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w w w . m m r m a g a z i n e . c o m M a r c h 2 0 1 2
NEW, MMR iPad APP NOW AVAILABLE
NAMM SHOW2012 REVIEW
Summary • Press Conferences • AwardsProduct Introductions • Presentations Best & Worst
Alfred Music Publishing at 90
Survey: Piano & Keyboard Market
Cover March.indd 1 2/22/12 4:32 PM
2 MMR MARCH 2012
www.mmrmagazine.com
MMR Musical Merchandise Review® (ISSN 0027-4615) founded in 1879, is published monthly by Symphony Publishing, LLC, 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 (781)453-9310, publisher of School Band and Orchestra, Choral Director, Music Parents America and JazzEd. All titles are federally registered trademarks and/or trademarks of Symphony Publishing, LLC. Subscription Rates: U.S.A., US possessions, one year $32; two years $40. Canada one year $80; all other countries one year $159. Single issues $5 each. May Supplier Directory $35. Periodical-Rate Postage Paid at Boston, MA and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER/SUBSCRIBERS: Send address change to Musi-cal Merchandise Review, P.O. Box 8548, Lowell, MA 01853. Periodicals circulation is directed to music dealers and retailers, wholesalers and distributors, importers and exporters and manufacturers of all types of musical instruments and their accessories, related electronic sound equipment, general musical accessories, musical publications and teaching aides. The publishers of this magazine do not accept responsibility for statements made by their advertisers in business competion. No portion of this issue may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Copyright ©2012 by Symphony Publishing, LLC, all rights reserved. Printed in USA.
In every issue:
ContentsMARCH 2012 VOL.171 NO. 3
4 Editorial6 Upfront18 People22 Letters88 New Products95 Supplier Scene97 Classifieds104 Advertisers’ Index
26 Alfred Music Publishing at 90MMR speaks with Ron Manus, the third-generation head of Alfred Music Publishing, now celebrating their 90th year.
THE PIANO & KEYBOARD MARKET32 Pulling Out All the Stops – Piano and Organ Center Celebrates 30 Years
New York’s Piano and Organ Center, currently with four locations throughout the state, has survived and thrived for three decades thanks to dedicated staff and a commitment to sound business decisions and community outreach.
36 Key Change – Solich Pianos Brings Youth & New Ideas to the Piano Market
Thomas Solich heads up Ohio’s Solich Music, which has been growing steadily since the store first opened in 2006, due to a proactive approach towards analyzing the market and adapting to change.
38 Survey: Piano & Keyboard MarketMMR checks in with piano & keyboard dealers to discuss recent trends and the state of the market – and the news isn’t all bad!
42 New Piano & Keyboard Products
2012 NAMM SHOW46 Record Numbers, Signs of Industry Rebound…
The numbers are up (a record 95,709 reported registered attendees), but more importantly, so are spirits – and so is business.
54 Best & Worst of Show AwardsSpace-traveling flute headjoints, In-n-Out’s arrival at NAMM, grown men dressing like underage pop stars, taking a cab to the wrong airport after the Show, good eats at the Chairman’s Reception… MMR spotlights the good and the bad from the recent gathering in Anaheim.
60 Dealers’ Choice AwardsWinners of the 2011 Dealers’ Choice Awards were presented with their trophies at the NAMM Show.
63 Press Conferences & Product Introductions
80 2012 Best Tools for SchoolsThis year’s ‘Best Tools for Schools’ awards, presented by NAMM and MMR’s sister publication, School Band & Orchestra.
Cover photo by Christian Wissmuller.
TOC March.indd 2 2/23/12 1:12 PM
2012 InternationalBassistAward
On Friday, January 20 in Anaheim, California, we paid tribute to the man behind countless #1 hits…
MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
NATE WATTS
HOUSE BAND:
GERRY BROWN
HERMAN JACKSON
ROMAN JOHNSON
KYLE BOLDEN
MUNYUNGO JACKSON
DWIGHT ADAMS
RYAN KILGORE
STEVE BAXTER
LOUIS VAN TAYLOR
KEITH JOHN
DARRYL PHINNESSE
KIMBERLY BREWER
BRIDGETTE BRYANT
LYNNE FIDDMONT
SPECIAL GUESTS:
JAMES JAMERSON JR.
NATHAN EAST
WILL LEE
ROBERT DELEO
STU HAMM
ALAN MCGRIER
AL TURNER
JACK KNIGHT
JD DESERVIO
CC THOMAS
JIMI ALI
ALEX AL
GLENN HUGHES
JUDITH HILL
BOBBY AVILA
IZZY AVILA
IVAN HAMPDEN
CHARLIE BENANTE
PETER ERSKINE
STANLEY RANDOLPH
SOUNDS OF SUNRISE CHOIR
AND SURPRISE GUEST:
STEVIE WONDER
James Jamerson Jr and Stevie Wonder
© 2012 Samson, Hartke and Zoom. All rights reserved | samsontech.com
Will Lee and Nate Watts Glenn Hughes and Robert DeLeo
MMR_3 3 2/22/12 2:59:17 PM
EditorialSidney Davis Volume 171
Number 3 March 2012
4 MMR MARCH 2012
sdavis@ symphonypublishing.com
PUBLISHER Sidney L. [email protected]
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Rick [email protected]
EDITOR Christian [email protected]
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Eliahu [email protected]
Matt [email protected]
CONTRIBUTING WRITERSChaim Burstein, Dennis Carver, Kevin Mitchell, Dick Weissman
ADVERTISING MANAGER Iris [email protected]
CLASSIFIED & DISPLAY AD SALES Maureen [email protected]
PRODUCTION MANAGER Laurie [email protected]
GRAPHIC DESIGNERSLaurie [email protected]
Andrew P. [email protected]
CIRCULATION MANAGERMelanie A. [email protected]
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTPopi [email protected]
SYMPHONY PUBLISHING, LLCChairman Xen Zapis
President Lee Zapis [email protected]
Chief Financial Officer Rich [email protected]
Corporate Headquarters26202 Detroit Road, Suite 300, Westlake, Ohio 44145440-871-1300www.symphonypublishing.com
PUBLISHING, SALES & EDITORIAL OFFICE: 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 (781) 453-9310 Fax: (781) 453-9389www.mmrmagazine.com
In Their Own WordsThe NAMM Foundation’s recent launch of its survey for the 2012 Best Commu-nities for Music Education coincided with our own (MMR’s sister publication, School Band & Orchestra) Best Tools for Schools presentation during the NAMM show, where-by we had a team of educators walk the halls in search of “Best Teaching Tools” in a variety of categories (see page 80) ranging from the Best Marching Band (tool) to the Best New Teaching App. Much like the Foundation scouring the music education landscape to cite outstanding schools and districts (179 communities recognized in 2011), educators attending the four-day Winter NAMM gathering judiciously roamed the booths to participate in a panel presentation of products offered from the well established (i.e. Alfred Publishing, Conn-Selmer) to the lesser known and harder to locate Agile Partners and Jazz Lab. More to the point, the educators, much like their student body, did their homework in researching and recognizing innovative products.
For the past 14 years, School Band & Orchestra has followed a parallel path in the education community, researching and recognizing “50 Educators Who Make a Differ-ence,” band and orchestra directors cited by their peers and school music dealers for teaching philosophies that have impacted their students. Elva Jean Bolin has taught music for 42 years, the past 14 at the Peoria Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado. Her teaching philosophy: “Learning is a process and not a product. Every child can learn but not all learn at the same rate and the same manner…teachers have to re-member we are teaching students for their future and not our past.” Robert Schaer, Lakewood Ranch High School, Lakewood, Florida is a 35 year teaching veteran, who says, “We always set the bar high in our performing ensembles, and I think our kids understand that working hard is what is going to make them successful as they move on with their lives.”
Peter Lemonds, 28 years of experience presently teaching at Duluth High School, Duluth, Georgia: “Music is simply the medium we use to teach not only music skills but the intangible tools that will make students successful in whatever obstacles they may face…what matters most to students is that their teacher cares about them…” Tim Sandford has been at the Lake City High School, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for the past 16 years: “I teach to four principles (1) Strive for excellence (2) Never settle for 2nd (3) Dream Big and finally “Arete,” this is a Greek word that implies becoming a person of impact.” Randi Levy, Roberto Clemente Middle School, Germantown, Maryland: “I give students permission to take risks. My motto is, if you are going to make a mistake, make it a big one, go for it…” Kim Courneyer, Standing Rock High School, Fort Yates, North Dakota: “I’ve learned that teachable moments come when you least expect them. Students surprise you with the effort you inspire in them.”
And on making a difference in a student’s life…. Ted Rausch, of Portsmouth High School, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, says: “Each year I have the marching band per-form at our elementary schools and invite the students to march with us during our performance. When these kids come into the music program, they always recall when the marching band came to play for them.” Phil McIntyre, James Byrne High School, Duncan, South Carolina, adds: “I have always strived to be an example for the stan-dards and expectation I expect from my students and I have 21 former students that now are music teachers.”
You can help support music educators who truly “make a difference,” encourage your school district to participate in the Best Communities for Music Education at www.nammfoundation.org. And you can nominate outstanding educators in your area for the 2012 SBO report at www.sbomagazine.com.
On a final note we salute what may be the best decision in the past half-century outside of Ray Croc’s purchase of the McDonald brother’s hamburger and milk shake stand. In 2005, graffiti artist Daniel Choe was commissioned to paint murals on the walls of a newly opened office in Palo Alto, Calif. He was then given the choice of a cash payment or stock in the privately held fledgling company. He chose the stock and when Facebook completes its public offering, Mr. Choe’s stock will have a market value in excess of $200 million!
®
Editorial.indd 4 2/22/12 4:14 PM
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6 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Southern Music Co. to Close After 75 YearsTexas sheet music and music publishing stalwart Southern Music Co. recently announced that it plans on closing the doors at its 5,000 square foot store for the final time by the end of February. The announcement came in early February in the San Antonio News Express, and the store has cited the long-lasting recession.
“It’s been like the Super Bowl media day since they ran that article,” general manager Bob Dingley told MMR. The rest of San Antonio flocked to the story and it brought in a flood of last-minute customers. But the shop, run by 85-year-old Arthur Gurwitz, already had its sights set on February 25th as a closing date.
“We all had this vision for decades
that we were recession proof, because usually by the time that would ever affect school budgets, the economy was turning around again,” he said. “Well, this one didn’t do that.”
Dingley, who himself has 45 years ex-perience in the music business including six at Southern, says he expects Southern’s catalog to find a home soon. “As soon as we put out word,” he said, “about half a dozen publishers have come to the table with interest in the Publications division. It appears to me that a deal is going to be struck relatively fast, so the catalog will not be unavailable for very long at all.”
