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NAMM 23
Apr 15, 2023 1:29:13 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by antipodesjosh on Apr 15, 2023 1:29:13 GMT -6
Looks like maybe a stereo V13. I was hoping they'd make something like that. The v44s and the v13 are both super popular, so it’s neat they’d combine them! I was seriously thinking about buying a second v13. It’s a tone I really enjoy. Maybe I need to wait for one of these puppies instead. |
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NAMM 23
Apr 15, 2023 1:31:21 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by antipodesjosh on Apr 15, 2023 1:31:21 GMT -6
Couldn’t agree more! 🤤 love the polished finish too. |
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Post by bobeschism on Apr 15, 2023 10:24:44 GMT -6
In depth on the Audioscape 1178, hoping to be available from late Summer, priced around $1499:
Plus a look at the 260 and more about the Ba6a.
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NAMM 23
Apr 15, 2023 11:00:13 GMT -6
Post by Omicron9 on Apr 15, 2023 11:00:13 GMT -6
Couldn’t agree more! 🤤 love the polished finish too. Agreed on the finish. The MXL red is pretty gross and makes it look cheap/cheesy. <----just one person's opinion |
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Post by Darren Boling on Apr 15, 2023 11:34:45 GMT -6
Wow! This looks awesome. My v44s v1 is such a solid mic, this would be an amazing addition. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 15, 2023 14:03:54 GMT -6
Couldn’t agree more! 🤤 love the polished finish too. Agreed on the finish. The MXL red is pretty gross and makes it look cheap/cheesy. <----just one person's opinion A couple years ago we took a shitty white MXL mic and a can of gold spray paint and made the nicest MXL ever!!  |
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Post by chessparov on Apr 15, 2023 19:06:41 GMT -6
THERE'S my V69 KH's color.
Klaus please make note.
Chris
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Post by chessparov on Apr 15, 2023 19:09:17 GMT -6
In depth on the Audioscape 1178, hoping to be available from late Summer, priced around $1499:
Plus a look at the 260 and more about the Ba6a.
I descended on that Booth today! It was great fun. Great sound too. (Except mine  ) Chris |
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Post by chessparov on Apr 15, 2023 22:12:51 GMT -6
Highlight Booth visits included...
Audioscape/Locomotive/AEA/Beesneez/Heiserman/AEA/Sontronics/Myburgh/Roswell/Soyuz/Monheim/Austrian Audio.
Chris
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Post by chessparov on Apr 16, 2023 0:25:33 GMT -6
BTW Paul G and others positive about the Austrian Audio LDC's were "right" IMHO regarding the 018 series.
Sounded excellent upon re-trying.
Last try was 2020 for me.
However...
The OC16 has a different Circuit, that effectively makes the microphone tone brighter.
And the tolerances aren't as tight.
Worth it to spend more for the 18's, within AA.
Chris
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Post by antipodesjosh on Apr 16, 2023 1:47:18 GMT -6
BTW Paul G and others positive about the Austrian Audio LDC's were "right" IMHO regarding the 018 series. Sounded excellent upon re-trying. Last try was 2020 for me. However... The OC16 has a different Circuit, that effectively makes the microphone tone brighter. And the tolerances aren't as tight. Worth it to spend more for the 18's, within AA. Chris Glad you enjoyed them! I’m a fan, I have four AA mics: OC818, OC18 and a pair of CC8s 😅 did you check out their handheld and instrument mics too? I’m interested in the OD5, but there’s not many firsthand reports around. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Apr 16, 2023 4:18:02 GMT -6
In depth on the Audioscape 1178, hoping to be available from late Summer, priced around $1499:
Plus a look at the 260 and more about the Ba6a.
