Winter NAMM – Day 1 wrap up
Highlights:
- Suhr Modern – new 24 fret model with new body shape, neck joint and neck carve – will own one!
- Suhr Badger 40 watt – with EL34’s - different “flavor” of the original badger – less chime, more midrange snarl – has a solid state rectifier (original Badger has tube recifier)
- Custom Audio Amplifiers – OD100 Standard and OD100 SE Plus – now I understand what all the fuss is about regarding the current version of the standard. The SE Plus is certainly an improvement over the SE, put I think that the current standard suits my tastes better. Still love my OD100 Classic Plus
- Scott Henderson playing in the Suhr sound booth. That was a treat! Scott’s a cool, wacky dude. He brought his Suhr SL100 and played that and a Maxon overdrive to get his sound.
- Reb Beach playing in the Suhr Booth. He actually wound up using Scott Henderson’s amp for his demo. Wild hearing those two players through exactly the same gear! No surprises though in that Scott sounded like Scott and Reb sounded like Reb.
- Enjoyed hanging with John, Steve, Ed, Mike, Chris, Josh and Jarod. These guys are up to something good.
- Soloway Swan – hung with Jim Soloway and got to play one of his Swan guitars at the Fargen booth. Really cool long-scale guitar and great sounding amps.
- Tomo Fujita playing at the Fuchs booth. Always a treat to see Tomo. Need to spend more time at that both on Friday.
- Tim Pierce at the Anderson Guitarworks booth. In speaking with Tim, he revealed the fact that he owns 60 guitars and really doesn’t know what woods are in which guitars. He doesn’t even think about that. He just grabs some guitars when he’s working on a project and sees what works. That surprised me!
- Anderson has a new “thicker” version of the Atom. Looked beautiful. Hope to play it tomorrow.
- Alleva Copolla Guitars – Jimmy Copolla has a beautiful display of his fine craftsmanship. Expect to do a video interview with him tomorrow as well. His bass pickups are sick.
- Diamond Amplification – never tried the amps but the girls were ridiculous.
- Paul Reed Smith – saw David Grissom, the DGT and the new McCarty II. Not quite sure that its all about (PRS booth not demo friendly). Their product line appeared somewhat scaled back. Did get to hear a bit of Johnny Hiland. That guy smokes!
- Marshall Randy Rhodes limited edition amp. Looks cool, never got to hear it.
- Ernie Ball Music Man – nice representation of existing line. Nothing new other than nice display of Family Reserve guitars.
- Saw lots of seemingly foreign vendors. Most looked unhappy that their booths were empty. Saw one guy asleep in his booth – his product was a PA speaker that you could slide a pull-out car radio into. I think that product might be about a decade too late.
- Tone Merchants showcase and jam – Jose Decastro, Robert Marcello, Guthrie Govan and Reb Beach. Each were amazing in their own right. Jam with all the above plus Nick Sterling was total fun! Got to hang with all of them – good times!
I have an extensive amount of video from the day and the Tone Merchants show that I’ll edit an post once I’m back in the office.