Dingley grew up in Texas, says he has a long relationship with the store the
predates his ever even moving to San Antonio. “As a 12 and 13-year-old trum-pet player, I used to have to come to San Antonio to buy my music because, on the other side in Houston, we didn’t have a music store. So I was customer back then.”
Gurwitz has plans to finally retire after a lifetime of dedication to the business, while Dingley still has his mind on publishing. “I still have confidence in this business and cer-tainly plan to stay in print music myself.”
Steinway Reaches Agreement in Principle to Sell Band DivisionSteinway Musical Instruments, Inc. an-nounced on Friday, January 20 that it has reached an agreement in principle to sell its band division to an investor group led by two current directors of the Company: Dana Messina, former CEO, and John Stoner, Conn-Selmer president.
Samick Musical Instruments Co. Ltd, the owner of 33 percent of the Company’s common stock, will provide a portion of the financing and acquire a significant equity interest in the buyer.
The parties expected to execute a definitive Purchase and Sale Agree-ment, subject to committed financing, shortly after the initial agreement. The
definitive arrangement will include a “go-shop” provision under which the Special Committee of the Board of Di-
rectors will be permit-ted to solicit, receive, evaluate and enter into negotiations with
respect to alternative proposals for a 60-day period. The Special Commit-tee, with the assistance of its advisors, will actively solicit alternative propos-als during this period. There can be no assurance that this process will result in a superior offer and there can be no assurance that the Company will en-ter into a definitive agreement for any transaction or that any transaction will be completed.
Effective April 1, 2012, Yamaha Elec-tronics Corporation, USA (YEC), which is the U.S. sales and marketing company for audiovisual products, will be merged into Yamaha’s U.S. sales and market-ing subsidiary, Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA). Both companies are lo-cated in Buena Park, California.
YEC was originally established as a 100 percent-owned subsidiary of YCA in 1981.
The merger objectives include realizing maximum synergies, increasing manage-ment efficiency, principally in administra-tive business processes, and implementing closely coordinated sales and marketing of musical instruments and A/V products.
For more information, write Yamaha Electronics Corporation, P.O. Box 6660, Buena Park, Calif. 90620; telephone (714) 522-9105 or visit www.usa.yamaha.com.
GC Challenging MAP PoliciesIn late 2011, Guitar Center sent a letter to vendors indicating that it may begin advertising products below minimum advertised price (MAP) policies.
The letter, signed by John Bagan, the company’s executive vice presi-dent and general manager, merchan-
dising and supply chain, outlined that when MAP is “inconsistent with actual market pricing,” GC becomes uncompetitive and wastes resources. The letter declared that Guitar Cen-ter will take, “whatever actions it deems appropriate to maintain its competitiveness in the marketplace and to achieve a fair return on its substantial investments in its vendors and products. These actions may include competing with and match-ing the lowest prevailing advertised price in the market, seeking vendor chargebacks or other concessions to restore [GC’s] expected return on investment, canceling purchase or-ders, terminating some or all prod-uct lines of a vendor, or taking any other action it deems appropriate.”
GC will enforce the policy at its sole discretion.
Two U.S. Yamaha Subsidiaries Merge
Upfront.indd 6 2/22/12 4:16 PM
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MMR_7 7 2/22/12 2:59:49 PM
8 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Gibson Buys Stake in Onkyo Japan, Majority Interest in Onkyo USAGibson Guitar Corp. has announced a strategic partnership with Onkyo Cor-poration, a worldwide leader in con-sumer audio. Offering high quality audio equipment and home theater systems, Onkyo offers Gibson’s newly-formed Pro Audio Di-vision substantial technology resources. Gibson will provide Onkyo with its marketing re-sources and expertise.
Through this venture, Gibson will ac-quire a majority of Onkyo USA (Onkyo’s exclusive distributor for North America and a distributor for Central and South America) and become the second largest shareholder in Onkyo Corporation. Gib-
son will make a strategic investment in the company, and Gibson Cchairman and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will be given a position on the Onkyo board of directors.
Likewise, Onkyo will invest in Gibson, and CEO and president Munenori Otsuki will take a po-sition on the company’s Board of Directors.
Together, the two entities will form a Hong Kong-based joint ven-ture focusing on design and development of consumer audio products. Through this alliance, Onkyo USA becomes the latest addition to the Gibson Pro Audio division, which already includes KRK, Cerwin-Vega! and Stanton.
All agreements are subject to Japa-nese regulatory clearance, negotiation of definitive agreements and financing ap-provals of lenders.
5th Annual Korg Dealer Awards Winners AnnouncedKorg USA has announced the winners of its 2011 Korg USA Key Note Awards. As part of the com-pany’s ongoing commitment to encourage and support its dealer network, this annual distinction properly recognizes and com-mends those retailers who have excelled in a variety of categories and have demonstrated their com-mitment to Korg USA’s brands.
The Korg USA Key Note Awards were presented at the 2012 Winter NAMM Show to top dealers in five categories. The winners are as follows:
Best New Dealer:Guitars, Etc., ColoradoOverall Growth:ProAudioStar, New YorkCommitment to Excellence:Ken Stanton Music, GeorgiaSweetwater Sound, Inc.IndianaKraft MusicWisconsinMarketing and Promotions:Bananas At Large, CaliforniaChuck Levin’s Washington Music CenterMaryland
Korg USA presents 2011 Korg USA Key Note Award to Kraft Music at the 2012 Winter NAMM Show.
JHS Signs Exclusive Distribution Deal with SAMA Trading Co. Ltd.John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd. has joined forces with SAMA Trading Co. Ltd., who will exclusively distribute the Fret-King® and Vintage® guitar brands throughout South Korea.
SAMA will take on the entire Fret-King range, including the newly re-leased Black Label line and the clas-sic Blueand Green Labels, as well as the Vintage Electric catalogue, with Vintage Acoustics to follow later on in 2012.
Trev Wilkinson, Hojo Jeong – SAMA’s Planning and Marketing department manager – and JHS’s Adam Butterworth celebrate aftersigning the new deal.
TEAC Announces Alliance with OnkyoAs part of its corporate goal to enhance shareholder value and meet the demands of a changing marketplace, TEAC Cor-poration has announced a strategic alli-ance with Onkyo Corporation.
Through this partnership TEAC and Onkyo will acquire shares of each other’s stock. The companies are exploring ways to share manufacturing facilities, logistic cen-ters, and research & development resources.
Compared to last month, sales are now...
Pulse of the MI Nation
Compiled from replies to MMR’s ongo-ing online survey of MI retailers. Visit www.mmrmagazine.com to participate...
Up 37%
Down 41%
Level 22%
Upfront.indd 8 2/22/12 4:16 PM
U-320
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MMR_9 9 2/22/12 3:00:03 PM
10 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Eden Bass Amps Sold to Marshall AmplificationUS Music Corp recently announced that they have sold their Eden Bass Amplifi-cation business to Marshall Amplifica-tion plc.
In commenting on the purchase of Eden, Jonathan Ellery, man-aging director of Marshall stated, “We are very pleased to be able to add this revered brand to our business. We feel that Eden is a great stra-tegic fit within our Marshall
Amplifier line and therefore we have the opportunity to increase the Eden brand’s presence worldwide. We are prepared to
invest in the development of new products and to expand the awareness of the brand.”
Barry Ryan, president of US Music Corp added, “The sale of Eden Bass Amps to Marshall will result in more resources being dedicated to the brand and that will translate into a continually improving and evolving line of Eden Bass Amp products. We are pleased to be able to continue to represent Eden in the United States as the exclusive distributor and our North American customer base will not be im-pacted as a result of the sale.”
In commenting on how the Eden Brand will be managed, Ellery stated
that Luke Green has been named the brand manager for Eden. Green has been part of the Marshall family for sev-eral years and will now run the Eden interests for Marshall worldwide. In dis-cussing his new role, Green said, “I am very excited about the opportunity to guide the growth and development of one of the best brands in the music indus-try. The current Eden team will continue to be part of the company. With the re-sources that the Marshall Group will be able to offer we plan to really take Eden forward and continue to develop exciting new equipment for bass players.”
Future Publishing Sells Music Magazine OperationFuture Publishing has sold off its loss-making New York operation – home to magazines including Guitar World, Revolver and Guitar Aficionado – in a deal worth $3 million. The NY division re-ported a $5.6m loss last year.
Future has sold the New York operation, referred to by Future as its “New York music division,” to NewBay Media. NewBay is head-quartered in New York and owned by private equity firm the Wicks Group. The company owns dozens of magazines, websites and several national events serving the music and broadcast industry. NewBay has acquired Future’s assets, which also includes a license to operate the Golden Gods Awards show.
The company has acquired the business for an initial payment of $2.6m in cash on completion of the deal. This is followed by $150,000 in cash on 30 September, and $250,000 cash in the third quarter this year “based on the achievement of certain operational targets.”
Among other holdings, NewBay Media already owns Guitar Player magazine, a high-profile competitor for new acquisition, Guitar World.
Viacom Ordered to Pay Makers of ‘Rock Band’ $383 MillionA private arbitrator has ordered Viacom Inc. to pay $383 million to Harmonix, the manufacturers of the ‘Rock Band’ video game series. The money is in addition to $150 million Viacom has already paid the former shareholders of Harmonix.
Viacom, purchased Harmonix in 2006 in an attempt to break into the video game business, and then sold Harmonix to a private investment firm for a mere $50 in
2010. The sale saved Viacom $50 million in taxes because of the losses in the media company’s investment in Harmonix.
Harmonix shareholders had sought a total of $700 million in damages, including the initial $150 million. Viacom is fighting the arbitrator’s decision by suing in the Del-aware Court of Chancery, on the grounds that certain arguments and evidence were “improperly excluded” in the process.
Counterfeit Shure Gear Seized in Peru and ParaguayThousands of counterfeit Shure micro-phones were recently confiscated by cus-toms officials in Peru and Paraguay. The actions were the result of ongoing investi-gations by Shure representatives in both countries, in cooperation with local customs and law enforcement agencies. The seized products will be destroyed under the supervision of customs agents.
In Peru, 2,303 counterfeit Shure mi-crophones were seized by customs offi-cials as the products were being import-ed into the country. The microphones included models C606, SM58®, and PG58. Also confiscated were 1,594 cables and several thousand accessories, user guides, and product cartons, all branded with the Shure trademark. The products were being imported by Fabi Export and Import, a company that is not an autho-
rized Shure distributor or reseller.In Paraguay, a delegation of officials
from the customs authority raided a num-ber of resellers in Ciudad del Este, includ-ing Music Shop, Music Brasil SA, and
Musical World. Counterfeit products seized included SM57, SM58®, Beta57A®,
and Beta58A® microphones as well as PGX Digital Wireless components.
