Here is a quick review of what i did:
Showed up to namm on thursday afternoon, as you can see my shuttle bus goes to the hilton and there's not *so* many people standing outside. had a bit of trouble getting in because i forgot to get lil dave's cell # and he had my pass. can you imagine how hard it is to work with that? it's freakin' namm you cant get in without a pass. but i found this innocent clerk who felt bad for me and actually ran to the IK booth for me and i was in the show within 20 minutes (but what a stressful 20 minutes eh?).
the camera went off from then until the next morning, but when i showed up to the show lil' dave came out to get me and he brought me my pass. it was hilarious to see this face all of a sudden, the guy who has been responsible for shipping me all my sounds for a long time. lil' dave is the life of the party. he likes to have a good time but also gets the job done and he works really hard for this company. so i guess i was nervous to meet squids for the first time, felt a little weird that it took me so long to meet him and that i hadnt gone to visit florida earlier. as you know him from the forum he's a really nice guy and it's not *that* scary meeting him. also at this time i met jeez who was standing at the desk holding down the fort. i stayed with jeez for the three nights and he's great. the guy knows his stuff inside out and he's lots of fun. Larry is the best! he's so cool to hang out with i was glad to have met him. he had to leave early and i didnt get to say goodbye to the poor bugger. but my sister lives in chicago so larry if you're reading this im coming to jam soon. hopefully we can throw it down at Kingston Mines
so anywhoo i also met the gang from italy and i enjoyed that a lot. and the rest of the ik staff in the US were also great. everyone opened me with welcome arms. i dont want to start naming everyone and describing more until i talk to squids later.
on thursday night i went to the Keyboard Magazine private party. that's the one magazine that i have been supporting consitently for many years and i have stacks of issues stored away. there were so many amazing keyboard players that night i can barely remember it all but i saw joey defrancesco vs. tony monaco, and tons of great synth players, like patric moraz from YES and Eric Levy from Garaj Mahal. I made friends with Eric and agreed to have him at the booth the next day where i sit down with him and show him Sonik Synth 2 for half an hour. that is thrilling; to show one of your hero's the synth that you love. also at the Keyboard party i met the contributing writer Mike Gallant and he also agreed to see Sonik Synth the next day to his amazement.
oh yeah and it's officially released all the other new IK products that have been unveiled. Amplitube 2, Ampeg Bass, Miroslav, Studiophonik, it's all real folks i saw it with my own eyes. i had four days with the stuff it's all sounding amazing! IK and SR are working their butts off.
so the unfortunate part about friday was we missed squids' set with John Anderson because we wrapped up at the booth and got ready to go over there and their set was short so...
i dont really want to talk about it im kind of bummed about it but the night turned out great anyways. i helped squids pack up the keyboards and had some time to chill with him which was nice. the show was great seeing Earth Wind and Fire, and a whole slew of amazing rock musicians, heard a chunk of the show from the backstage area and it had a real rock concert feel. if you havent seen the lineup of the entire night we'll post it all soon. I chatted with Patrick Moraz backstage and he was debating trying to put a song together even though by that part of the show it was really heavy rock. i kind of helped him come to terms that it probably wasnt going to happen because of what type of show it turned into. see that's the thing about namm right there - it makes musicians want to keep playing and having fun. he's not trying to promote himself or anything and i could totally relate to him backstage having the urge to jump on stage even though by that point of the show it was a throwback to the alternative grunge era with acts like perry ferrel, rather than earlier which dealt with the progressive rockjazz. but i think it wouldve been cool to blend all that since the later groups were also doing a bit of funk rock. i think vernon reid was playing? there was so much going on i could barely keep track of who was playing and who i was looking at backstage.
prog, it was really weird, i thought the party was going to be in a small venue, i dont know LA and i'd never been to the Galaxy, it was a huge concert hall and i was going nuts that i didnt organize a better way to meet with you. so im a bit relieved to know that you didnt make it(yes horrible for me to say that), and i hope to see you soon. the flight wasnt that long and i want to go back to california next opportunity. i also want to go to florida but that's a different story altogether
i gotta wrap this segment up for now, let me just conclude by saying that i showed off the IK/SR stuff to these artists:
Bendrix, the newest guitarist for Ice T's Bodycount was nuts about amplitube and im setting the guy up proper. he really liked me and that made me feel
warm inside
and then he came with the mask so i could get a great pic with him - he did this as a thank you present to me!
Calil, a producer for G-Unit and Xhibit loved my one-on-one showing of Sonik Synth 2 and im going to keep in touch with him.
The guitarist for the current Edgar Winter group-mark meadows had an awesome time viewing my demo of Sonik Synth as well, and im going to try to track him down eventually.
he liked it so much because he does a lot of other music too and that's the thing about Sonik Synth - every type of musician needs it to paint their ideas. he's all about doing soundtracks for commercials and stuff - its a great way to get your ideas out
and of course Eric Levy from Garaj Mahal:
if you love great funk jazz fusion check out http://www.garajmahal.net and try to catch a show soon. in a few months if you see him with a laptop running his vintage key sounds on it, he'd be running sonik synth and you can thank me for showing him all the ins and outs of what Sonik is.
im going to write more about my trip later, and tell everyone about the new products. i have way more pictures of really cool musicians playing amplitube 2 and ampeg, and they sounded great and also they felt great about using the plugin in front of the massive crowds at our booth.
but that's about it for me and celebrity.