Summer Namm

[john12ax7]

Anyone going? I know some people who are. Having an indoor gathering with people from all over the world in close proximity seems not the greatest idea to me.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Summer NAMM sucks even without covid... I remember the last summer NAMM in Chicago, also called "the wake on the lake". IIRC the summer NAMM shows used to be in June, that could be a little chilly in Chicago if the hawk was blowing. July in Nashville will be hot and wet.

Good city for live music and bars (even some brew pubs). I wouldn't expect much of a trade show turnout, but I have no inside info.

JR

 

[pucho812]

I went. It’s been good. They, the convention center, did a good job of keeping it clean, covid safe and so forth. My free ticket for working a booth was better. Nashville has changed over the years but is still a nice time, way different then l.a. or winter namm.
anyone want a breakdown. I saw some things.
I go back to l.a. and back to mask mandates upon arrival. Doesn’t bother me but still something going on.

 

[Matador]

Summer NAMM sucks even without covid...

Your old Peavey coworkers appear to agree with you, judging by the amount of effort they put into their booth this year:

 

[pucho812]

Surprisingly there was a good turnout, way more then expected. As always there were some regulars who’s entire purpose is to try and convince you, that if you give them gear for free, they will promote and get you more sale. Can’t pay employees on exposure bucks

 

[PermO]

Your old Peavey coworkers appear to agree with you, judging by the amount of effort they put into their booth this year:

LOL

Did you get some stickers ?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Your old Peavey coworkers appear to agree with you, judging by the amount of effort they put into their booth this year:

IIRC there were consequences for not having any booth at all, like getting bumped to the bottom of the list for space assignments at future shows.

I never completely understood the trade show dynamic, it was like trying to impress other manufacturers, magazines, and dealers. I doubt that postage stamp booth will impress anyone, but I like it.

JR

 

[pucho812]

LOL

Did you get some stickers ?

Yes but from avid. They had 2 x booth ladies walking around giving out free stickers and shirts, but no booth

 

[pucho812]

o.k. so should we discuss some show highlights?

1. The augspurger lawsuit. For those that do not know, George L augspurger, is involved with a lawsuit over augspurger speakers which are pimped by pro audio design. The issue here, is George does not have any involvement with them in any capacity. PAD was trying to trademark the name "augspurger" for their speakers. They are currently involved in legal proceedings. Funny to watch folks try and defend their position with phrases like it's just a last name.

 

[JohnRoberts]

o.k. so should we discuss some show highlights?

1. The augspurger lawsuit. For those that do not know, George L augspurger, is involved with a lawsuit over augspurger speakers which are pimped by pro audio design. The issue here, is George does not have any involvement with them in any capacity. PAD was trying to trademark the name "augspurger" for their speakers. They are currently involved in legal proceedings. Funny to watch folks try and defend their position with phrases like it's just a last name.

That is pretty deplorable..... I hope he smokes them...

JR

 

[pucho812]

That is pretty deplorable..... I hope he smokes them...

JR

Me too, George is a friend. He is also up there in age. He still designs rooms and is still working. At his house he has a set of speakers he made for himself that are to die for.

Here is the current status on all filings pertaining to this.

lawsuit

 

[john12ax7]

Was the original name ever trademarked? Even if not there would still be some prior use, it was already an established trade name.

 

[JohnRoberts]

You shouldn't have to trademark your own name... BUT many actors and famous people do.

If that company is selling speakers for thousands of dollars each, they should make him an offer too good to refuse, and then maybe work with him on a design, but I suspect that isn't going to happen.

========

Of course I have a "too much info" story.

Back last century while at Peavey we decided to make an automatic mixer for our fixed install division. Dan Dugan clearly had the superior technology, but his patent was about to expire, making that superior technology public domain and free to use. I dragged my feet to delay our product release until after the technology was public domain.

During that development period I approached Dan at an AES show (in a booth about the size of that Peavey booth). I asked him if he had any interest in working with Peavey so we could take advantage of his name value selling AM into the professional instal market. He said he had no interest in licensing the technology to Peavey and only he knew how to make automatic mixers that don't suck.

Pretty much the wrong thing to say to me, because I already knew how to design automatic mixers (that don't suck). I even got an improvement patent issued for a feature in my design that I developed for the Peavey AM. Years later Dan actually licensed his technology to one or more small companies, but most serious manufacturers by then knew the Dugan technology was public domain.

Ironically perhaps, years later Dan came into the Peavey booth inquiring whether we might consider building his Digital AM for him as an OEM/contract manufacturer. Not our primary business and his sales volume was not enough make this worth considering. By then our AM products were well established, we even had an AM software routine in the Peavey Media Matrix digital platform.

JR

 

[pucho812]

There where some other highlights as well.

For starters saw some great studios as they had some summer NAMM gatherings. Blackbird is amazing and we got to listen to many atmos mixes in their atmos room. I saw telefunken mic serial number 001 and saw a stereo telefunken 250 mic. Good god was there a lot of gear that was ridiculously impressive as it was rare. Addiction studios also had a party and that place was cool. They ran a couple of trident TSM boards. The one in their studio A was rescued from the government. It's a story for sure, but basically and to the best of my recollection, the owner of the studio that had it was cooking meth and got busted. The studio was his meth lab so the government seized everything. it happens that the console was moved before the government raid and they procured it. As far as the gov was concerned, if it was not on the premisses at the time of the bust, it's cleared. Funny how the berry hill section of town is mainly all houses and some were converted to recording studios. Other places in berry hill included the house of blues studios which was purchased by UMG(universal music group). I don't know if they have plans for that or not.