“Shure continues to take vigorous ac-tion against counterfeiters worldwide,” said Mark Humrichouser, general man-ager for the Shure Americas Business Unit. “We are committed to challenging the sale of counterfeit Shure products, not only to protect the interests of Shure and our distribution partners, but to en-sure that consumers receive authentic products with the performance and qual-ity for which Shure is famous.”
Upfront.indd 10 2/22/12 4:16 PM
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MMR_11 11 2/22/12 3:00:10 PM
12 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Tama Marching Drums Debut at PASICTama has officially climbed into the marching percussion ring. Along with unveiling at PASIC 2011, the division has also launched its full-featured website, tamamarching.com.
Much of the curiosity and enthusiasm about the line is due, no doubt, to the participation of marching drum master Tom Float. His decades of experience with drums and carriers had yielded a long list of status-quo shortcomings and safety haz-ards. “When we started the development process at Tama, those problems – and the solutions to those problems – were tacked on the wall as design mandates. Most of those solutions are terrific innovations that would be impossible if we weren’t re-
thinking and building these drums from the ground-up,” says Float. Add to those innovations Tama’s well-earned reputa-tion for great-sounding drums that are
easy on the eye, and as Float reports, “Drum-mers who’ve played the drums and seen the de-
sign improvements in action usually react with something like ‘Wow, now that is cool!’”
“The Tama approach has always been to use the real world as our R&D lab,” says Tama marching drum special-ist Jason Ranck. “Our drums and acces-sories have always been developed col-laboratively with musicians who subject our gear to the harsh realities of their
playing environment.” Over the last few years the Tama Marching Percus-sion team has worked closely with such nationally ranked competitive marching percussion squads as Ayala High School (Chino Hills, CA), James Logan High School (Union City, CA), Foothill High School (Henderson, NV), San Marcos High School (Santa Barbara, CA) and most recently the Avon Marching Black & Gold (Avon, Indiana).
tamamarching.com features video and an interview with Tom Float, prod-uct videos, pics, specs, as well as func-tionality that allows band directors to as-semble Tama Marching Drum packages virtually, which can be submitted to the dealer of their choice for pricing.
MIAC Launches Redesigned SiteThe Music Industries Association of Canada recently launched its brand new, industry focused website. The site www.miac.net is designed to serve the needs of its membership which includes manufac-turers, distributors, and retailers of pro AV products, musical instruments, print music and associated products.
In addition to streamlined navigation and a “modernized look,” much of the content has been edited and updated. An improved search function makes content easier to find, and the bilingual website can also be quickly and easily changed
to ensure pertinent information is readily available.
The new site is part of an overall strat-egy to improve MIAC communications to its membership and to those outside the organization. The new website also features MIAC social media links, in-cluding Facebook , and Twitter, where members and industry participants can find out more about MIAC activities. Also included is a completely redevel-oped member’s area that allows visitors to search for pro AV products and ser-
vices and for music instruments by cat-egories and brands. An additional MIAC members benefit is the secure members’ only section that gives member’s access to statistical reports and other valuable industry information.
For more information about MIAC 2012 Show, visit www.miac.net. For the PAL Show visit, www.thepalshow.com. The MIAC 2012 & the PAL Show is scheduled for May 13-14, at the Toronto International Centre.
Chip Averwater, owner of Tennes-see’s Amro Music Stores and former NAMM chairman, has authored Retail Truths – The Unconventional Wis-dom of Retailing.
The 381-page book, published by ABB Press, shares valuable wisdom Averwater has accrued throughout his lifetime of work in the MI in-dustry. “Many of [my lessons learned] were in the school of hard knocks, where the tu-ition was high and the lessons were often brought home with a kick to
the groin.” Chip notes on his Web-site. “Now it’s my turn to pass on
what I’ve learned – my younger brother and son are taking over the com-pany. And that’s how this project came to be – combined with an irre-sistible enthusiasm for the world’s most engrossing, gratifying, challenging, and sometimes reward-ing profession.”
Retail Truths retails for $19.95. Addition-al information can be
found at www.retailtruths.com and www.abbpress.com.
Averwater Pens Retail Truths
Upfront.indd 12 2/22/12 4:17 PM
14 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Korg Appointed Distributor Of Lâg Guitars In CanadaAs of February 1st, Korg USA – ap-pointed exclusive U.S. distributor for Lâg Guitars last winter – is now also the ex-clusive distributor for Lâg guitars in the Canadian market, in recognition of their successful efforts to build the Lâg brand in the U.S.
This announcement comes on the heels of Lâg being chosen by U.S. deal-
ers as “Acoustic Guitar Line of the Year” in MMR’s 2011 Dealers’ Choice Awards.
Korg USA’s New York-based distri-bution facility has a dedicated staff that inspects and sets-up every instrument immediately before it ships. In addition, Lâg U.S. product manager Brian Piccolo will be supporting sales efforts by visiting
new Canadian dealers to assist with in-store marketing efforts.
Korg USA’s sales representatives for Lâg in Canada will be Peter Markov-ich (Western Canada) and Allan Pearl-man (Eastern Canada). Interested music retailers in Canada can contact Korg USA’s national sales manager at: [email protected] for more information.
McFee Initiates Guitar ProgramHigh School senior – and daughter of GHS Strings’ Conne and Russ McFee – Madeline McFee, initiated and coor-dinated the development of a successful guitar education program into Lakeview Area Schools, in Battle Creek, Mich.
The school recently completed the first semester of “Introduction to Guitar” with a completely full enrollment of 28 students. McFee originally proposed the concept (which provided teacher training and fi-nancial support for equipment) to the school administration in the spring of 2011. The program utilized GAMA’s Guitar Teacher
Education program, provided for the pur-chase of Guitars at a reduced price through Fender’s School Program, and provided the donation of amplifiers, strings, guitar stands, music stands, cables and picks from GHS/Rocktron Corporation.
Greg Black, director of Vocal Music Activities and Guitar teacher for Lakev-iew High School said, “I think this class had a huge impact on the students. The guitar is an instrument that can ‘do life’ with you. It is portable. It is relatively inex-pensive. It can play cords AND melodies, so you can accompany yourself on it. It is
Charles “Chuck” Barnhouse died Monday, February 6 at his home in Oskaloosa, Iowa at the age of 84.
Barnhouse represented the third generation to own and operate the C. L. Barnhouse Publishing Company, purveyors of band and orchestral mu-sic. Their composers include the likes of James Swearingen, Alfred Reed, and Frank Mantooth.
After outgrowing their facilities in 1987, Charles oversaw the building of new headquarters and improved pro-duction of all areas of the publishing process.
Ivor Drake became the second-ever salesperson hired for the Winter Piano Company after the close of World War II and soon his wife, Rose, became his nearly constant traveling companion.
Ivor was known to frequently joke that the company got “two for the price of one,” as Rose soon be-came as valuable an asset to the com-pany as he was. Rose got to know his many accounts and became friends with many of the retailers and their wives. Together they became one of the most recognized couples in the in-dustry before Ivor passed away in the early 1970s.
Rose Wernes Drake passed away on January 23, at the age of 96.
After a long battle with Parkinson’s, Jack Linton passed away on De-cember 29, 2011.
Jack headed up Elkhart, Indiana’s J.M. Linton Woodwinds, a company founded by his father in the 1930s. The company gained a well-respected reputation for their professional series,
which have been played by ymphonic soloists in Russia, Europe, Asia and the United States.When Jack took over the company he worked on the marketing of student models and ex-panded the market within a few years.
Tom Ostrander of Mt. Vernon Ohio, who founded Colonial Music of Ohio in 1964, passed away on January 2 at the age of 84.
Ostrander sold the seven-store Colonial Music operation to Music & Arts in 2006. He was a member of NAMM, Napbirt, an Army Band Direc-tor for 30 years, and served as an of-ficer in many organizations. A musical tribute was presented at his funeral by the Ohio State University March-ing Band. Tom Ostrander is survived by his wife of 55 years, Elaine, two daughters, and three grandchildren.
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16 MMR MARCH 2012
Upfront
Arizona’s Insalaco’s Music & Upholstery Closes OperationInsalaco’s Music and Upholstery of Apache Junction, Arizona has closed their operation.
Local station, ABC-15, reported on the business’ unique history:
“I’ve always done upholstery all my life,” said John Isalaco. “One day me and my brother were up in Globe and we walked into a music store. We wanted to buy a guitar and the owners asked if we wanted to buy the store. We went back
and talked to the folks and we owned the music store. I mean plain and simple.”
The story behind the store’s closing is also a short tale, a sad and all too familiar one.
“The landlord wanted us to go an-other 3 year lease,” he explained. “I told him we can’t afford it and he said he has someone who can take over the first of February. I said, ‘okay.’ Both businesses worked really well up until last year. The
economy just, the internet’s just killing all us mom and pop stores.”
Now, after 40 years, John and his broth-er Tony are preparing to close their doors.
John, who is also the mayor of Apache Junction, sees this as a double whammy. “Here in the city, we don’t have a city property tax; we live on sales tax, that’s it,” he said. “So naturally here’s another business going down that the city’s going to lose.”
so versatile that it can give life-long enjoy-ment.” The new guitar class was received with immediate enthusiasm and was so popular that it filled up immediately.
Black went on to say, “This class reach-es a group of kids who wouldn’t normally be involved in the standard school music classes like Band, Orchestra, and Choir. About 50% of the students were kids that I had never met. They had never set foot
into one of the music rooms at LHS. “ In addition, the economic impact of the gui-tar class is significant. The average cost of a thirty minute guitar lesson is $20. There-fore, a nine week class meeting every school day for 90 minutes would have a value of $2,700 per student. The overall value for a class of 28 students totals $75,600, per semester. Furthermore, research indicates that music students, on average perform
better in school. Skills learned through the discipline of music may transfer to study skills, communication skills, and cognitive skills useful in every part of a child’s studies at school, through ( Wikipedia).
McFee said, “ I am proud to have been an integral part of bringing the guitar pro-gram to Lakeview. I hope that the success of this this program will continue and that it will touch the lives of many students.”
must be the Eddy Finn Uke.
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Upfront.indd 16 2/23/12 1:11 PM
18 MMR MARCH 2012
People
Jack Sonni has joined D’Addario & Company, Inc. as its new vice president of marketing. Sonni brings over 30 years of experience in the Music Industry with a proven track record in stra-tegic planning, branding, marketing, ad-vertising, and product development.
Sonni’s background includes serving as VP of marketing communications at Guitar Center. In this role, he was re-sponsible for the creative direction of all corporate marketing, advertising, public relations, and promotional events. While there, Sonni was also instrumental in the development of promotional partner-ships with very well regarded entertain-
ment and consumer brands, such as Nike, Levi’s, and Warner Brothers. After leav-ing Guitar Center, Sonni became a con-sultant and partnered with other firms in the creation of cost-effective marketing campaigns designed for rapid execution and measureable sales results.