I descended on that Booth today! It was great fun. Great sound too. (Except mine ) Chris Impressive and very well priced. |
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Post by linas on Apr 16, 2023 8:15:31 GMT -6
I'd like me an MM300 for a grand  That would be the sweet spot for me... |
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Post by collywobble on Apr 16, 2023 8:36:16 GMT -6
Looks like maybe a stereo V13. I was hoping they'd make something like that. I stopped by the stand and talked to them about it. It's going to be a high-end clone of the AKG C24 with, IIRC, Beezneez CK12 capsules. They say they've found a way to improve on some of the weaknesses of the original such as crosstalk between the two sides. Looked stunning close up but it'll be a $10k mic. |
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Post by chessparov on Apr 16, 2023 11:51:59 GMT -6
Hey Phil Spector usually preferred cross talk. Nothing like browbeating the singers and musicians, till you get what you want! Sorry didn't try out the AA handhelds. (That's what M88's are for )* Chris *Or AKG D770/790's for the budget conscious. |
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Post by antipodesjosh on Apr 17, 2023 1:25:38 GMT -6
Looked stunning close up but it'll be a $10k mic. Whelp, that makes the decision easy. Guess I’ll just get another v13 🤣 |
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Post by simchaz on Apr 17, 2023 12:07:28 GMT -6
Further Postscript. Particularly for those who visited NAMM Pre-Pandemic era.... Not quite up to 2020 and before, in terms of general energy level overall. And also in the North ACC Room, that had a mix of Microphone Booths, with related audio systems. Except for a Pizza place, all the next door Hilton Food Court places closed at 6PM! (The ultimate litmus) I expect 2024 Winter NAMM to better resemble NAMM's of Yore. Chris Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. Namm's of yore are just over and I say this as someone who has exhibited at 22 namms, 9 aes shows and 6 musikmesses, including last weeks Namm. The reality of the music business has changed over the last decade and a half and the concept of what namm is and why it exists meshes with that reality less and less each year. this isn't due to any one single reason but actually a few different things that were all happening at the same time. While this downturn for namm has been happening for a lot longer than this, the first big domino to fall in current times was in roughly 2014 or 2015. behringer/musictribe showed up at namm with a MASSIVE 50'X50' multi story booth with zero gear. zero. they literally had picnic tables out for meetings and pretty much were the laughing stock of the show. even other exhibitors were joking amongst themselves about how crazy it was for such a major manufacturer to not really exhibit. the next year, behringer didn't exhibit at all. looking back, behringer was just ahead of the curve and did the math before most other manufacturers did and realized the math doesn't add up and in reality namm was a money losing event. cost: most manufacturers will NEVER gain enough sales from being at the show to outweigh the sheer cost of exhibiting in the first place. The NAMM Show is expensive. like shockingly expensive. a medium-small sized booth after including drayage fees for the union to move the gear to the booth can easily be $30,000. if your booth has any types of walls, flown signage or lighting, that price multiplies fast. Thats before paying for hotels for however many workers you send for the show plus a day or two to set up and break down... a few thousand there plus dinners plus travel. the price builds up real fast. a medium sized booth that is more than carpet and a table and chairs easily ends up costing a manufacturer $50,000-$100,000. bigger booths easily more than that. The biggest manufacturers with the Muti story booths for meetings up top would cost millions today. I can easily name 10-15 brands in pro audio alone that had multistory booths 8 years ago... want to know how many booths in at least pro audio were like that last week? 0. Personel: the very vast majority of manufacturers are a lot smaller than you would believe. In fact, even most of the larger brands are a lot smaller than you think. send lets say 4 workers to namm... I would be willing to put actual money on the fact the 95% of companies exhibiting or more or less shut down for an entire week as 90% of their company is at the show. Thats an entire week of almost no building, no shipping, no repairs and coming back the following Monday is a NIGHTMARE of catchup. purpose: for decades, the purpose of namm was it was the one time of the year for retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be at one place at the same time and pretty much do a years worth of business in one weekend. this included product demos so dealers knew what's new and meetings so that retailers could often work out a deal on an entire years worth of inventory. Consumers, musicians and end users