For those looking for gear talk, please check out my lengthy Geartalk blog about NAMM.  This is more just musings on the show itself.

This year, I had a lot of work to do there for the publishing company I work for, so there wasn’t as much time to just wander and enjoy.  But as ever, I love NAMM as a social event, meeting exhibitors that I really only get to see at these trade shows.  And it is fun to walk around and feel the enthusiasm—and I don’t mean the manufactured enthusiasm of the exhibitors (although, to be fair, some of manufacturer enthusiasm is quite real), but the enthusiasm of full- and part-time musicians and users of these great tools and toys, who have that “kid in a candy store” joy at being there.

I have gone to so many NAMM shows at this point that the novelty of it is mostly gone.  That’s not to say it’s “just a job” at this point, I still enjoy going, both for the reasons above and just to keep up to date with the latest and greatest.  But I’ve been going long enough to judge each NAMM against previous NAMMs.  And this one was noticeably smaller than previous shows.  That makes sense for a number of reasons.  First, the economy wasn’t good.  I’m sure many exhibitors who wanted to go, couldn’t.  And it was impossible not to be surprised at how much empty exhibitor space there was this year.

But there’s something else in effect as well.  As time marches on, trade shows themselves aren’t nearly the focal points they used to be.  The original point of the NAMM show is that the organization’s buyers would invite the organizations sellers (manufacturers, developers, distributors) to show their wares, so that the buyers could see them and then make agreements to purchase them.  These days, the Internet serves as a more immediate, and usually more thorough, way to check out what a company is selling.  Not only that, but many companies tend to have online purchase order systems as well, so there may not be the need to go to Anaheim to sign a physical purchase order.  Due to these factor, many companies that weren’t there—Apple, Adobe, Native Instruments, etc—simply gave up on trade shows altogether, not just NAMM (and not just this year).

On the other hand, for smaller companies, sales reps, etc, there is still quite an advantage to being able to network, and that requires meeting in person.  And especially for smaller companies, having so many bloggers and media reps running around can result in attention that your product might not receive otherwise.  So trade shows like NAMM aren’t quite redundant yet.  But clearly, times are changing.

For now, however, I’ll continue to enjoy going, to meet business contacts and associates, to meet up with friends from far away…and yes, to look at the cool toys, too.

I didn’t get to post nearly as much as I’d hoped.  I’ve been busy with my editing duties, writing (both in the pro audio world and my own speculative fiction…look for orrenmerton.com to get online sometime in Q1 2010), and of course writing Ember After songs.  There is another song in progress, and it’s pretty good.  In fact, the song, “Shallow” began as an extra track to help fill out the Misery EP that is nearly finished.  I like the new song so much that now the EP itself will be called the Shallow EP!  So things are definitely happening, although it may not look like it from here.

Work on the EP is on hold for a while, as you might have gathered if you read the most recent posting in the News blog.  Ember Member Barry and myself will be at the NAMM show, so that will mean we won’t be at our respective studios.  Nonetheless, the hope is that this song will be completely by early February, the whole EP finished in February, and new music to share and purchase in March.

Okay, back to NAMM preparations!