Alfred Music Publishing recently announced the promotion of Doug Fraser to vice president, Digital Sales. In his new role, Fra-ser is responsible for imple-menting and overseeing Al-fred’s digital initiatives.
Music & Arts has promoted David Fuhr to vice president of retail and educational sales. Fuhr began his career with Music & Arts in 2001 in the southern suburbs of Atlanta where he managed the Peachtree City store and also serviced the schools in the south metro area. In 2003, when the company acquired Ric-cardo’s music in Hartford Conn., Fuhr assumed the district manager role in New England, where he led the retail integra-tion of several business mergers. In 2005, Fuhr was promoted to vice president of retail sales and since then has led a team of sales managers who have doubled the profitability of the lesson program, grown store overall profitability by 25 percent, maintained positive lesson enrollment growth, and retained top line sales figures throughout the past five years.
Additionally, Music & Arts has hired Anjan Shah as director of marketing. Shah contributes more than 18 years of experience in entertainment and retail marketing with a special emphasis on the music industry.
Full Compass Systems recently pro-moted Kyle Kjensrud from product specialist to assistant product manager – Publications & e-Commerce. Kjensrud will now be playing a key role in mer-chandising initiatives, selecting products for print publications and assisting with stock recommendations. In addition, he will be working closely with the Mar-keting department to enhance the Full
Sonni
Fraser
Fuhr
People.indd 18 2/22/12 4:18 PM
Compass website. Kjensrud will also continue to develop and maintain vendor relationships.
Kjensrud began working at Full Com-pass in August 2000 as a sales represen-tative in the company’s CompassXpress department. He served as second shift sales manager, where he managed a team of 8 sales representatives, before joining the Product Management team in 20505. Here, he began working directly with vendors and assisted in the production of the Full Compass product catalogs.
Full Compass also has selected Jim Ripp as its new assistant sales manager.
Ripp studied at the University of Wisconsin – School of Music with a dual degree in Piano Per-formance and K-12 Music Education. While there, he began work-ing at Forbes-Meagher Music Company as a sales/general manager, and also served as their director of education. In 1993, Ripp began working concurrently for Falcetti Music Co. as a store manager, sales representative and teacher.
Sweetwater recently hired two new managers. The new senior category managers are the most recent additions to Sweetwater’s recently reorganized Merchandizing department.
Jon Croft is the new senior category manager for Guitars and Drums. Most recently Croft was the Platinum Guitar Mmanager for Guitar Center at their corporate headquarters in California, re-sponsible for all higher end guitars in the G.C. Chain and online.
Senior category manager Matt Dun-can arrives in Fort Wayne from Med-ford, Oregon, where he was the buyer of Amps, Pedals and Effects for Musician’s Friend. This is the same category Dun-can will merchandise at Sweetwater.
Elation Professional has hired Mark Haney as senior market manager of Broad-cast Video and Lighting. This new position focuses on the overall sales of Elation’s LED video product, support and client relations.
Haney will have direct contact with Elation de-signers, dealers and install-ers, overseeing projects for the company’s products in this market. Additionally, he will collect all market feedback for further developing Ela-tion’s growing broadcast video and lighting business, specifically with the company’s LED video screens and ex-panded video and lighting product cat-alog, as well as in the live touring and production segment.
American Way Marketing of Elkhart, Indiana has announced that Steve Ro-rie has joined their B&S USA instrument division to lead all sales and marketing activities for B&S Soprano Brass, Hans Hoyer French Horns, Meinl Weston Tu-bas and Euphoniums, and the Johannes Scherzer Rotary Trumpets.
In addition to American Way’s line of brasswind instruments, Rorie will also rep-resent the Superslick, Faxx, and 1st Lesson brands offered by the company, as well as THE HORN HAUS…Americas largest and most comprehensive dealer showroom for B&S, Meinl Weston, Hans Hoyer
Harman’s Studer has appointed Roger Heiniger to the position of product man-ager.
Heiniger’s primary re-sponsibilities will include overseeing product devel-opment of Studer mixing systems and contributing to the company’s brand devel-opment programs. For the past six years, Heiniger has worked in Studer’s Regensdorf facility as software test manager. Heiniger will report to Andrew Hills, who recently re-turned to Studer as director of product management.
Studer has also appointed Ingo Hahn to the position of product manager. In his new position, Hahn will be responsible for the planning and development of new Studer products and enhancements to the existing Studer product line, while also providing support to Studer’s customer base.
Hahn joins Studer from DAVID Sys-tems GmbH, where he worked for almost 10 years and most recently held the title of product & aolution manager, serving the company’s customers in the radio and television markets.
Ripp
Haney
Croft and Duncan Heiniger
People.indd 20 2/22/12 4:18 PM
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MMR_21 21 2/22/12 3:01:14 PM
Dear Keith,Congratulations on receiving the Don Johnson Music
Industry Service Award.
It i s said that you have a passion for what you do,
that you bring your ‘A’ game to everything and that you never do
anything less than 100 percent. These are the same qualities that Don
brought to MMR, and to an industry he loved. He, too, truly enjoyed
bringing the professional and personal approach to a story, similar to
what you bring to your business and philanthropic ventures. And
that i s why it i s 100 percent fitting that you receive this year’s award.
We wish you continued success with Hal Leonard and future en-
deavors that will continue to inspire and shape the music industry.
Best Wishes, Charlene, Hilary, and Rosamund Johnson
A message from the
Johnson Family to Keith Mardak:
Letters
22 MMR MARCH 2012
Just finished reading the 50 stores 50 states issue [MMR December, 2011], which brought to mind some things I’ve been meaning to comment on for a while now.
Everyone talks about “customer ser-vice” but to whom are you providing service? Think about this: most retail-ers take a basic urban/suburban ap-proach – sit on your ass behind a counter of glass and let the customer come to you.
Get a horse. Or a van. Or roller skates. But get out of your store.
In your community, go to the concerts – particularly the school concerts and community orch/band/choral concerts. Be tacky – get yourself a lapel button, ala political campaigns, that has your store logo on it and wear it. Put a sticker on your briefcase and carry it – loaded with a box or two of reeds, some tuning grease, cork grease, guitar strings, other odds and ends. And have you considered home delivery? My customers rather like this – they call me and say, “I need such and such” and I deliver it to their house or workplace. No extra charge.
Get out of town. Did you know that almost half of the American population lives in a community/town which is not urban/suburban? Why should these folks have to drive 50, 100, 150 or more miles to get to a music store? How do you think the Internet got its foot in the door? Internet is just another version of catalogue sales. Why are you letting them have this business? What, you have “price of gas” issues? Get over it. One box of Vandoren clarinet reeds will pay for a tank of gas.
The highlight of my calendar year (my business year is October - Septem-ber) was establishing as a new customer a school district 165 miles away from me in a town that has no music store and to which I happen to be the clos-est music dealer available. I also did some positive prospecting in some of the smaller rural towns in the gen-eral region. They didn’t come to me – I went to them.
Forget trying to compete on price, you can’t win that battle. Charge list, or at least charge what you need to make in
order to keep the lights on, the roof over the head and food on the table – cutting your price is cutting your profit is cutting your throat. But give folks a reason to pay full price. How about free shipping and delivery? How about showing them how to do basic maintenance on their in-strument?
See, I’m first and foremost a per-formance guitarist. I used to drive all over southern California doing gigs. So I’m sort of used to this. Music retail is no different. And granted, I’m a home-based biz. No store front so no counter of glass behind which to sit my ass. And I’m bootstrapping. But still it all boils down to one thing… “Get The Music To The People.”
Richard Hannemann
Hannemann MusicLos Alamos, NM
505 662 0380
I read your coverage of the latest MAP development, entitled “GC Challeng-ing MAP Policies.” [MMR e-newsletter, January 6, 2012] The easy conclusion in
reading GC’s letter to vendors is that it’s a gloves on the mat, all-out assault on MAP pricing, as we know it. Indeed, we may find out, as time goes on, that’s ex-actly how this will play out.
But I’d like to offer another pos-sible outcome. If you take their letter as it’s written, one could argue that their goal is to actually support MAP pric-ing. What is possible is that they’re fir-ing a warning shot, using the threat of their considerable power to “encour-age” manufacturers to see to it that the spirit of MAP pricing is upheld. If this analysis is true, then their goal could be to add meaningfulness to existing MAP policies.
Which analysis is correct? Will this destroy MAP policies or support them? Time will tell, and I suspect that we’re in for some interesting showdowns in the meantime! If I were still in retail, I’d be awfully concerned about the re-sale value of my inventory for all manu-facturers that do business with Guitar Center. It makes me glad that I am where I am.
Gerson RosenbloomManaging Director
Wechter Guitars
Letters.indd 22 2/23/12 9:33 AM
Politics and NAMM Member Action Committees
For decades, NAMM Members have worked together in coalitions to support music education for all children. Indeed, it’s a core belief in our vision statement. These efforts have helped keep school music programs strong in spite of the fiscal shortfalls that seem to never end. Here the obstacles are budgets and competition for class time from subjects like math, science and reading. Yet public opinion polls reinforce our message: The vast majority of Americans believe that music and the arts should be a part of every child’s education, and, when we meet with politicians and policymakers, most agree and want to help as much as they can.
More recently however, NAMM has worked closely with our Members on issues directly impacting their business like global intellectual property protection and regulations such as the Lacey Act. NAMM has supported these efforts with government relations staff, professional services, compliance education webinars and communications to inform people about important regulations impacting the industry so that everyone can make their own decisions on how to best respond. But this has unleashed some new challenges.
Pending legislation to restrict overseas websites profiting from counterfeit versions of Members’ products has created a national debate on internet regulation, innovation and free speech, and has pitted those interested in protecting their intellectual property against tech giants like Google. Threats of consumer boycotts of those who support tougher
regulations has been a sobering reality. Conflicts accelerated during January when both Houses of Congress decided to put aside current intellectual property legislation and essentially go back to the drawing board. Music industry counterfeiting concerns persist, and NAMM is working closely with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office to offer training to protect products and brands.
The Lacey Act has had well-documented effects on our industry, and NAMM Members have diligently worked to pass the RELIEF Act, which addresses concerns while reinforcing our industry’s commitment to protecting and sustaining our natural resources for generations to come. However, environmental groups who see any action with the Lacey Act as a negative one have wrongly accused our industry of supporting illegal logging, leading to a brief protest during the opening day of the NAMM Show. These types of activities seek to exploit NAMM and our Members to further an agenda and are a consequence of our work to address concerns relevant to the industry. As our good friend Governor Mike Huckabee was quoted as saying, “If you enter the political arena, you’d better get used the sight of your own blood.” It sure makes lobbying for music education seem tame by comparison!