at the show were yes fun to talk to but the fact of the matter is 99% of those people stop by will never end up buying the product. I can't even explain how badly the ratio is off when it comes to comparing the number of end users at the show that will legitimately stop by, talk and end up being a user of that product vs the guy that stops with his girlfriend, both dressed up in what you know is a costume and clearly has no idea what he's talking about (he still impresses his significant other though). The monetary value of namm really revolved around those business meetings and the general public were a bonus. The world of online sales, forums, youtube and email completely changed everything. There was close to no point in retailers going to the show once a simple email was able to serve the same purpose for them. and the less retailers going, the less worth it was for manufacturers to be there again. And I get it, we all like that human to human interaction and the ability to go and look at every piece of gear you normally would never get the chance to but the fact of the matter is that feeling isn't paying the bills. Namm is obscenely expensive and its a hard price to justify when retailers aren't showing up. Why pay this crazy cost when it just doesn't pay. The reality of the situation is one by one, manufacturers are all making the same equation and coming to the same conclusion. Do I wish reality was different and namm felt the way it used to? of course. do I see namm going back or even growing? no way in hell. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 17, 2023 13:00:51 GMT -6
This ^^^^^^^
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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NAMM 23
Apr 17, 2023 13:16:08 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by ericn on Apr 17, 2023 13:16:08 GMT -6
Further Postscript. Particularly for those who visited NAMM Pre-Pandemic era.... Not quite up to 2020 and before, in terms of general energy level overall. And also in the North ACC Room, that had a mix of Microphone Booths, with related audio systems. Except for a Pizza place, all the next door Hilton Food Court places closed at 6PM! (The ultimate litmus) I expect 2024 Winter NAMM to better resemble NAMM's of Yore. Chris Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. Namm's of yore are just over and I say this as someone who has exhibited at 22 namms, 9 aes shows and 6 musikmesses, including last weeks Namm. The reality of the music business has changed over the last decade and a half and the concept of what namm is and why it exists meshes with that reality less and less each year. this isn't due to any one single reason but actually a few different things that were all happening at the same time. While this downturn for namm has been happening for a lot longer than this, the first big domino to fall in current times was in roughly 2014 or 2015. behringer/musictribe showed up at namm with a MASSIVE 50'X50' multi story booth with zero gear. zero. they literally had picnic tables out for meetings and pretty much were the laughing stock of the show. even other exhibitors were joking amongst themselves about how crazy it was for such a major manufacturer to not really exhibit. the next year, behringer didn't exhibit at all. looking back, behringer was just ahead of the curve and did the math before most other manufacturers did and realized the math doesn't add up and in reality namm was a money losing event. cost: most manufacturers will NEVER gain enough sales from being at the show to outweigh the sheer cost of exhibiting in the first place. The NAMM Show is expensive. like shockingly expensive. a medium-small sized booth after including drayage fees for the union to move the gear to the booth can easily be $30,000. if your booth has any types of walls, flown signage or lighting, that price multiplies fast. Thats before paying for hotels for however many workers you send for the show plus a day or two to set up and break down... a few thousand there plus dinners plus travel. the price builds up real fast. a medium sized booth that is more than carpet and a table and chairs easily ends up costing a manufacturer $50,000-$100,000. bigger booths easily more than that. The biggest manufacturers with the Muti story booths for meetings up top would cost millions today. I can easily name 10-15 brands in pro audio alone that had multistory booths 8 years ago... want to know how many booths in at least pro audio were like that last week? 0. Personel: the very vast majority of manufacturers are a lot smaller than you would believe. In fact, even most of the larger brands are a lot smaller than you think. send lets say 4 workers to namm... I would be willing to put actual money on the fact the 95% of companies exhibiting or more or less shut down for an entire week as 90% of their company is at the show. Thats an entire week of almost no building, no shipping, no repairs and coming back the following Monday is a NIGHTMARE of catchup. purpose: for decades, the