Hey Cory Lamb here on B.S.E. records at NAMM on the first day. Chilling with my favorite manufactures and making many new friends. I also went and talk to cakewalk about some new solfware powered by intel to use on my new up and coming album. I also headed over to my favorite mic. brand audio-technica and ran into Timothy B. Schmit. and his enginer Hank linderman.

and also heading over to see my friends at ultimite ears to check out there new product. and while blogging I also ran in to Leland Sklar one of the nices guys on the planet.

okay guys ttyl have a great time at NAMM

Hi Rory — great to see you again! Well, we’re in hour 1 of the Winter NAMM show…what are you looking for?

Hi !! This is Rory Kaplan representing Intel

I always look forward to the NAMM show as technology has come a long way, and what I look for is how technology can make the creative process flow, rather than worry about what the stats are of a device.

I’m here because Intel’s Core 2 processors are the heart of what I do in creating and producing tracks or surround sound mixes. I’m looking forward to seeing what other companies are doing in the advacement of technology, and how it contributes to the creative content process.

Enjoy the show !!

Rory

Building on a solid 1.0 release, M-Audio unveiled Torq 1.5 today, and it’s packed with new features to this up-and-coming DJ software. Let’s get right to the juicy new bits.

Improved Tempo/Pitch Alteration

•Tempo Anchors allow marking tracks with varying tempos—Torq’s effects and samples follow the tempo changes in the song

•Tempo Master assigns a playing track to serve as the master tempo source for all tempo-related functions

Advanced MIDI Control

•Transmit/receive MIDI beat clock for synchronization with other hardware/software and easy switching between DJs

•MIDI soft takeover prevents parameter jumps when using external controllers

New User Interface Features

•Hide Mixer option conserves screen space

•Preview songs in headphones before loading to deck

•New database categories for bit rate, file type, year and label

•Select multiple files to add to playlists

•Musical Style Preferences improve results when analyzing tracks

•Drag and drop songs into decks while in browser max view

•Warning message if loading a new song onto a Deck that is playing

•Warning message when attempting to exit Torq

•Global Tempo metronome can be monitored in headphones

•Auto Gain feature matches the gain levels between decks

Enhanced Effects Processing

•Internal effects can be grouped into effects chains

•VST effect tempo synchronizes with tempo of playing deck

•Effects can be used in a post-fader configuration

Rock-Solid Integration with Traditional DJ Hardware

•Skip Protection keeps the music playing even if the Control Vinyl or CD skips

•True Key Lock keeps the pitch constant when adjusting external turntable speed

New Looping Functionality

•Loop Points can be set after a section plays

•New QuickLoop option for CDJ-style loop division

•Quantize function for start/stop accuracy

I just sat in on the KRK press conference and saw their breakthrough room correction box they’re calling Ergo. The desktop unit is not speaker-dependent so you can use them with your current setup and the DSP is resident in the box making it truly independent of a host computer. It not only corrects your audio room zombies but offers switching and separate correction of two sets of speakers, has a headphone out switchable between two sources and a large analog speaker level controller. The MAP is $599.

It’s 10am and I think I’ve already seen 4, 227 products. The behemoth that is Digidesign just finished their press conference, and between Digi, M-Audio, Sibelius and the other partners in the group, there were new products for every market segment, ranging from Pro Tools upgrades to music apps for schoolkids.

Prez Dave Lebolt talked about the company’s breadth of products that now reach everyone from entry-level to top-end, giving customers options to upgrade all the way as they grow. The big push at this show is music creation: Pro Tools 7.4, for example, features a hot new tool called Elastic Audio, which lets users time stretch and fit vocals, drums, etc, without compromising sound quality. Speaking of Elastic Audio, don’t miss our hot Power Tools tips column next month, to learn more about this powerful tool.

They also showed a new Virtual Instruments “Box set,” offering a bunch of VI plug-ins, at a $400 discount. We also checked out the MBox 2 micro, a portable PT LE solution on a USB key. The Mbox 2 mini is also sold in Digi’s new entry-level Pro Tools Presonal Studio bundles, featuring PT LE, plug-ins, and a bunch of other goodies, starting at $495. M-Audio showed their flagship new Profile 2626 firewire I/O, with 26 ins and out and an onboard DSP mixer. Check it out-it’s sweet…

We also checked out Venue updates, Sibelius upgrades, headphones, speakers, digital console pianos and more.