These issues are important to our association, and we are committed to working with our Member Action Committees to help create dialog and positive change. We urge those impacted by these issues to learn more and get involved by visiting www.namm.org/publicaffairs. This will be a busy year for our industry with many important political events coming up, including our Washington fly-in, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and the presidential election in November. In our diverse Membership, opinions can vary on these important issues, so let us know where you stand and learn how you can make a difference.
Sincerely,
News visit us online at www.namm.org
Notefrom Joe
NAMM News is published by NAMM. To keep up-to-date on the
latest breaking industry news, sign up for our PLAYback Digital e-newsletter
NAMM News March 2012
MMR_24 24 2/22/12 3:01:31 PM
N A S H V I L L E C O N V E N T I O N C E N T E R
F E A T U R I N G
BUILD your brand your products your customers
MMR_25 25 2/23/12 10:54:44 AM
26 MMR MARCH 2012
Anniversary
It was 90 years ago that Alfred Music Publishing first opened its doors for busi-ness, and that translates to three genera-tions in the Manus family.
Since then, the public’s exposure to music of all forms has come from countless new directions that 1922 publishers could scarcely foresee. The phono-graph had barely come into existence at that point, and the radio was on its way to becoming a standard taste-maker. Then came hi-fi systems, film soundtracks, television, rock concerts, cassette tapes, MTV, CDs, and finally mp3s. And let’s not forget video games.
The decades have also brought gen-erations of expertise to the Alfred offices. After founder Alfred Piantodosi sold the company to Sam Manus in 1928, the business trucked along for over 20 years
as a reliable publisher of popu-lar music. When Manus’s son, Morty, began working with him in 1950, the company began to focus on educational materials, an approach which has served them well to this day.
Morty’s sons, Steven and Ron, began working with the company in the ’80s and, since then, sales have grown from $12 million to over $65 million. Steven
Third Generation CEO Ron Manus Guides Alfred Music towards the Century-Mark
“This company is great.
The products have been excellent
and superior for a long time
and I get to focus on music education.
That’s where the company grew
and became large and how we
continue to grow.”
Once upon a time, a small publishing company opened up offices in
order to help get a few Tin Pan Alley compositions out into the world,
maybe get a few scores sold, and make their humble author a bit of
cash. Times were simpler then – music was still largely a live form
of entertainment and sheet music presented a primary means of dis-
covery for many performers across the country of new and newly ar-
ranged pieces.
90Alfred Music Publishing at
Alfred.indd 26 2/22/12 4:21 PM
MARCH 2012 MMR 27
served as CEO for fifteen years until his retirement two years ago, when Ron took over from his old post in the music instrument books department, which he continues to work for as much he can. Ron’s first love is playing guitar and to this day he maintains a band with co-workers and organizers from Alfred af-filiate and girls-in-rock advocate Daisy Rock.
In the meantime, the company has not slowed down. Under Ron Manus’s fresh leadership, Alfred has not only begun an initiative to make all of its operations and products more sustainable, but it’s also rolled out its first major new partnership in the form of a series of published music licensed for Nintendo, riding a growing wave of interest in the video game mak-er’s vast catalog of original soundtrack music for games dating back to the origi-nal Super Mario Bros., which was in turn the first title offered in the series. They quickly followed with The Legend of Zelda, with more on the way.
In all, the company has maintained a spirit of adaptation that dates back to its early days in New York. MMR recently spoke with Alfred’s newest CEO, Ron Manus, about the company’s 90th an-niversary, its rich history, and the chal-lenges of taking over such a successful operation.
MMR: It’s been two years since the changing of the guard from
your brother, Steven, to you. What’s changed since then?
Ron Manus: Well, the “Alfred Cares” initiative was one of the first things I did when I became CEO and it’s been a big thing. I want to make sure that we’re being environmentally responsible. We’re now publishing 95 percent of our products on 100 percent recycled pa-per. That’s obviously a big deal. It’s the same thing with our DVD production. The cases are eco-packs, which have 30 percent less plastic. It’s like when you hol-
low out the inside wood of a guitar to lighten it – same kind of con-cept with these DVD packs. So we can use less plastic and keep it still strong and high quality.
We also recycle a lot of old products at our distribution center. Wherever we can make a choice in that direc-tion, we do. We even put water-free urinals in our building in L.A. when it came time to upgrade. The light-
ing at our distribution center has been changed out for a new system that uses less electricity. The savings for every-thing were substantial and it ended up paying for itself quickly.
MMR: Beyond the sustain-ability push, have you worked toward any more changes for the company’s business?
RM: We’re always finding ways to do things better or more efficiently, and I’ve been making sure we’re always working in that direction, but as far as any funda-mental changes, there hasn’t been a major change, really. The CEO change didn’t happen because the company was falter-ing – it happened because my brother wanted to retire. So I just try not to screw things up! And that – that’s a joke, but it’s true. This company is great. The products have been excellent and superior for a long time and I get to focus on our strength, music education. Music education is how Alfred became the company it is today, and how it will continue to grow.
MMR: You’ve basically worked at Alfred all your life, right? How did your parents first get you involved?
The Manus family.
Willard A Palmer, Morty Manus.
Alfred.indd 27 2/22/12 4:21 PM
28 MMR MARCH 2012
RM: The first time I remember work-ing at Alfred was when I was six years old. Our warehouse was in Port Washington, N.Y. (this was around 1969 or 1970) and, as a way of saving money on summer camp, I imagine, my parents brought me to the warehouse and pretended that it was my job for the summer. So I’d just be in the warehouse trying not to get run over by trucks. [laughs] But I’d try to pick orders and pretty much would get side-lined by the copy machine when I real-ized I could put my face on it. But every time summer would come, I would be at Alfred helping out. All through college, when I attended San Francisco State, I’d come back to L.A. for the summers to work in the sales department all through the ’80s, helping out during stock order season. Then I began working full time in 1988.
After being in sales for, I think, three and a half years – I’m a guitarist and had seen that, other than Alfred’s Basic Guitar and a handful of other books that were doing all right, there wasn’t really a focus on guitar education. So I started writing a couple of books in that area and they starting doing pretty well. I had asked my dad if he thought that I would be a good guitar editor. He was very supportive, so I became the guitar editor and the MI team leader as we went into teams in the mid-’90s.
Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method is, to this day, our best-selling guitar book. It’s our flagship guitar book and we take care of it like a prized possession. Over three million sold! We are constantly improv-ing and updating it. For example, we just put color inside the book. Like a garden, you need to prune and water, we are al-ways tending to the titles in our catalog that make up our core business.
MMR: So what happened after you began heading up the gui-tar section?
RM: I ran the MI division up until I became CEO in 2009. When I started as MI team leader, our sales went from about $250,000 in that area and I grew it to $5 million in under eight years. By focusing our attention on that market we were able to identify where our catalog was missing products. Just by putting a focus on it, that helped. We have a really good team of people here and we started doing books with National Guitar Work-shop, which is a great partnership for our company.
MMR: Timing must have played into that, too, with the ’90s guitar boom and shifting audio technology.
RM: Yeah, it was great and still is. I mean we had at the time the advent
of the changeover from cassette to CD, which was great because packaging be-came a lot easier. With some help along the way, we were able to take advantage of that boom and shift in audio technolo-gy to produce some really cool products.
MMR: Are there any new foci nowadays beyond guitars?
RM: The MI area, when I took it over, encompassed anything that was sold to an MI store – guitar, bass, drums – all pop hobbyist-focused products like vocal books and pro audio. Alfred’s longstand-ing strength has been our relationships with our teachers. We continue to focus on the great connection we have with Piano teachers and also the institutional educators working through schools and churches. Alfred spends a great deal of time and energy focusing on clinics and conventions so that we are able to con-nect directly with the educators. But our hobbyist area was somewhere we hadn’t focused on, so that became my focus.
MMR: And now you’ve got the Nintendo license for a new audience.
RM: Yeah, one thing we’ve worked on for five years now is getting a deal with Nintendo and we were able to get the Super Mario Bros. books out. It’s the tip of the iceberg, really. We just had The
Alfred.indd 28 2/22/12 4:22 PM
MARCH 2012 MMR 29
Legend of Zelda come out too, which is kind of the second wave of Nintendo products we’ll be doing. So that’s a really big deal for us—something that really worked out for us.
Another direction in the consumer market we’ve gone is bundle packs of gui-tar products. We work with Penguin on a lot of Complete Idiot’s Guides products, so we did an Idiot’s branded guitar box set, which is an entry-level guitar box that comes branded with some of our educa-tional material. We’ve done a full-size acoustic guitar pack for that. We’ve also created starter packs based on our kids’ guitar courses, which we came out with five years ago and are great. It’s become our second best selling guitar method in a very short period of time. It’s great be-cause it’s all in a box – everything you need to start playing guitar. It doesn’t require the store to be a full-line guitar store unless they’re already doing that. We also have a ukulele pack that we branded with our Teach Yourself series, so it’s a Teach Yourself Ukulele pack. And that’s been huge in the fourth quarter.
MMR: Looking back on the generations of leadership at Alfred, do you see a distinct change in each reign?
RM: Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I can’t be Steven and Steven couldn’t be Morty before him. Luckily, I’ve still got Morty here so that’s great. This is Morty’s life and love, and he’s here four or five days a week still cranking out great piano products and helping guide me and guide the com-
pany. But Steven had some amazing strengths. We built a new state-of-the-art warehouse in upstate New York, which Steven helped design, and he was able to conceive all the program-ming needed to put it all together. Steven was really brilliant at programming and designing infrastructure, so he built this company to a place where I now feel re-ally comfortable focusing on product.
MMR: What was it that Morty changed about the company when he began running it?
RM: Morty is the embodiment of the true entrepreneurial spirit. He grew the company because he had a vision and passion of what products he thought the market needed. Morty co-wrote Alfred’s Basic Guitar. He also co-wrote Alfred’s Ba-sic Piano Library – he is our star editor and our star writer. He makes every book he touches better. Under his leadership, the company quickly grew from nothing to a good-sized company. By the mid-’90s, already busting at the seams, we really needed someone to take us to the next level. That was the point where Steven came on board.
Morty’s been here throughout, maintaining that entrepreneurial spirit focused on product development and in what our core business is: To help people experience the joy of making music. You need both things in tandem. It was the perfect time for Steven to step in and he did a great job.
MMR: What was the company like before he began working there?
RM: His dad, Sam Manus, bought the company in 1928 from Alfred Piantodosi, who started the company. Piantodosi was a songwriter, a contemporary of Irving Ber-lin. He started his own publishing company in 1922. In 1928, he sold it to Sam Manus. Sam kept it going. The catalog featured a lot of songs from the silent movie era. Some of the early hits were songs like, “Waiting for Robert E. Lee” and “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” and lots of stuff that is now referred to as The Great American Songbook. When Morty got involved, he had some success with the song “Tell Me You’re Mine,” by the Gaylords.
