NAMM opens for four days in Anaheim

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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide presents an ongoing series of reports from the music industry's biggest annual trade show. Here is the first of these.
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NAMM REPORT:
From The Luthier's Chest
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by Nowell Siegel
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[Nowell is a professional luthier and correspondent for the Acoustic Americana Music Guide. You can reach him through his website, www.livingtreemusic.com. This is his report on "day one" at NAMM, Thursday, January 24, 2013.]
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Taking notes at the annual NAMM Show at the Anaheim Convention Center complex is daunting. The sheer enormity of the event is more than can be encompassed in the short space of four very full days.
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A vast array of vendors are showing their latest greatest gadjets and innovations. And they're from all over the world. China, especially, presented many vendors that are now intertwined and almost indistinguishable in and from American business.
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Huge crowds of people milled about, gobbling up samples, and watching showcase demos. With multiple floors and entrances, you could start anywhere.
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Discovering Mari Strings was a special joy. Mr. Daniel Mari, at age 85, was in a small, unassuming booth with packaged strings behind him. We almost walked right by, but to the side were some "churangos," visually attractive 8-string instruments made in Bolivia. These instruments caught my eye. I'm glad they did. In addition to learning about them and the importer in Philadelphia, we learned that he strings them all with Daniel Mari Strings.
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Mr. Mari's family has been making strings in Italy since the 1600's. Moving to New York City in the 1940s, he was at his first NAMM show, in Chicago, the year he arrived in America, in 1946. He has attended and exhibited at every NAMM Show since.

Mr. Mari told us a brief colorful history of the business. Every name I mentioned was his relative or good friend. He had made strings for Jimi Hendrix, and was at Woodstock with Jimi.
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He made the strings for John Lennon's 6-Foot-Guitar. "Everybody knows everybody" in the string business," he said. "You have your customers, you don't take other people's customers,"he added.
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A brief discussion about Wal-Mart worked into the conversation, in that context of fair and unfair trade practices. Daniel Mari talks with pride of his employees, and notes, with emphasis, "New York City has kept Wal-Mart out. They are anti-union, that's a big factor. No one wants Wal-Mart to come there."
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Then, things got back to strings, his favorite topic. His company used to make gut strings for tennis rackets. Thay put him in a position to see technologic innovations from multiple perdpectives. He saw the early potential of the then-new nylon, and was one of the first to put nylon strings on guitars.
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You can still get gut strings, but only from his nephew, at La Bella Strings, a spin-off that's now independent.
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Joseph, who shares the Mari booth, showed several of his Bolivian "Churangos." These all hand-made instruments range from $300-700, quite reasonable for the quality.
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One especially interesting thing about them is the bodies are carved from ONE piece of wood, a wood called Naranjillo. The tops are Engelman spruce and the fingerboards are Bolivian rosewood. Really amazing craftsmanship here.
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With so much to see, we even ventured into the DJ equipment, stage truss manufacturers, and stage and lighting area. Laser beams criss-crossed, and patterned strobes pumped to the thump of dance beat in time.
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A few caught our interest. 3H systems had a large booth, fancy and high tech. Alpha sphere, an English Company, had a globe midipad device called "Alphashere" with touch pads all around, and as you press or tap they send midi to the program, Mac or Windows compatible, for $2,000.
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CMAL had a lookalike of the vintage Neuman U47 mic setup. It's purported to be made by the guy who repaired the original Neumans. He has developed a "solid state" tube design using the same Geifel capsule. This and other vendors are trying to capture a growing "Vintage" market. The actual vintage stuff is very hard to get nowadays and costs big bucks when you can find it.
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Harmon industries had a resort section with a theater-style entrance. Inside, you could see product offerings from the once independent subsidiaries, now part of the larger Harmon corporation. These include Harmon, JBL, Soundcraft, dbx, and more.
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Soundcraft had a digital mixer with LEDs around knobs displaying levels, kinda cool. The faders did not glide smoothly, but maybe I wasn't supposed to touch them (automation?) You could tell this thing was feature-packed and pricey.
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UAD Universal Audio has refined their Apollo interface. It has 4 mic preamps and line/digital inputs, firewire and Thunderbolt connectivity. The signal is handled in their unit, so little computer power is taken up. One advantage with the higher speeds >2ms, is that realtime compression and effects can be recorded. It sells for $2000.
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There's news from capo-land, from both leading competitors, Shubb and Kyser.
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Shubb Capos has a new design with a roller underneath the bottom bar. This makes for a very smooth action and improves on an already great product. I learned that they modelled the rubber to match human fingers. This, I was told, makes for better intonation and sound. They have come out with many different colors for personel preference. Anodized aluminum, Nickel Brass and steel will give different qualities to a guitar sound.
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Kyser also have introduced 4 more colors to an already impressive color list. Bright yellow, Emerald Green, Lavender, and Bright orange. All together, they offer 18 colors to fit whatever "look" you want, or match that artsy-colorful instrument.
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In case the "big store" (your local guitar shop) doesn't have it, you can order the products online from either capo maker.
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At Luna Guitars, makers of many beautiful designs, we chatted with their rep, Dennis. They exhibed Sseveral really unique designs if soundhole adornments. Luna offers an accessory that allows recording the guitar right into the computer, through an ordinary USB cable. Based in Tampa Florida, they do import from China to keep the costs down.
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Dusty Strings, a name beloved in Southern California from their many years of festival spobsirships, showed very reasonably-priced Hammer Dulcimers and Harps of several sizes.
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Based in Seattle, Washington, Dusty Strings  manufactures their entire line in a shop with 28 people, where making the instruments is a group effort.
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They are especially proud of their pick-up for harps. To properly amplify the harp is difficult, at best. They designed and sell their pickup that gives clarity to each string.
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Their Hammered Dulcimers range from $550 to $850 for the package. Harps begin at $650, tand custom pickups are $295 ( you can isntall or pay them to do it).
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We spent some enjoyable time with Richard of  Santa Cruz Guitars, anticipating Friday's performance at their booth by western music great Don Edwards. We admired the signature model unveiled by Don two years ago at NAMM. These are fine instruments.
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As a first-timer here, I learned that a full day at NAMM just isn't long enough. (The editor, a NAMM veteran, had said that four days are never enough!) More to come, after Friday's experiences in Anaheim.
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Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
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