Tony Horkins has been down in Mississippi down in New Orleans

Well it makes a change doesn't it?

I've done it in Frankfurt; Manchester and Birmingham were okay, and even in London it was quite enjoyable, but New Orleans? Seems like a good deal to me.

This year's NAMM show was held in the heat and humidity of one of America's most musical states. The streets are lined with music clubs of every description, but it's Jazz that leads the way. Inside the air-conditioned mega-hall it's a more predictable style of music that demands attention — Rock. Even Yamaha let their DX7s and RX11s take a back seat while their guitar and drum lines are worked on in prominent demos. The video report on the show's progress that's screened in the lobby suggests begrudgingly that maybe synthesizers are beginning to show a little promise, but you can't beat a good bass, drums and guitar line up. It's beginning to happen though — I saw one old Blues band that used a Hammond organ as a stand for a Roland synth locked in on a Hammond pre-set.

Before getting to the show I was treated to a two day visit to the Peavey factory about 250 miles outside of New Orleans in Meridian. In America Hartley Peavey and his company commands lot of respect and nearly 500 dealers and their families were quick to respond to his invitation. Peavey now have seven factories and run their operation with the precision and technology of a major Japanese plant, with over 1200 employees and at least 10 million dollars of computer technology in their R&D department.

They had a few new interesting products to show too. They've entered the outboard effects market with a programmable effects processor — the model 4000 — that features microprocessor and signal processing technology providing full MIDI, adjustable delay settings from 0.1 milliseconds to 4095 milliseconds (over 4 seconds) with computer controlled bandwidth. The audio bandwidth is selected at 15kHz for delay settings up to a second. By enabling the LFO the bandwidth can be extended up to 22kHz. Other new products included a Studio Chorus 70, a scaled down version of their Stereo Chorus, and more interestingly the Programmax 10, a new combo featuring 10 presets for sounds that can be activated from a MIDI source. Peavey are also one of the few to have developed a combo, specifically for use with electronic drums.

These products were obviously on display at the show, and so were many, many more; far too many to mention here. But here's a few...

Korg unveiled their new digital waveform synth — the DW-8000 and accompanying EX expander. It's an eight voice polyphonic 64-sound memory programmable fitted with Korg's original digital waveform generator system. It also features built in programmable digital delay offering echo, flanging, chorus and other effects. The keyboard can affect volume, timbre and modulation intensity which are programmable for each sound. Other features include an auto bend function, dual digital six-part envelope generators and full MIDI. Other newies included a MIDI recorder, the SQD-1, that has a 15000 note capacity with a Quick Disk storage of up to 30,000 notes or about 10 songs per double sided disk. They've also got new digital delay and digital chorus pedals.

Akai introduced the AX60, a six voice programmable poly to accompany its already established AX80. It's got built in MIDI, digital delay, unison function, key split function, stereo chorus and arpeggiator, all for a projected £699. They also have a few rack mountable effects: the ME10D is a MIDI digital delay with a delay of up to 1000 ms; the ME15F is a MIDI dynamics controller equipped with one channel-input and five channel-output fader functions; the ME20A is a MIDI sequence arpeggiator enabling you to play arpeggios automatically on your MIDI instrument. All these boxes should sell for £199 apiece. Akai have also greatly expanded the library for their digital sampler.

The much talked about Kurzweil was on display along with two new additions, a 250 expander which is the controls without the keyboard, and the MIDIboard which is the keyboard without the controls. Now you too can build your own...

Big news on the Yamaha stand was the RX21 and DX21. The RX21 is their new drum box designed like their TX7 featuring nine voices, 100 patterns (56 programmable, 44 preset) and four songs. Price is £275. The DX21 is a 61 note keyboard with dual FM tone generation, four operators, eight algorithms, 128 ROM internal. Controls include pitch bend wheel, modulation wheel, volume, balance and data entry and a 16 character two line LCD display. A major plus is that it also features a 32 performance memory system that can recall information like play modes, split assignments etc and a built in stereo chorus effect. Price is £795. For the bass player Yamaha displayed a headless model which looked very striking with two eight pole piece humbucking pickups.

Roland had a few surprises up their sleeves too. Their recently launched electronic drum kit has had all its sounds updated and the price drastically reduced to compete with Simmons' newest models. The brain now costs £999, the bass pad £175 and the other pads £85. They also launched the SBX-10, which is a cheaper version of the SBX-80 at £299, and the G-77 bass guitar controller with GR-77B bass guitar synth. This expansion in guitar synthesis apparently has outstanding tracking capabilities.

And while on the subject of guitar synthesis Voyetra launched their MIDI guitar, the Octave Plateau. Rather than follow the familiar pitch-to-voltage method, the Voyetra's strings have their own separate output. The neck on this guitar knows what you're up to and converts that information into MIDI signals. When you bend the string up the pitch goes up, when you bend the string down it goes down. Like Britain's Synthaxe, the tuning and pitch of the strings have no significance in this process. A keyboard programmer on the guitar lets you call up different control settings and an eight-digit readout tells you what's going on. US price is around $1500, but it will obviously be substantially more when it reaches UK shores.