Pitching songs is a tough business unless you’re a pure salesman. Morty is more of an artist and musician, so he said, “What else can we publish other than chasing after these pop songs?” He started looking at music education and started working with Willard A. Palm-er, and they came up with the Palmer Hughes Accordion Course. Soon after, Morty started working on Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, and the timing was perfect with rock’n’roll taking prominence on the charts and people wanting to learn gui-tar. So he kept going, doing book after
Morty and Iris Manus.
Bryan Bradley, Ron Manus.
Alfred.indd 29 2/22/12 4:22 PM
30 MMR MARCH 2012
book and laying the groundwork. He launched Alfred’s Basic Piano Library in the early ’80s, which incidentally celebrates its 30 year anniversary this year, and it’s still our number one piano method.
MMR: Is it tougher now with school programs facing so many cuts?
RM: Surprisingly, we’ve done very well in the band and school area. Even with so many of the programs getting cut, thankfully there is usually a music store that gets involved and helps start an after-school program that comes in to take its place, . A lot of times it’s not the greatest or not what you’d hoped for, but music survives. The people in this industry have such a passion for it that we do find a way to keep the music in schools.
Our Sound Innovations method for Concert Band and String Orchestra are doing really well. We launched those a little over a year ago and it’s been well received by the music educa-tion community. Born from time-tested
educational concepts, the method se-ries is very unique in that it allows for customization: song selections, enrich-ment pages, pedagogy—all while fol-lowing state and national standards. Even the book cover can have the band director and school’s name printed on the cover! It’s really astonishing, and I’m very happy with its acceptance in so many school districts.
MMR: You must see some chang-es in store in the coming years for the publishing industry.
RM: I hope so! It’s exciting. We like new things and change – it keeps our jobs exciting. So we embrace the Kindles and iPads, but right now I don’t think any-thing beats sitting down at a piano with a method book that’s printed out that you can lay open and turn the pages.
MMR: What’s been the toughest thing for you in the last couple of years since taking over?
RM: Dressing up for the banks. [laughs] I’m a rock musician at heart, so putting on a sport coat and a button-
up shirt doesn’t come natural to me. For me, maybe the hardest part is doing the things that I’ve always watched my brother and dad do.
I can say that within the realm of leading the exec management team, sit-ting down with the financial people was a learned science for me.
MMR: You’re also known to sur-round yourself with people who really know what they’re doing.
RM: Right, we’ve got Paul Vindigni, who is our CFO, and is amazing. With-out our remarkable COO, Bryan Brad-ley and Vindigni, I couldn’t do this job successfully. Adding our great team leaders Andrew Surmani and E. L. Lancaster, an amazing head of IT, Dan O’Toole, and the incomparable SVP, Human Resources, Patrick Wilson – I’ve now named all of Alfred’s brilliant upper management team. [laughs]
You know, I’ve always heard that there are some people, certain types of manag-ers, who surround themselves with inept personnel so that they look better. To me, that just seems like way too much work.
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32 MMR MARCH 2012
The keyboard shops, whose locations in Clay (north of Syracuse), Rochester, and Buffalo all specialize in pianos, organs, and sheet music, are just the latest configuration of an ever-evolving business (a fourth store in Watertown is full-line music instrument dealer). Owner David Constantino says he got started in the business long before the Center had ever taken shape.
“I started at Clark Music [in Syracuse] way back when,” he says over the phone
one snowy day in upstate New York. Con-stantino developed his chops among a large staff of organ and piano sales per-sonnel and many of them went on to work at North Syracuse Music. “When that shop finally closed, we all had to fend for ourselves. There were about six or seven us all opening up at the same time. It’s kind of funny – even the competition, at one point, all worked together. Probably through the years we’ve sold every brand
there is to sell.” Today, Constantino says he’s the last one left of the bunch.
“The Piano and Organ Center, inci-dentally, has pretty much had the same personnel for over 30 years. We started out as a partnership between Bob Wolfe and myself. A couple years later, we add-ed Jim Hearne and Bob Carbone. Then we added Wayne Skinner a bit later. My wife, Nancy, has been the bookkeeper since we started.”
Pulling Out All the StopsNew York State’s Piano and Organ Center Celebrates 30-Year Anniversary
Sometimes it doesn’t take a crystal ball to be successful. The longstanding crew at Piano and Organ Center,
a retail keyboard chain with four locations throughout New York, has just made it to its 30th anniversary
thanks to a career’s worth of simple decisions and community-building efforts. They haven’t jumped on
every new product and marketing trend to come along, but through solid events and lessons programming
with their customers, and a patient presence in malls across the state, the business has thrived.
“ As long as the organ people are making organs, we’ll continue to sell them.”
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MARCH 2012 MMR 33
Constantino’s business, which cur-rently operates out of mall storefronts, began without an actual showroom, as he and Wolfe would travel across the state to set up kiosks in malls and at home shows over the weekends, selling to a revolving cast of customers. They had a warehouse in Syracuse and would have everything that was ordered that weekend delivered immediately. “We’d take Monday and Tuesday off,” he says. “Then Wednesday we’d load up the truck, and Thursday we’d be out on the road doing it all over again.”
It was a hectic pace, but they quickly grew to be very successful. When they got a chance, though, they finally settled into a storefront. They moved into their current headquarters in Clay’s Great Northern Mall in 1994 and have since focused on the instruments’ primary fans – those players in their golden years. Nowadays, they don’t hit up many fairs and their customer base is aging as always, but they’ve come up with a number of strategies to keep people in-terested and to maintain music-loving communities. It’s a patient, common- sense setup that’s continued to work for Constantino.
“What I try to look for is a quiet mall where rent’s not going to kill us,” he says. “Then I start advertising in the senior magazines and senior sections of the paper, “penny savers,” and whatnot, for organ lessons. That’s pretty much all my advertising – piano and organ lessons or group lessons.”
The key for the Center is to keep folks engaged with lessons, concerts, class re-citals, and chances to upgrade. They hold six-week sessions for new students and always try to make sure people come away with tools that will help them have fun playing their new products.
“Our customers are 60 to 70 years old starting out,” he says. “They’re either liv-ing longer or looking for more things to do, who knows.”
All sessions end with a party and re-cital complete with coffee and snacks, and it’s translated into dedicated community of keyboard players. “We’ve had one lady, for instance, who’s come in from a hun-
dred miles away almost every week. They might have an organ lesson and then may-be a theory lesson – we try to give them two or three lessons while they’re here.”
Constantino says it’s always important to check in with customers about upgrad-ing their instruments to keep product mov-ing and to see them expand their abilities.
“The advantage there is that the person who buys that big organ trades in their smaller organ and then we can sell that one. So in other words, if we sell one of the large organs, we usually get four or five back in on that trade. It’s all our own money.”
It ends up maintaining more con-sistent business than the piano market,
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34 MMR MARCH 2012
which Constantino likens to the stock market: “You never know when some-one’s going to come in and buy a grand piano.” Since he has so many regular vis-itors to the shop, Constantino has enlist-ed a regular set of different art groups to provide a few different shows of artwork for the store on a revolving basis. He also reserves one wall to hang jigsaw puzzles complete and framed by customers.
But it’s not all old school tactics and products that keep the shop afloat. Con-stantino notes many new products from trusted companies that have made key-
boards easier to grasp than ever. “Low-ery has just introduced what’s called ‘Virtual Orchestra,’ which is 88 keys like a digital piano except with all the Lowrie features like ‘Easy Play.’” he says. “It’s ideal for senior citizens. If someone in the family can play the piano, fine. It’s a nice-sounding piano. But if they can’t play, we’re going to put them through the same program as we do the organs. Play with two fingers, go home, and have fun with it.”
David Constantino has also learned to ride the ups and downs of the indus-
try. As business grew through the ‘90s, he was operating as many as eight stores at one time. There were recently as few as three, though he just opened a new branch in Buffalo, and his Watertown location works as a full-line instrument store.
“In Watertown, we’re the only mu-sic store,” he says. “It’s the path of least resistance. It’s easier to sell a guitar or a saxophone or that kind of thing than it is a piano.”
Looking to the future, he makes no bold predictions. But if the past 30 years are any indication, Constantino will adapt with the times and be sure to take advantages of a solid product in an evolv-ing marketplace.
“As long as the organ people are mak-ing organs, we’ll continue to sell them,” he says.
“The funny thing is that 30 years ago, everyone was saying ‘Organs are dead, organs are dead. Nobody’s buying or-gans anymore.’ But we’ve been doing it for 30 years and probably will for anoth-er 30 years. They keep coming out with new, innovative things that get people excited.”
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Front row left-right: Bernadette Hobin, Karen Skinner, Barbara Cavellier, Nancy Constantino, Sharon Bruce, Christine Carbone. Back Row left-right: Bob Carbone, Wayne Skinner, Bob Wolfe, David Constantino
Piano &n Organ Center.indd 34 2/22/12 4:23 PM
Kawai Congratulates Our2011 Pinnacle Award Winners
Kawai Congratulates Our2011 Pinnacle Award Winners
Kawai America Corporation • 2055 E. University Drive • Rancho Dominguez, CA 90220 • www.kawaius.com
DEALER OF THE YEAREvola Music - Bloomfield Hills, MI
Chris Selby, Jim Evola, Dave Monaghan
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Merriam Music - Oakville, ONAlan Merriam, Daniel Merriam
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Fort Bend Music - Stafford, TXRick Cochran
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REGIONAL SALES MANAGEROF THE YEAR
Jerry Porter
MMR_35 35 2/23/12 1:51:51 PM
36 MMR MARCH 2012
But it’s growing.Solich says that the shop’s business has
expanded every year so far, with 2011 hav-ing been its best year since its opening in 2006. Last year, the business won Kawai’s U.S. mid-size Dealer of the Year award. The shop is using outside events to fuel sales and visibility and treating the physi-
cal shop as a home base for an increas-ingly mobile operation. Solich sees it as simply a means of survival – rather than rehashing complaints about the industry’s lost glory days, this next-generation piano man is embracing the new economy on its own terms while being careful to preserve what’s proven to work. “I only change something when it needs to be changed,” he says. “Analyze, analyze, analyze.”
Solich, who started his own IT compa-ny – selling computer products across Ohio – in middle school and continued that while studying music at Baldwin-Wallace Con-servatory outside of Cleveland, graduated college looking for ways to combine his love of the markets and music. Born blind, Sol-ich was helped by a mentor to learn to read Braille music at an early age and to also get used to computer assistance software to en-able him to helm a business’s operations. He excels at both, working through a lot of his sales pitches at the keyboard.
“It’s been really neat for me to be able to merge those two passions,” he says. He
had begun learning piano in kindergar-ten and eventually earned a scholarship to Baldwin-Wallace. It’s been an invalu-able business tool. “I’d traveled and gone into different pianos and was just as-tounded because you had a lot of people who were just selling furniture, basically. They didn’t play a note. Wouldn’t it be the best thing if I could take my love for piano and the part of my brain that loves all things business and just combine the two to really win credibility?”