purpose of namm was it was the one time of the year for retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be at one place at the same time and pretty much do a years worth of business in one weekend. this included product demos so dealers knew what's new and meetings so that retailers could often work out a deal on an entire years worth of inventory. Consumers, musicians and end users at the show were yes fun to talk to but the fact of the matter is 99% of those people stop by will never end up buying the product. I can't even explain how badly the ratio is off when it comes to comparing the number of end users at the show that will legitimately stop by, talk and end up being a user of that product vs the guy that stops with his girlfriend, both dressed up in what you know is a costume and clearly has no idea what he's talking about (he still impresses his significant other though). The monetary value of namm really revolved around those business meetings and the general public were a bonus. The world of online sales, forums, youtube and email completely changed everything. There was close to no point in retailers going to the show once a simple email was able to serve the same purpose for them. and the less retailers going, the less worth it was for manufacturers to be there again. And I get it, we all like that human to human interaction and the ability to go and look at every piece of gear you normally would never get the chance to but the fact of the matter is that feeling isn't paying the bills. Namm is obscenely expensive and its a hard price to justify when retailers aren't showing up. Why pay this crazy cost when it just doesn't pay. The reality of the situation is one by one, manufacturers are all making the same equation and coming to the same conclusion. Do I wish reality was different and namm felt the way it used to? of course. do I see namm going back or even growing? no way in hell. I have been saying for years the actual purpose of NAMM was for the little MOM and POP store’s to meet with their reps, shake hands with the manufacturers and write a years worth of orders. Mom and pop don’t exist in 2023 the reps are in the big dealers shops once a week so who needs NAMM? It will turn into the latest Chinese mic or line array manufacturer betting the company on a both trying to find distribution and no important distributions in the house. The industry absolutely shuts down for NAMM, even getting something out of Yamaha or Harman was impossible during NAMM, AES, INFoComm, or for some CES. To many big shows, to many dealers and Manufacturers will staff their booths with reps, great idea except if the CA rep is showing little old me from MO a mic and a big CA account walks in the booth, MO don’t mean MO money CA means 7 %! |
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Post by Tbone81 on Apr 17, 2023 13:17:54 GMT -6
Further Postscript. Particularly for those who visited NAMM Pre-Pandemic era.... Not quite up to 2020 and before, in terms of general energy level overall. And also in the North ACC Room, that had a mix of Microphone Booths, with related audio systems. Except for a Pizza place, all the next door Hilton Food Court places closed at 6PM! (The ultimate litmus) I expect 2024 Winter NAMM to better resemble NAMM's of Yore. Chris Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. Namm's of yore are just over and I say this as someone who has exhibited at 22 namms, 9 aes shows and 6 musikmesses, including last weeks Namm. The reality of the music business has changed over the last decade and a half and the concept of what namm is and why it exists meshes with that reality less and less each year. this isn't due to any one single reason but actually a few different things that were all happening at the same time. While this downturn for namm has been happening for a lot longer than this, the first big domino to fall in current times was in roughly 2014 or 2015. behringer/musictribe showed up at namm with a MASSIVE 50'X50' multi story booth with zero gear. zero. they literally had picnic tables out for meetings and pretty much were the laughing stock of the show. even other exhibitors were joking amongst themselves about how crazy it was for such a major manufacturer to not really exhibit. the next year, behringer didn't exhibit at all. looking back, behringer was just ahead of the curve and did the math before most other manufacturers did and realized the math doesn't add up and in reality namm was a money losing event. cost: most manufacturers will NEVER gain enough sales from being at the show to outweigh the sheer cost of exhibiting in the first place. The NAMM Show is expensive. like shockingly expensive. a medium-small sized booth after including drayage fees for the union to move the gear to the booth can easily be $30,000. if your booth has any types of walls, flown signage or lighting, that price multiplies fast. Thats before paying for hotels for however many workers you send for the show plus a day or two to set up and break down... a few thousand