And for the entry ENTRY level, Sibelius’ Groovy app lets kids age 5 and up place sound modules in a cool animated environment, and even compose…

After all that, I missed the Torque after-party press conference, but Markkus from Remix is on deck to tell you all about it…

There’s only a few more days before Winter NAMM commences in Anaheim, Calif. And the editors of EM, Remix and Mix will be there each day, scouring the floor for hot new products, blogging, podcasts, videos and so much more! Check out www.emusician.com/ms/wnamm08 for all your Winter NAMM pro audio needs!

—The Editors

I recently installed Windows Vista on my MacBook Pro. Now it‘s a Windows laptop, and unless I choose to restart in Mac OS X, it will remain a Windows laptop. I already have another laptop running Windows XP, but the Intel-based Apple hardware is far superior to my Dell Latitude D610.

The latest version of Apple‘s operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) features the official release of Boot Camp. The version in Tiger was a public beta, and I wanted to wait until Boot Camp was finalized before installing it. Unlike with the beta, you no longer need to burn a disc containing Windows drivers for the Mac; they‘re all included on Apple‘s Leopard installer disc.

Once I‘d installed Vista, I began installing Vista-compatible audio software, including Cakewalk Sonar 7 and Adobe Audition 3. I‘m using an M-Audio Ozonic for my audio and MIDI interface, along with M-Audio‘s Vista-compatible beta driver. Everything works fine, so far, with no surprises. I‘ll let you know how things progress in the next few weeks as I actually begin recording projects. In the meantime, has anyone else been running Vista on a Mac?

On Thursday night, I caught the final show of the Unlimited Sunshine Tour, which was headlined by Cake, the quirky, understated, and often brilliant alt-rock band that blends intelligent songwriting, solid-but-not-flashy musicianship, and an eclectic mix of stylistic influences. The show, at New York’s new Terminal 5 venue, also featured four other acts: Agent Ribbons, Oakley Hall, King City, and Brazilian Girls ; which were whisked on and off stage in a very efficient manner to keep things moving with virtually no intermissions (often while one band played on one side of the stage, roadies were furiously taking down or setting up on the other).

By the time Cake–which was promoting it’s recently released CD, B-Sides and Rarities (Upbeat, 2007)–hit the stage at a little after 10:00 PM (the show started at 7:30), the place was packed with the band’s loyal followers, who sang along with virtually every song. McCrea complained of having limited vocal range due to a cold, but Cake was still able to crank out almost an hour and a half of their material. The band’s set drew selections from most of their 6-album catalog (with the exception of their most recent studio CD, Pressure Chief), and included many of their most well-known tunes including their two most popular tunes, “Short-Skirt Long Jacket,” and “The Distance,” but also covering more obscure selections such as their cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the Kenny Rogers hit “Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town), as well as their own “Comfort Eagle,” and “Guitar,” among many others.

Cake’s blends a solid rock rhythm section, Xan McCurdy’s tasteful guitar playing, McCrea’s acoustic guitar (he plays a small, parlor-sized acoustic through a little amp on stage, getting a thin and intentionally cheesy sound) and Vince DiFiore’s trumpet and synth parts. The trumpet is a key to Cake’s original sound, providing many of the riffs for the songs, and acting as counterpoint to McCrea’s vocals. DiFiore’s understated synth playing mainly sticks to single-note, analog-sounding lines (Fiore was playing what appeared to be a Yamaha S30 keyboard, but I couldn’t tell what was MIDIed to it).

McCrea showed his uncanny ability to get the audience involved in sing-along and clapping segments (he sometimes instructs one side of the club to try to sing louder than the other). Typical of the band’s quirky humor, gave away several young trees near the end of the show, instructing the winners that they must take pictures of themselves with the trees once planted and send them to Cake’s Web site).

Brazilian Girls, which played directly before Cake, featured the sultry vocals of Sabina Sciubba, and a lot of very catchy synth-based pop. San Francisco’s King City provided two short sets of catchy Latin-tinged acoustic instrumental music.

I recently got a new Mac Pro, and decided–contrary to my usual policy of waiting a while when new OS versions are released–to upgrade to Leopard right away. I knew I’d be facing some incompatibility issues, but figured, as long as Logic, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and Word worked (which they do), I’d be able to get by.