Solich notes that it’s important to main-tain a professional credibility not just with customers but with partners like educa-tional institutions, who he says cannot be fooled. Having his own degree from a con-servatory, Solich has no problem convers-ing with any group he gets involved with.
But it’s his sharp eye towards busi-ness that has turned Solich Piano into something special. The idea of getting into piano selling began to dawn on him early in his education. “During school, I started looking at the piano business as
Solich Pianos Brings Youth and Ideas to a Piano Market Hungry for Both
Key ChangeA small piano shop right in the
heart of Rust Belt Ohio serves
as headquarters for a young op-
eration headed by 27-year-old
Thomas Solich. Solich Music is
a modest store in the Youngstown
suburb of Boardman, a town
situated in the cradle of Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Solich Piano.indd 36 2/22/12 4:24 PM
MARCH 2012 MMR 37
sort of a niche market,” he says. “There are a lot of people who can be good at technology, but in order to be the best at the piano business, you have to have a lot of very unique skills. I had them.”
Upon an initial exploratory trip to NAMM, Solich’s enthusiasm wasn’t met with a great deal of optimism. “I actually encountered a lot of scoffers,” he says. “They were 30 years older than me and they shook their heads. Sort of saying, ‘This is not a business that young people can enter.’ But we need young people. I was speaking with a very prominent piano manufacturer last month who said, “Thomas, we have a real problem. Our average dealer’s age is 63 years old. We need you!’”
During his senior year, Solich con-nected with a retiring piano salesman in his hometown area that agreed to sell him the business – at that time called The Music Place, which had opened in 1994. He dove in headfirst, spending all day and night chatting on the phone while finish-ing his degree in the mornings, learning from everyone he could find.
Before long, he was becoming very hands-on with a business model that had lost a bit of its moxy over the years.
“Our concept is that we’re going to put the piano in front of the consumer – right in front of their face,” he says. “I’m going to be out there where they can see
me any time I can.” The company does at least eight outside events per year, and they’ve proven to be their bread and but-ter. At this point, sales done in the actual store are looked at as a bonus. “We’ve decided to make the outside events the backbone of the business.”
Solich found a true calling when he began taking his sales on the road, hook-ing up with schools across the Midwest, hotels throughout the region, institutions like the Pittsburgh Opera, and high pro-file dates with the New England Conser-vatory. The events have taken on a life of their own and have plugged Solich into a solid stream of business that shows no signs of slowing.
“I’ve never been the person to sit and wait for something to happen to me,” he
says. “We have to go out and promote, otherwise we have to wait for people to come into the store when they feel like it.” The store’s first outreach came in 2007 with a local Catholic school, where he threw a summer camp with a piano sale at the end. “I was trying out the college sale but at a junior level to get our feet wet.”
“People had told me, ‘The college sale worked ten years ago but it doesn’t now.’ I’d say, ‘It’s got to work!’” It was a success – they sold pianos in six figures when they likely might have sold none waiting at home. It became the store’s mission from then on.
It developed into a focus on hotel shows for awhile – as close as just around the corner to a few hours away – which always seemed to have the effect of cre-ating a more exciting atmosphere and a sense of urgency among customers.
Eventually, manufacturer Kawai ap-proached Solich to begin organizing events at colleges, and that’s been a key to getting Solich Pianos involved in events across the country, events where Solich says they’ll sell between 40 and 60 pianos. He says the col-lege events lend an otherwise unattainable credibility to the business, and their ability to sell a wide array of brands – from Mason-Hamlin to Perzina – under the umbrella of, say, the New England Conservatory.
“I give Kawai sole credit for all the college sales and because they have such a strong branding presence, it always
happens that 95% of the products sold end up being Kawais.”
“I remember in January 2009 when they highly publicized the beginning of this ‘great recession of our time,” he recalls. “I remember feeling some fear because we’d just come off what then was our best year yet, and I prayed that we needed to get through this.”
“But I found that, yes, the piano is not for everybody. But if we focus on those customers that are able to afford it and respect music as an entity and to take ad-vantage of the player systems that have come so far – the recession did not hurt nearly as much as I thought it would.”
“Basically, it’s not for everybody, but you’ll do fine if you put it in front of the right people.”
We have to go out and promote, otherwise we have to wait for people to come into the store when they feel like it.
Solich Piano.indd 37 2/22/12 4:24 PM
38 MMR MARCH 2012
Survey
Piano & Keyboard Dealers
However, in recent months, there have been more and more of those small signs suggesting that recovery is around the corner – or may already be in full ef-fect. So how’s that panning out for piano & keyboard dealers? We surveyed over 300 retail outlets to answer just that ques-tion. The results are mixed, to be sure, but – generally speaking – of a more posi-tive nature than in recent years.
Some of the “raw data” remained
largely unchanged, compared to a simi-lar questionnaire sent out in the winter of 2011 (33 percent report sales are up, ex-actly the same as last year), but it’s signifi-cant (one hopes…) that, while 37 percent of dealers surveyed said that their sales were down in ‘11, this year that figure dropped to 23 percent. Many respon-dents noted a true increase in buyer ac-tively lately. “There are many more cus-tomers entering the market now than in
recent years,” said Eric Murray of Shore-line Piano In North Brandford, Conn.
In short, much like the overall econ-omy, things are beginning to look up (please?), but it’s not time to break out the champagne just yet. Sales are up, down, level, depending on the month and there are few discernable and easy to target trends. As Tony Falcetti of Springfield, Massachusetts’ Falcetti Music puts it, “The market is still a rollercoaster.”
Still ‘Riding Rollercoaster’the
It would be fair to characterize the piano market in recent years as… challenging. Higher ticket items just
don’t fare well when the economy tanks and since around late 2007 the nation has, collectively, spent some
serious time in a pretty deep “tank.”
How are piano and keyboard sales compared to this same time, last year?
What price-points are selling best?
Up – 33% Entry-level – 61%
Down – 23% Intermediate – 25%
Level – 44% High end – 14%
Piano Survey.indd 38 2/22/12 4:24 PM
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40 MMR MARCH 2012
“There’s always been a market for high quality. We’ve done well with high end used pianos and consignments. Almost every customer is looking to take advantage of the distressed market, just like in housing.”
Don Bennett, PianoWorksDuluth, Ga.
“Midrange grands and midrange grands with players were doing really well last quarter. High end upright sales have been solid year round.”
Pook Lane, Lane MusicGermantown, Tenn.
“On the acoustic piano part, the inter-mediate dollar value seems to be the leader in sales. For the keyboard sales, the keyboards in the $700 - $900 price point seem to sell the most.”
Raymond J. Goodrich, Sr., Lafayette Music
Lafayatte, La.
What trends have you been no-ticing in piano/keyboard sales?
“Customers are still wary, but more will-ing to commit compared to a year ago.”
Martin Wittkopp, Music CitySpokane, Wash.
“More digitals are selling in the $1,500 - $3,500 range... Less sales over $3,500... There is some grand activity, but little acoustic vertical movement or interest.”
Harry Gillum, Showtime MusicBridgeport, W.V.
“Store traffic has definitely increased in the past few months. The spectrum of products being purchased remains fairly broad with focus being on the mid-range of the price scale.”
Jo Beth DellingerArtist Pianos, Ltd.
Syracuse, N.Y.
“The standard vertical piano is a tough sell. Our success is coming from digital piano sales, mainly Yamaha Clavinovas.”
Cary Welch, Welch Music CenterBoise, Idaho
“We are selling more digital pianos than acoustic piano. 70% digital 30% acoustic.”
Rick Lindquist, Schmitt MusicFargo, N.D.
“People are spending again.”Eugene Schumacher
Schumacher musicStuart, Fla.
Expectations for the coming months?
“Outstanding. We are anticipating a very good year.”
Gregg Colbert, Jacobs Music Co.Philadelphia, Pa.
“Recently there seems to be some indi-cation of more business in the coming months.”
Gary BowmanMorgenroth Music Centers
Missoula, Mont.
“Institutional business is seeing an increase lately, but floor traffic continues to be a challenge. Getting out of the store is the only way to survive and thrive these days.”
Peter SidesRobert M. Sides
Family Music CentersWillaimsport, Pa.
“We expect a modest rise in demand for step-up piano sales. While there’s plenty of pent up demand, if gasoline prices go over $4.00 a gallon, people will put off
big ticket purchases. There’s still lots of resistance to spending money they don’t have on non-essential items (like pianos). Sales of expensive instruments on credit still very weak.”
Edward Bordeleau Pianoarts, Inc.Hooksett, N.H.
“Generally positive, but I’ve been there be-fore and found myself disappointed. This time however, I’m feeling much better.”
Bill Jones, Bill Jones MusicKnoxville, Tenn.
“ Customers are still wary, but more willing to commit compared to a year ago.” - Martin Wittkopp, Music City, Spokane, Wash.
Piano Survey.indd 40 2/22/12 4:25 PM
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Available in a high-gloss, polished ebony finish, the DGB1KE3 Classic also includes a 20-watt amplified speaker. The original DGB1KE3 standard model offers an enhanced set of features, in-cluding two, 20-watt amplified speakers and a “50 Greats for the Piano” music book. Bundled with Zenph software (In-ternet MIDI, Home Concert Xtreme, Re-Perform), the DGB1KE3 standard is also available in three different finishes: polished ebony, polished mahog-any and polished American walnut.
Equipped with 128MB of internal memory, all
DGB1KE3 pianos (Classic and stan-dard) feature a sleek control unit with an integrated digital tone generator that can recreate nearly 700 instrumental voices. PC, MIDI and AUX connec-tions offer easy plug-and-play access to a world of external enhancements, from audio equipment and MIDI devices to personal computers and the internet. The Internet Direct Connection (IDC) feature allows users to connect their 11 of 11 Disklavier directly to the Internet, where they choose from more than 20 music channels on DisklavierRadio or even receive product updates.
The PianoSmart system intelligently synchronizes Disklavier recording and
playback with the op-eration of the built-in CD player so users can record
piano or electronic instru-mental tracks while listen-
ing to their favorite CDs, and play them back in perfect combination with the original
recordings. In essence, pianists can play right
along with their favorite bands, symphonies and artists, then play back their recordings and listen to their ‘live’ performance with the pros. The DGB1KE3 Classic is slated to ship in Sum-
mer 2012.www.yamaha.com/keyboards
Yamaha Disklavier DGB1KE3 Classic
The Pedal StopAustin-based composer/musician John Williams has solved that prob-lem of anchoring sustain pedals un-derfoot with a simple-to-use, clev-erly designed accessory called Pedal Stop™.