there plus dinners plus travel. the price builds up real fast. a medium sized booth that is more than carpet and a table and chairs easily ends up costing a manufacturer $50,000-$100,000. bigger booths easily more than that. The biggest manufacturers with the Muti story booths for meetings up top would cost millions today. I can easily name 10-15 brands in pro audio alone that had multistory booths 8 years ago... want to know how many booths in at least pro audio were like that last week? 0. Personel: the very vast majority of manufacturers are a lot smaller than you would believe. In fact, even most of the larger brands are a lot smaller than you think. send lets say 4 workers to namm... I would be willing to put actual money on the fact the 95% of companies exhibiting or more or less shut down for an entire week as 90% of their company is at the show. Thats an entire week of almost no building, no shipping, no repairs and coming back the following Monday is a NIGHTMARE of catchup. purpose: for decades, the purpose of namm was it was the one time of the year for retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be at one place at the same time and pretty much do a years worth of business in one weekend. this included product demos so dealers knew what's new and meetings so that retailers could often work out a deal on an entire years worth of inventory. Consumers, musicians and end users at the show were yes fun to talk to but the fact of the matter is 99% of those people stop by will never end up buying the product. I can't even explain how badly the ratio is off when it comes to comparing the number of end users at the show that will legitimately stop by, talk and end up being a user of that product vs the guy that stops with his girlfriend, both dressed up in what you know is a costume and clearly has no idea what he's talking about (he still impresses his significant other though). The monetary value of namm really revolved around those business meetings and the general public were a bonus. The world of online sales, forums, youtube and email completely changed everything. There was close to no point in retailers going to the show once a simple email was able to serve the same purpose for them. and the less retailers going, the less worth it was for manufacturers to be there again. And I get it, we all like that human to human interaction and the ability to go and look at every piece of gear you normally would never get the chance to but the fact of the matter is that feeling isn't paying the bills. Namm is obscenely expensive and its a hard price to justify when retailers aren't showing up. Why pay this crazy cost when it just doesn't pay. The reality of the situation is one by one, manufacturers are all making the same equation and coming to the same conclusion. Do I wish reality was different and namm felt the way it used to? of course. do I see namm going back or even growing? no way in hell. This is so spot on. I remember around 2006-2007, working for a retailer and going to NAMM for the first time as a buyer. I had been a few times previously with a yellow badge, but this was new to me. My boss explained that I was just to go and have fun because there was no real business for us to do there. It was just promo for the brands. There wasn't a big business incentive to make deals with distributors and manufacturers at NAMM when we literally talked to those same people every day over the phone and email. The internet kind of killed the need for such a massive showing, and I was told back then that most brands lost money on the event. |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Apr 17, 2023 14:02:13 GMT -6
In the pre internet days NAMM offered a chance to build a buzz around their latest and greatest product, pay to play with magazines made this even easier, then all the bloggers doing NAMM videos came along.
The first big issue for manufacturers was you had to have a reasonably good prototype ready for the show, lots of pressure, then you had to ship the product while you still carried the NAMM buzz. Now the complications of pay to play if you weren’t able to pay and if your not ready to ship the risk of someone else copying your idea and shipping before you can, or beating your price and taking forever to ship ( oh Uhli). The thing is you have more control when your new compressor isn’t competing with 15 other new compressors debuted at the show. Debuting on your own timeline may save margins because you’re not paying more for resistors to meet a must ship by window because of the show.
Now the internet has made it easy for a new manufacturer to sell directly. You can lower the price point by not having a dealer markup and your product is what your sales force is keying on, not the sales guy’s favorite, the one in stock, the one with the best margin or the one that puts more money in the pocket of the sales guy. NAMM isn’t really built for those selling direct, nor should it be it’s not a consumer show. while MI lacks an end user geared show pro Audio has AES.