Contrary to popular belief, Oberheim are definitely still in business but are now a division of the ECC Development Corporation. In other words they've got a few more bucks, and more interestingly a couple of new products. The Matrix-6 combines their Matrix Modulation System with a touch sensitive keyboard. Basically it features two DCOs, two LFOs and the keyboard features after-touch pressure. They also showed the DMS, a digital MIDI sampler/EPROM programmer. It samples a sound to a maximum length of over 5 seconds and can be played from any MIDI source. Once stored it can be edited, reversed, mixed and overdubbed.

Getting down to more Rock and Roll matters, Fender showed an extensive range including a few newies; too many to go through in detail here, but we'll be taking a closer look over the next few months.

Washburn have been putting a lot of effort into producing a more affordable guitar and have some very attractive new models. Their new G-10 looked particularly good — expect a review shortly.

Sabian had some very interesting additions to their ever-increasing cymbal line, including some 10" mini hats, a 12" Rock splash, an 18" Rocktagon — an eight sided cymbal — and an excellent new Leopard ride, hand hammered and very heavy.

The British

Nice to see the British contingent well represented. Apart from the mega-stands of the likes of Simmons, Marshall and Vox, there were stands from Premier, Custom Sound, Knight, Overwater, Carlsbro, HH (with their new VX series) Cerebrum, Studiomaster, Tannoy, Fane and Rotosound.

A few new products they had between them too. Marshall showed us the Studio 15, a 15-watt tube output fitted with a 12" speaker. Small box, massive sound. This small lark must be catching on, because Vox too featured the Busker combo delivering 10 watts RMS into an 8" speaker.

A&HB must have been happy with our recent CMC 24 mixer review because they've now introduced a 16 and 32 track version of the same. Studiomaster had a new mixer too in the shape of the 12M, a 12 output monitor console designed specifically for stage monitoring purposes. It's available in 16, 24, 32 or 40 input versions built into a flightcase. Sticking with desks for a bit longer, Soundtracs were showing their expandable mixers, with expander modules available in groups of four channel units to expand the 16-4-2 master mixer.

The unexpected

As always at these shows there's the products which may never see the light of day in England but which feature some great original ideas. Purecussion have an entire four piece kit with stands (no snare) that collapses into a case no bigger that a cymbal case. Called RIMS it's just that, and sounded great in the demo room. Anyone interested can contact Purecussion on (Contact Details). Price in the US is $675.

A firm called Shark had a snappy idea with their bass drum pedal that didn't need a bass drum. Designed for use with electronic drums the pedal is guided by steel shafts and hits a piezoelectric transducer. It's remarkably quick to use and very responsive. US price is $329 and it's available from Magnesium Guitars, (Contact Details)

There was this other nutter demonstrating a product he calls Typit. Basically he's taking Casio keyboards, ripping out the keyboard (invalidating the guarantee I hasten to add) and putting in a typewriter keyboard. He then writes out the music of popular songs using letters from the keyboard which enables typists to play music. Get yours today from Musical Keyboard MFG, (Contact Details).

There were a couple of slightly more serious products too. 360 Systems had a unit they were calling MIDI Bass, which can hold up to four digitally encoded bass samples. Link it to any keyboard or sequencer with MIDI and you've got real bass sounds from an extensive library. US price is $399 for two sounds and $499 for four.

For real bass players came what has to be the star bass of the show. The Factor made by Philip Kubicki, featured the kind of things you wonder why no-one else features. With a rotary ratchet on the bridge you can change a string in about 10 seconds and the headstock has an extra clip for the bottom string to take it down to a low D. This and many other great features bring the price to around $1300. Write to the company at (Contact Details).

Nady have also done something you wish you'd have thought of — built a guitar transmitter into their own guitar and bass. It'll be a while until they reach England and they won't be cheap when they do, but what a great idea.

The Player company of New York had a good idea too — interchangeable pickups. They slot in and out in about 30 seconds and music shops around the US are already stocking replacement pickups of all kinds on the right mounting. Now you can hear what that new pickup sounds like before you buy it and wire it. Write to the Player Instrument Corporation at (Contact Details).

Finally, creating a bit of a stir was IVL's Pitchrider 4000 and 7000. The 4000 links a microphone and its signal to a box that converts it to a MIDI signal. That way you can play a DX7 with a sax, for example, or sing with the voice of a JX8P. The 7000 is a guitar to MIDI interface — just jack it into your guitar and play any MIDI synth from it. Price in the US is around $1000 and more info from IVL tecnologies, (Contact Details).

There were plenty of other things, large and small, some of which we'd seen at Frankfurt and the APRS, and some that we haven't. As always there's not room for everyone so apologies for those not included.

There's always the BMF report...