January can be a special time to music makers, producers, engineers, and techs when the winter NAMM show comes around to Anaheim. The first full-featured and normally-scheduled edition of this show in its usual winter time slot since the pandemic began, it attracted over 100,000 people from 111 countries, and had nearly 3000 brands exhibiting.
Within this sea of excitement, our team took to the show floor and saw some great and unique offerings:
- Fourier Audio joined the DiGiCo family, releasing the Transform.Engine - a 2RU unit that hosts VST3 plugins in realtime, with fast and reliable operation and seamless integration with select consoles via a DMI expansion board.
- Audient showed the ORIA, the industry's first interface / monitor controller dedicated to immersive monitoring.
- Shure expanded their SLX-D wireless family with a portable receiver and plug-on transmitter, to open up the series to field and ENG use.
- Neumann opened up the world of KMS condenser sound to third party wireless, with their KK 104 U (cardioid) and KK 105 U (supercardioid) being threaded for the Shure/Sony standard.
- Steinberg released WaveLab 12 - the mastering and editing platform of choice for countless engineers got a large upgrade from its predecessor.
- Waves unveiled the SuperRack LiveBox, which hosts both Waves and third-party VST3 plugins in a 2RU box. Connect it anywhere via Dante or MADI.
- Sennheiser showed their new HD 490 PRO headphones, packed with innovative new features for spatial and critical monitoring applications.
- Our partners at Synthax have begun distribution of Marian sound cards, introducing a new Clara E 512 x 512 channel Dante PCIe card.
- Trinnov Audio was proud to announce their long-awaited Nova monitor control with built-in room tuning is now shipping.
- API showed both a redesigned TCS-II channel strip, and a limited edition 5500 stereo EQ.
This is only the beginning of some of the exciting things we saw - take a look at our Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram for more coverage!
Last but not least, we were honored to receive an award as 2023 "Dealer Of The Year" for DirectOut Technologies, from their US distributor Multipoint! (Left to right: Audio Associates' Joe Blacker, Dale Pro Audio's Eric Eldredge, and Multipoint's Tom Bensen)