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Post by vanguardaudiolabs on Apr 18, 2023 9:57:47 GMT -6
Further Postscript. Particularly for those who visited NAMM Pre-Pandemic era.... Not quite up to 2020 and before, in terms of general energy level overall. And also in the North ACC Room, that had a mix of Microphone Booths, with related audio systems. Except for a Pizza place, all the next door Hilton Food Court places closed at 6PM! (The ultimate litmus) I expect 2024 Winter NAMM to better resemble NAMM's of Yore. Chris Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. Namm's of yore are just over and I say this as someone who has exhibited at 22 namms, 9 aes shows and 6 musikmesses, including last weeks Namm. The reality of the music business has changed over the last decade and a half and the concept of what namm is and why it exists meshes with that reality less and less each year. this isn't due to any one single reason but actually a few different things that were all happening at the same time. While this downturn for namm has been happening for a lot longer than this, the first big domino to fall in current times was in roughly 2014 or 2015. behringer/musictribe showed up at namm with a MASSIVE 50'X50' multi story booth with zero gear. zero. they literally had picnic tables out for meetings and pretty much were the laughing stock of the show. even other exhibitors were joking amongst themselves about how crazy it was for such a major manufacturer to not really exhibit. the next year, behringer didn't exhibit at all. looking back, behringer was just ahead of the curve and did the math before most other manufacturers did and realized the math doesn't add up and in reality namm was a money losing event. cost: most manufacturers will NEVER gain enough sales from being at the show to outweigh the sheer cost of exhibiting in the first place. The NAMM Show is expensive. like shockingly expensive. a medium-small sized booth after including drayage fees for the union to move the gear to the booth can easily be $30,000. if your booth has any types of walls, flown signage or lighting, that price multiplies fast. Thats before paying for hotels for however many workers you send for the show plus a day or two to set up and break down... a few thousand there plus dinners plus travel. the price builds up real fast. a medium sized booth that is more than carpet and a table and chairs easily ends up costing a manufacturer $50,000-$100,000. bigger booths easily more than that. The biggest manufacturers with the Muti story booths for meetings up top would cost millions today. I can easily name 10-15 brands in pro audio alone that had multistory booths 8 years ago... want to know how many booths in at least pro audio were like that last week? 0. Personel: the very vast majority of manufacturers are a lot smaller than you would believe. In fact, even most of the larger brands are a lot smaller than you think. send lets say 4 workers to namm... I would be willing to put actual money on the fact the 95% of companies exhibiting or more or less shut down for an entire week as 90% of their company is at the show. Thats an entire week of almost no building, no shipping, no repairs and coming back the following Monday is a NIGHTMARE of catchup. purpose: for decades, the purpose of namm was it was the one time of the year for retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be at one place at the same time and pretty much do a years worth of business in one weekend. this included product demos so dealers knew what's new and meetings so that retailers could often work out a deal on an entire years worth of inventory. Consumers, musicians and end users at the show were yes fun to talk to but the fact of the matter is 99% of those people stop by will never end up buying the product. I can't even explain how badly the ratio is off when it comes to comparing the number of end users at the show that will legitimately stop by, talk and end up being a user of that product vs the guy that stops with his girlfriend, both dressed up in what you know is a costume and clearly has no idea what he's talking about (he still impresses his significant other though). The monetary value of namm really revolved around those business meetings and the general public were a bonus. The world of online sales, forums, youtube and email completely changed everything. There was close to no point in retailers going to the show once a simple email was able to serve the same purpose for them. and the less retailers going, the less worth it was for manufacturers to be there again. And I get it, we all like that human to human interaction and the ability to go and look at every piece of gear you normally would never get the chance to but the fact of the matter is that feeling isn't paying the bills. Namm is obscenely expensive and its a hard price to justify when retailers aren't showing up. Why pay this crazy cost when it just doesn't pay. The reality of the situation is one by one, manufacturers are all making the same equation and coming to the same conclusion. Do I wish reality was different and namm felt the way it used to? of course. do I see namm going back or even growing? no way in hell. unfortunately you are right. While the costs for show are less than stated for a 10x10 booth, particularly if you're like me and DIY everything possible. I bring my own flooring, use a personal vehicle to load/unload my booth, and hand-carry all our gear into the show. To draw back the