As it turns out, most of my software either worked out of the box, or was upgradeable from company Web sites. Two rather important exceptions were Pro Tools and my Waves plug-ins (I have the Musician’s Bundle II), neither of which support Leopard. I assumed that Digidesign and Waves would have already offered Leopard compatible apps and plug-ins by now (it’s been several weeks since Leopard hit), but so far, they haven’t. Hopefully, that will change soon, but if you heavily use either Pro Tools or Waves plugs, you should definitely wait to upgrade.

Now, to Leopard itself. The following are some random thoughts about my experiences with it so far. This is not a comprehensive look, but rather just some musings on some of the features I’ve used. There are so many new items in Leopard, there are certainly plenty of new items I haven’t even tried yet.

So far, I’ve been impressed with a number of the new additions. The Spaces feature lets you designate up to four separate desktops for different applications, and you can switch between them with key commands. As somebody who often has a ton of programs open, I find this to be a very cool feature. I’m still getting used to using it, and sometimes find myself trying to open programs in the wrong Space, but it will definitely help reduce the dreaded window clutter.

Another Leopard feature that I’ve found extremely handy is Quick Look. It allows you to actually look (or listen to or watch) a file without having to open the application. I’ve found it very useful when I’m auditioning loops that are in a finder window. All you have to do is select the file and hit the spacebar, and boom, it plays (in the case of an audio or movie file) or opens a preview (in the case of a document or picture). Very cool.

One of the Leopard features getting a lot of attention is Time Machine, which is a backup utility with some pretty neat features. For instance it lets you look back to versions of backed up files previous to the most recent, allowing you to restore a file to a state from a particular date. I tried to set it up for backing up my work files, but found that it’s overly simplified interface didn’t allow for enough customization for my needs. Also, my backup drives are of the same size as my primary drives, and with Time Machine, you really need a backup drive that’s considerably larger. That’s because it’s saving multiple copies of files. So, at least for the moment, I’m sticking with SuperDuper for backing up my system drive (it also has the advantage of making a bootable backup, which Time Machine doesn’t do), and ChronoSync for my file backups.

I’m impressed with the new version of Mail that comes with Leopard. It integrates To Do items (syncable to iCal) and a notepad, and looks sleeker. In general, the new Leopard look, which includes translucent menus, is pretty cool. I’m not crazy about the new folder look, however. Apple has done away with colored folders. You can assign a label (and therefore a color) to a Folder, but it only affects the name underneath, not the folder itself. As a result, the folders are a little dull looking to my view.

From a performance standpoint, Leopard generally seems to run pretty smoothly for me. However, I have been seeing the dreaded spinning beach ball more often than I did in Tiger (I have increased the number of drives in my system, so that may be a lot of it, as the beachball appears when your Mac is switching drives). Occasionally, things seem to get hung up and there’s a little delay before my computer responds to a key press. Perhaps I need to do a clean install and reinstall the system to get it to run a little more efficiently (ugh, I hope not), but I’ll wait and see. Perhaps upcoming Leopard upgrades (I’m running 10.5.1 right now) will solve that.

Overall, I don’t regret making the move. I find Leopard’s new features to be very useful for the most part, and I’m confident that the apps I have that aren’t supported yet will be soon.

A year after Bob Moog‘s death in 2005, several of his friends and family established the Bob Moog Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to honoring his contributions to music. In February, what began as a purely volunteer organization hired its namesake‘s daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa, as its first full-time executive director. The Foundation‘s purpose is to encourage innovation through scholarships, outreach programs, and community events.

The fledgling Foundation‘s first goal, however, has been to raise awareness of its mission. A more long-term goal is to establish a Bob Moog Museum to house his personal archives, which include prototypes, recordings, and various other objects that represent his life‘s work. But because those archives are already threatened by the ravages of time and neglect, the most immediate need is to preserve them. To raise money to do that, tonight the Bob Moog Foundation staged an event called, “Enter the Mind of Moog.” It was held at the Orange Peel, the same music venue that hosted Bob‘s memorial service a couple of years ago. I traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, to attend the event. I recorded some interviews with a few of the participants, and by Monday you should be able to view video clips of those interviews on EM’s video/events site.