Gear wise, There was some new things. As mentioned the Augspurger thing but they also had a new monitor that is basically a nearfield using a tiny horn and woofer in a 2 way configuration. It looked cute. LOL When I went to demo it, they didn't have any internet connection so I was stuck with their list of songs and none of them would be songs I would listen to or demo speakers with. Anyway 10K for that action, but at least it comes with an amp. I wouldn't consider supporting such a venture.

Other things of note is I saw a hardware version of a mic emulator. Was checking out the mic pre, eq, compressor combo box(not a rack mount). And it sounded pretty good. The eq was nice, the compressor a one knob was simple to use and not bad, the preamp sounded quite nice. Then the demo kicked in where in their preamp section they have what they call the golden channel or something like that. You hit a button turning it on and can blend that in with your mic signal. The golden circuit is an analog representation of a u-47 microphone. The idea is you can blend that in with your mic signal and have a u-47 with any mic you use. Sounds like a gimmick for sure but the unit when not using the golden circuit held it's own. So I can't knock it really, just funny to see a slate style virtual emulation in analog form.

Paul wolf and fix have a new EQ. the knobs were too small for me, but oh well. so what, it was good. They also have an LED meter you can now do on the flex consoles he is doing. I like it but paul prefers the old analog vu meter. oh well to each their own.

There was the usual over abundance of instrument manufactures. Being how summer NAMM is smaller and less expensive, it brings the real small companies out of the woodwork. I will admit there are some making some real nice guitars. I wish I could really play one. LOL

 

[JohnRoberts]

There was the usual over abundance of instrument manufactures. Being how summer NAMM is smaller and less expensive, it brings the real small companies out of the woodwork. I will admit there are some making some real nice guitars. I wish I could really play one. LOL

Summer NAMM was always more of a regional show, while winter NAMM attracted international participation.

JR

 

[groselicain]

Funny how the berry hill section of town is mainly all houses and some were converted to recording studios. Other places in berry hill included the house of blues studios which was purchased by UMG(universal music group). I don't know if they have plans for that or not.

Well it's certainly in use currently—they just removed the House Of Blues name on the buildings and replaced it with East Iris, the name of the street. I know of at least one band that's been in there for the last several months, but they're also signed to Universal. Berry Hill is a very strange place, indeed, though. Both Vintage King and Westlake are there, though Vintage King is currently moving elsewhere. One of two main gear brokers was there—he may still be, for all I know. He changed his business name after getting involved with Sphere and I've only been in contact through email since. Like you said, the Blackbird compound is there—from the road you really have no idea what you're looking at with all those buildings cobbled together. But nearly four out of every five houses there is a studio. For those who aren't from here, it must be hysterical to think about having three competitors sharing your property lines.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It is not an accident that Nashville is called "music city".

JR

 

[pucho812]

Well it's certainly in use currently—they just removed the House Of Blues name on the buildings and replaced it with East Iris, the name of the street. I know of at least one band that's been in there for the last several months, but they're also signed to Universal. Berry Hill is a very strange place, indeed, though. Both Vintage King and Westlake are there, though Vintage King is currently moving elsewhere. One of two main gear brokers was there—he may still be, for all I know. He changed his business name after getting involved with Sphere and I've only been in contact through email since. Like you said, the Blackbird compound is there—from the road you really have no idea what you're looking at with all those buildings cobbled together. But nearly four out of every five houses there is a studio. For those who aren't from here, it must be hysterical to think about having three competitors sharing your property lines.

VK moved out of berry hill over to east nashville on gallatin ave.

 

[groselicain]

VK moved out of berry hill over to east nashville on gallatin ave.

So it's open again? I'm in the process of buying the API that was the showroom demo desk and it sounded like everything was still in flux, so I didn't even bother going by this week. I know that desk has already been shipped back to Michigan for service, though, so it's not like it would've done me any good.

Speaking of showrooms—I promise I'm not trying to derail the conversation at hand—I was just in the Westlake showroom Monday and I was completely flummoxed by the layout. They've got this gigantic desk with computer screens in the middle and a 1608 all the way to the right. This desk has to be twelve feet wide, no exaggeration. So if you want to bring a mix in to put up across the console—which is what I did—you've got to slide back and forth something like seven feet just to get near the center of the monitors from having your hands on the faders. I know they had a lot of folks there last week since they've got an Atmos setup as well, but why on earth even have the console in there if you're not going to set it up in a useful way?

Anyway, I wish I had known you'd be in town, I gladly would've bought you a beer.

 

[pucho812]

I don't know if VK''s new room is officially open but I do know they did a sneak peak at NAMM last week. I had the invite but couldn't make it as I had other obligations at the same time.
Yeah I wish i would have said something, I gladly would have bought a round for all as well.