curtain, just a 10x10 floor space costs well over $3k. Electricity for our booth was another $300+ for 3 days (lol). With travel, lodging, food, etc. I usually spend between $7-9k on the show. I heard an unsubstantiated rumor at the show that union rates will be going up DRASTICALLY next year as well. that won't help. And I suspect that floor space will go up as well. In 2022 and 2023, NAMM did not cut manufacturers any kind of discount on the show despite the fact that it has been 3 days instead of 4. Musikmesse died an unceremonious death because it was run by incompetent organizers. NAMM may face the same fate if they don't woo back the larger manufacturers like UA, Fender, etc. Here's an interview with Fender's CEO on why they're likely not coming back any time soon. www.guitarworld.com/news/fender-andy-mooney-namm-returnI've been asking the same question. What if I spent that $7-9k on digital marketing and content creation? I could likely get far more eyeballs than if I went to NAMM again. The show is definitely on a precipice, and if NAMM doesn't get their s*** together it probably is going out of style. The last two years in particular have seen greatly reduced foot traffic, less of my dealers/distributors coming to the show, and really have not been worth it in my estimation. This year they actually shortlined Halls A-D - they didn't reach all the way to the back of the hall. Probably 25% of the hall was empty space. the aisles are wider, they had random "lounges" and other filler booths to make the show look bigger than it actually was. I haven't rebooked, I'm waiting to see if NAMM announces the return of larger dealers. I'm keeping my ear to the ground on that. I heard (once again, unsubstantiated rumor) they've got about 60% of the show booked for next year so far. The only reason I really like NAMM is that I get to see friends and acquaintances I normally otherwise would not see. Other than that, it's expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. |
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Post by vanguardaudiolabs on Apr 18, 2023 9:59:10 GMT -6
Couldn’t agree more! 🤤 love the polished finish too. Agreed on the finish. The MXL red is pretty gross and makes it look cheap/cheesy. <----just one person's opinion "MXL red"? ouch! |
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,107
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Post by ericn on Apr 18, 2023 12:14:58 GMT -6
Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. Namm's of yore are just over and I say this as someone who has exhibited at 22 namms, 9 aes shows and 6 musikmesses, including last weeks Namm. The reality of the music business has changed over the last decade and a half and the concept of what namm is and why it exists meshes with that reality less and less each year. this isn't due to any one single reason but actually a few different things that were all happening at the same time. While this downturn for namm has been happening for a lot longer than this, the first big domino to fall in current times was in roughly 2014 or 2015. behringer/musictribe showed up at namm with a MASSIVE 50'X50' multi story booth with zero gear. zero. they literally had picnic tables out for meetings and pretty much were the laughing stock of the show. even other exhibitors were joking amongst themselves about how crazy it was for such a major manufacturer to not really exhibit. the next year, behringer didn't exhibit at all. looking back, behringer was just ahead of the curve and did the math before most other manufacturers did and realized the math doesn't add up and in reality namm was a money losing event. cost: most manufacturers will NEVER gain enough sales from being at the show to outweigh the sheer cost of exhibiting in the first place. The NAMM Show is expensive. like shockingly expensive. a medium-small sized booth after including drayage fees for the union to move the gear to the booth can easily be $30,000. if your booth has any types of walls, flown signage or lighting, that price multiplies fast. Thats before paying for hotels for however many workers you send for the show plus a day or two to set up and break down... a few thousand there plus dinners plus travel. the price builds up real fast. a medium sized booth that is more than carpet and a table and chairs easily ends up costing a manufacturer $50,000-$100,000. bigger booths easily more than that. The biggest manufacturers with the Muti story booths for meetings up top would cost millions today. I can easily name 10-15 brands in pro audio alone that had multistory booths 8 years ago... want to know how many booths in at least pro audio were like that last week? 0. Personel: the very vast majority of manufacturers are a lot smaller than you would believe. In fact, even most of the larger brands are a lot smaller than you think. send lets say 4 workers to namm... I would be willing to put actual money on the fact the 95% of companies exhibiting or more or less shut down for an entire week as 90% of their company is at the show. Thats an entire week of almost no building, no shipping, no repairs and coming back the following Monday is a NIGHTMARE of catchup. purpose: for decades, the purpose of namm was it was the one time of the year for retailers, distributors and manufacturers to be at one place at the same time and pretty much do a years worth of business in one weekend. this included product demos so dealers knew what's new and meetings so that retailers could often work out a deal