiser companies: Sequential Circuits used the NAMM Expo to unveil the Model 500 PRO-FX, an integrated signal processing system that "offers the convenience of a modular rack mount design with the flexibility and control of full programmability", according to the manufacturer.

The system mainframe is a standard 19 by 5¼ inch rack mount chassis with a system controller and space for six modules. All operating modes of the system are directed by the system controller. The desired program is entered on the eight Program Select switches and appears on the LED display. The mode switches initiate record or preset, and the Edit LED indicates that a preset has been modified by the adjustment of a control or change of a switch. The memory switches load the non-volatile program memory to or from a tape deck. The allocation controls are used to configure the program memory to the system's current module arrangement.

The first 500 series modules available include: 510 Phase Shifter, 512 Distortion/Sustainer, 514 Mixer, 516 Parametric Equalizer and 518 Reverb. All modules utilize low-noise "state-of-the-art" op-amps, noiseless FET switching, and multiplying DAC's for maximum performance and reliability.

Another rack mounting signal processing system was being shown by Audio Envelope Systems. They call their system the "axerac" and offer such modules as the ar100 studio preamp, the ar250 sweep equalizer, the ar300 noise gate, the ar320 complimenter, the ar500 auxiliary insert module, the ar640 output amplifier and others. Audio Envelope Systems are also offering the "tubecube" TC-101 Active Direct Box. It is, of course, yet another device designed to make a new, state-of-the-art guitar amplifier sound like your old, kicked-in, 1959 Fender tube amp. Someday, somebody's going to have to explain it all to me.

Although Casio is not an American company, they deserve attention here because they attracted so much interest at the NAMM Expo. The reason? Well, it's simply that the company seems to be taking the lead in bridging the gap between electro-music and what is called "consumer electronics" in the U.S. With aggressive, innovative marketing strategies (like selling keyboard instruments in stores that would normally never think of stocking a musical instrument), Casio is hoping that instruments like the MT-30 keyboard will have considerable Stateside success. It seems to be a pretty safe bet.

The intense competition in the U.S. synthesiser business didn't intimidate NAMM Expo exhibitor Robert J. Gleeman. Not by a long shot. The California-based Gleeman Instrument Co. leaped right into the market by launching the Gleeman Pentaphonic Synthesiser, a 37-note, five-voice polyphonic unit with a built-in sequencer, a unique oscillator bank and a self-contained audio amp and speaker.

The sequencer can store up to 300 notes in either mono or poly mode while preserving the original timing. The oscillator bank consists of three identical waveform generators which independently generate any of eight waveforms. Each generator has its own gain and octave select controls, and a single fine-tune control allows accompaniment with any instrument while maintaining the chorusing effect of the multiple oscillators. According to the company, the instrument should retail for under $3300.

As always, MXR Innovations enlivened the NAMM Expo with some new sonic aids for the exploratory musician. This time, the company showed their Commande Series, including a new preamp, sustain, overdrive and phaser. The new effects pedals are enclosed in a durable polycarbonate case with newly-developed circuitry designed for clean, quiet performance and long battery life. The Commande Series also features a universal 'mini-plug' power jack with special filtering circuitry that reduces hum.

And, for those musicians who'd like to "customize" their Rhodes pianos, San Francisco's Dyno My Piano was showing a Tri Stereo Tremolo Kit - a stereo pan incorporating left and right stereo outputs in conjunction with the already existing mono output of the Rhodes. The unit is effective in mono, stereo and multiple channel keyboard systems and features intensity, pulse rate and pan controls. By using separate effects on each piano output, the player can create various choral arrangements of three distinct rotating keyboard sounds. The kit comes complete with the unit, an external power transformer, a name plate, solder, instructions and templates.

Next month we'll continue our tour of the NAMM Expo. I'm going to go soak my feet.