San Francisco, Here We Come

[Anderton]

...and this is the place for rumors, facts, speculation, and all trappings that go along with a convention.

As usual, some really big items have been told to the press but embargoed until the show itself starts. But there are also some advance announcements that look pretty intriguing. One that really caught my eye is SPL coming out with plug-ins - they make great gear, so I'm expecting that they'll make equally great plug-ins. Cakewalk's Sonar 8 will be making its trade show debut at AES, but there are rumors that there's more to the Cakewalk story than just that.

Interestingly, I'm usually booked up crazy with appointments by this time, but things are remarkably quiet for the show. This might be because I've been convincing companies (with some success!) that I simply can't do appointments when I'm entrusted with coming up with lots of videos, but there's also the possibility that there really aren't that many new products...but we'll see.

If you see me running around with a camcorder, stop me and say hi - particularly if you have any video-friendly comments! Ever onward...

[Anderton]

Based on all the rumors flying around in here, I bet this show is going to be a barn-burner! Yessirreee!

[tumbleweeed]

When is it? (yes I know I could google it, but......)

[Skull]

This is probably too late to help anyone else, but I subscribe to Tape Op magazine and they got me free passes to the exhibition hall.

[Phil O'Keefe]

As we talked about Craig, I wasn't sure how big of a show this was going to be, but the Pro Tools 8 announcement alone makes it a very interesting show for me. :phil:

If I wasn't booked in the studio this weekend, I'd try to grab a last minute flight...

Looking forward to watching the videos and reading everyone's thoughts about what they see and hear - have a good time folks, and please report back as often as you can! :D

[Anderton]

My appointment with Digi is 3PM tomorrow. Should be interesting :)

[Anderton]

My original plan was not to do a lot of videos today, but post a bunch of pictures, like Jon did for Summer NAMM and Bieke did for Winter NAMM. But I kept running into interesting people with something to say and interesting products, so I ended up taking videos anyway. Unfortunately, it's really too late to try to dump videos to my hard drive, edit, render, etc. (I would like to get more than 10 minutes sleep tonight). So, here are a few pictures to get things started...these are views of going into the convention, and some pictures from my "office" (a space looking down over the conventional center that I appropriate for video interviews where there isn't too much noise).

[Anderton]

More overviews of the hall...

[Anderton]

Here are some "people pictures"!

The first image is synth legend Donald Buchla.

Next up: Suzanne Ciani and Don Buchla.

Third image: Chris Halaby of Muse Research (Receptor) at the extreme left, and Paul White of Sound on Sound in the middle.

Fourth image: George Sanger, also known as "The Fatman."

[Anderton]

More fun people...

Marcus Ryle of Line 6 may not speak to me again after posting this picture, but we were talking about chips, and I guess he misunderstood what I was talking about...oh well, when he sees the video, he'll talk to me again :)

Keyboard Tech Editor Steven Fortner did a cool video on show highlights. He's starting to turn into a regular contributor to these videos, and with good reason.

And finally...The Weasel himself, Jeff Klopmeyer, at the ADAM booth. Let's face it, ADAM speakers rock...

[Anderton]

Sorry, but having done the Cakewalk thing and some Digi stuff, I gotta go collapse. I'll see if I can duck out of the show earlier on Saturday so I can post more stuff.