on an entire years worth of inventory. Consumers, musicians and end users at the show were yes fun to talk to but the fact of the matter is 99% of those people stop by will never end up buying the product. I can't even explain how badly the ratio is off when it comes to comparing the number of end users at the show that will legitimately stop by, talk and end up being a user of that product vs the guy that stops with his girlfriend, both dressed up in what you know is a costume and clearly has no idea what he's talking about (he still impresses his significant other though). The monetary value of namm really revolved around those business meetings and the general public were a bonus. The world of online sales, forums, youtube and email completely changed everything. There was close to no point in retailers going to the show once a simple email was able to serve the same purpose for them. and the less retailers going, the less worth it was for manufacturers to be there again. And I get it, we all like that human to human interaction and the ability to go and look at every piece of gear you normally would never get the chance to but the fact of the matter is that feeling isn't paying the bills. Namm is obscenely expensive and its a hard price to justify when retailers aren't showing up. Why pay this crazy cost when it just doesn't pay. The reality of the situation is one by one, manufacturers are all making the same equation and coming to the same conclusion. Do I wish reality was different and namm felt the way it used to? of course. do I see namm going back or even growing? no way in hell. unfortunately you are right. While the costs for show are less than stated for a 10x10 booth, particularly if you're like me and DIY everything possible. I bring my own flooring, use a personal vehicle to load/unload my booth, and hand-carry all our gear into the show. To draw back the curtain, just a 10x10 floor space costs well over $3k. Electricity for our booth was another $300+ for 3 days (lol). With travel, lodging, food, etc. I usually spend between $7-9k on the show. I heard an unsubstantiated rumor at the show that union rates will be going up DRASTICALLY next year as well. that won't help. And I suspect that floor space will go up as well. In 2022 and 2023, NAMM did not cut manufacturers any kind of discount on the show despite the fact that it has been 3 days instead of 4. Musikmesse died an unceremonious death because it was run by incompetent organizers. NAMM may face the same fate if they don't woo back the larger manufacturers like UA, Fender, etc. Here's an interview with Fender's CEO on why they're likely not coming back any time soon. www.guitarworld.com/news/fender-andy-mooney-namm-returnI've been asking the same question. What if I spent that $7-9k on digital marketing and content creation? I could likely get far more eyeballs than if I went to NAMM again. The show is definitely on a precipice, and if NAMM doesn't get their s*** together it probably is going out of style. The last two years in particular have seen greatly reduced foot traffic, less of my dealers/distributors coming to the show, and really have not been worth it in my estimation. This year they actually shortlined Halls A-D - they didn't reach all the way to the back of the hall. Probably 25% of the hall was empty space. the aisles are wider, they had random "lounges" and other filler booths to make the show look bigger than it actually was. I haven't rebooked, I'm waiting to see if NAMM announces the return of larger dealers. I'm keeping my ear to the ground on that. I heard (once again, unsubstantiated rumor) they've got about 60% of the show booked for next year so far. The only reason I really like NAMM is that I get to see friends and acquaintances I normally otherwise would not see. Other than that, it's expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. I would say we need a secondary show that features the more boutique manufacturers, sort of like how the SHOW split off from CES and featured the more high end vendors. Unfortunately the secondary shows at our end of the biz have all been dealer organized events and don’t feature manufacturers that the organizers don’t carry ( RIP Gand days hello Sweetwater fest). The idea to take that money ($10K has always been the guesstimate minimum cost for NAMM after all the receipts are in), but what I would suggest is that someone put together a group of independent manufacturers ( hey if I’m healthy I’ll help) develop a digital alternative to NAMM and AES. A digital model would allow more in depth discussions and demos without competing in the SPL races just to be heard. If Fender Roland, Gibson and Behringer are not showing , even for a hospitality suite to write orders NAMM IS DEAD! Except of course for every GC dude in California dressed like Charlie Sheen on 2 and 1/2 men. Hey KC has a big GC/ MF distribution center maybe give us NAMM for a year, we can provide plenty of GC dude of the weeks! |
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Post by antipodesjosh on Apr 18, 2023 12:53:38 GMT -6
Agreed on the finish. The MXL red is pretty gross and makes it look cheap/cheesy. <----just one person's opinion "MXL red"? ouch! I’m a fan of the Pinot Noir finish, and it’s not just because I live somewhere that makes good Pinot Noir 🤣🍷. Vocalists get excited when they see the v13 on the stand, I get a lot of comments about it. |
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That would be the sweet spot for me...