The device attaches directly to the keyboard stand and is not de-pendent on the surface of the floor. Once attached, it’s adjustable and adds just seconds to set up time. It keeps the sustain pedal where per-formers need it, leaving them free to concentrate on the keyboard.
The Pedal Stop is made of high grade steel for exceptional durabil-ity. Retail price: $39.90.www.pedalstop.com
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Konig and Meyer Adjustable Piano BenchA built-in pneumatic spring allows the height of this bench to be adjusted while sitting comfortably. Easy-to-use height handle adjustment and compact steel construc-tion make for a sturdy, yet comfortable bench. Wear resistant fabric and large round floor pro-tectors provide both a long lasting seat and a sta-ble base. Available in black fabric or imitation leather. this bench is made in Germany, and includes a five year warranty.www.km-america.com and www.connollymusic.com
J.D. Grandt Lomence Modern Crystal PianoThe new Lomence Modern Crystal Piano features design with bright colors and crystal-clear materials across its construction, including the actual keyboard.
Models include the deep red and classic-looking TR-123 Scarlet, the bold TRS-186, and the mod TR-125 Ruby. Also available are the Corvette-curved TRU 186-Mon-arch and the bright blue spaceship console look of the TBL 125-Sap-phire. www.lmpiano.com
The ChordwandThis new tool for pianists-in-training uses a slide-ruler approach to discovering the construction of chords on your own keyboard. Using the clearly designed in-
terface on the Chordwand, users select chord type (major, minor, suspended, et cetera) and then line up the root marker on the wand to the center of the desired key. Once the wand is in place, markings along its length will indicate every other note to play in order to properly sound the desired chord. www.pianowand.com
Casio XW-P1The XW-P1 is a true performance syn-thesizer that allows users to create a wide array of sounds from many preset tones, including Solo Synthesizer, Hex Layer, and Drawbar Organ tones, as well as numerous types of internal PCM and Synth waves. The unit is also loaded with a full range of functions that are useful for live performances. Weigh-ing only 5.4 kilograms and
with a slimly designed body, the XW-P1 can be powered with dry cell batteries, making it possible to be played in a wide range of live settings—from the stage to the street. Users can assign performance setups for up to four designated keyboard zones by using the Performance func-tion, while the Phrase Sequencer lets us-
ers create and play back musical phrases to enhance their performances. Also in-cluded are step sequencer and arpeggio functions.
Performance data can be saved to an SD card and input and output terminals allow for compatibility with MIDI, mi-crophones, audio players and other de-
vices.www.casio.com
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44 MMR MARCH 2012
Korg SV-1 Black and Reverse KeyThe Korg Stage Vintage Piano has been given an elegant matte black stage finish, available with 73 or 88 keys, along with the curvaceous SV-1 Reverse Key, with an red body and a retro reverse keyboard. Packed with the retro sounds that defined an era and remain in demand today, the SV-1 Reverse Key adds to any keyboard set-up. Only 500 pieces of each model (73- and 88-key) are available in this strictly limited edition. Retail: $2700 - $3200.www.korg.com
Nord C2D Dual Manual OrganComplete with two sets of physical drawbars per manual, the new Nord C2D is a portable organ for musicians that play with
their drawbars as well as the keys. The left-hand preset sec-tions offer high lev-els of hands-on con-trol and the upper manual and panel
has been tilted for better ergonomics. A LCD-display has been added for easier access to programs and settings.
The Nord C2D features a redesigned simulation of the char-acteristic mechanical key clicks that are an essential component of the classic tone-wheel experience. Furthermore, the redesigned percussion model offers increased control over the percussion lev-els when playing near-legato. The Nord C2D also includes a rede-signed Rotary Speaker simulation of a vintage 122 unit.www.nordkeyboards.com
With an intuitive layout and included AkaiCon-nect automatic-mapping software, MAX49 is designed to offer an instant, fully immer-sive experience with most music software and virtually all VST plugins. From its 49 semi-weighted keys and 12 real MPC pads, to its groundbreaking LED touch faders and vintage CV & Gate outputs, MAX49 combines cutting-edge Akai Pro technology with classic ca-pability.
Among its most distinguishing features are four banks of eight backlit LED touch faders, allowing users to assign up to 32 control parameters. The LED touch faders can be used just like analog faders by simply dragging your finger along their touch strips, or to perform instant leaps in any MIDI value from zero to maxed out.
MAX49 is also equipped with four banks of 12 back-lit MPC pads for a total of 48 assignable pads and
integration of Akai Pro pro-duction capability into live perfor-
mances and recording sessions alike. MAX49 comes ready to command any control-
ler hardware or software from any era: USB MIDI, traditional 5-pin DIN MIDI and even Control Voltage and Gate outputs are onboard. Mackie Control and HUI protocols are also built in to give you instant compatibility with many industry standard DAWs.
49 semi-weighted keys with Aftertouch provide professional feel, perfect response and full musical expression. Large, centrally positioned transport controls allows for straightforward track navi-gation and rubberized pitch and modulation wheels provide for in-stant creative flourishes. MAX49’s expanded arpeggiator includes a Latch button and eight different time divisions. There’s also a built-in step sequencer.
MAX49 comes with AkaiConnect automatic-mapping soft-ware. Instantly assign MAX49’s MPC pads, touch faders and buttons to music software plug-ins.www.akaipro.com
Akai MAX49
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Keyboard Products.indd 44 2/22/12 4:26 PM
46 MMR MARCH 2012
2012 WINTER NAMM SHOW:Record Numbers, Signs of Industry Rebound...The 110th NAMM Show – held from January 19th to the 22nd in Anaheim, Calif. – provided plenty of reason to have high hopes for the health of the MI industry in 2012.
While naysayers will no doubt gripe about “padding the numbers,” official fig-ures are up, regardless. NAMM reports that 1,441 exhibitors were on hand this Jan-uary (a slight increase from 1,417 last year, including 236 first-timers), with a record 95,709 registered attendees (up roughly six percent, compared to last year’s 90,114).
More telling than attendance figures, however, were the attitudes of the suppliers and dealers we spoke with – virtually all of
whom were optimistic and positive about the coming year – and the amount of “busi-ness” they were doing at the convention.
Great Day For Up“There were two noticeable differ-
ences between NAMM 2011 and 2012,” says Keith Mardak, chairman & CEO of Hal Leonard. “The first was buyer attendance. There was a big increase in buyers at this show, which led to busy
John Mayer
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and productive days for us. The second is everyone had an optimistic outlook for his or her business. We haven’t felt this level of confidence and optimism for a few years... Undoubtedly 2012 will have its challenges, but we’re looking forward to working with our dealers to make this year the best it can be.”
David Via, VP of sales for D’Addario has a similarly positive assessment: “It was a good show for us. Discussions with customers seemed to focus more on ‘what could be done,’ rather than commiserat-ing in all the things that ‘can’t be done.’ We found the progressive dealers and distributors ready to look at things dif-ferently and see what new opportunities and possibilities exist… We expect a solid start to the new year.”
“This is the best show I’ve been to in four or five years,” reports Stan Morgan, president of St. Louis Music. “We knew be-fore we started it would be different, and it was. The dealers are more optimistic, and suddenly looking for new opportunities… We have projected double-digit growth for the year, and based on this show, we’re well on our way to hitting that goal. The next quarter will be extremely strong for us.”
Alfred Music Publishing COO, Bryan Bradley, added: “The show was filled with optimism and great energy, and we continue to see the demand for education materials remain very strong, which, as the world’s largest educational music publisher, was very encouraging.”
“The vibe this year was really good,” agreed Eminence Speaker LLC’s Cobi Stein. “Traffic was up, we saw more customers than last year, and everyone seemed upbeat/optimistic.”
David Hall of Pro-Active Websites put it, perhaps, most succinctly: “We were very pleased with the traffic and business generated from the Show!”
On the final day of the Show, Wayne Thomson of Vancouver, Washington’s Beacock Music said, “There’s been a lot of really cool buzz on the floor… I’m seeing people being much more positive, much more upbeat.”
Eitan Avineri of AMUSE Music Cen-ter (Rolling Hills, Calif.) said, “It seems like there’s a good energy [at the Show]… companies are starting to recover. Tommy Lee signs autographs at the Pearl booth.Stevie Wonder playing Pearl’s e-Pro Live.
“Wehaven’tfeltthislevelofconfidence andoptimismforafewyears”
NAMM.indd 47 2/22/12 4:32 PM
There’s a fair amount of positive energy. People are starting to venture a little bit more into new SKUs, new ideas… it feels like it’s on the way up.”
“Business is booming, man.” en-thused Dario Garcia of Greg’s Pro Audio in Whitier, Calif. “Alcohol and entertain-ment don’t suffer recessions!”
While Garcia’s sentiments could cer-tainly be disputed by many in the indus-try (it sure felt like a recession a couple years ago…), based on all we saw and heard at the annual gathering in Ana-heim, things are certainly (finally!) be-ginning to look up.
NAMM CEO and president Joe La-mond offered some thoughts on what’s be-hind all this newfound optimism: “Every-one’s been so afraid to say things are getting better – because they might be wrong. But it seems like companies and dealers are fi-nally taking the plunge and making invest-ments into their business, into education, and it’s having an industry-wide effect.
When everyone is being timid, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. To me, one of the most exciting things has been the idea of trying to effectively serve the needs of each of the ‘tribes,’ be it band and orchestra, combo, live sound, and so on. I feel that, this show, all of the targeted actions we’ve been taking to achieve that goal were really paying off.
“The flipside of all of this is that [the Show] was just a lot of fun. I’ve got to say, I probably had more fun at this Show than at any previous. There was so much to do, so many anniversaries, concerts, and par-ties. The reality is that getting everyone in the global industry together makes for an enjoyable time.”
Lamond predicts the upcoming sum-mer gathering will benefit from the suc-cess of the recent NAMM Show. “Nash-ville has found a nice niche,” he said. “I think those who go love it and will fight for it; those who don’t have made their choice, but I think this will be a great show and will ride off the momentum of January. What will be at Summer NAMM will dic-tate how fall and winter goes.”
Summer NAMM 2012 will take place July 12-14 in Nashville, Tenn. For more information, visit www.namm.org.
48 MMR MARCH 2012
1. The Levy’s Leathers team: (Back row) Piers Munro, Jefi Bard, Ray Verral, Glen Booth, DJ Levy, Larry Greene, Brett Marcus, Garth Giesbrecht, Jerome MacPherson (Front row) Amy Hanford, Amy Brennan, Har-vey Levy, Corrine Hunt, Rachel Levy. 2. Shubb Capos’ Rick Shubb and Mike Phelan. 3. Andy Zildjian and Nick Petrella, Sabian Ltd. 4. Pete LaPlaca, PJLA Sales with artist Wayne Cobham. 5. Hannes Soenmez & Josh Touchton of ddrum. 6. Don Rhodes of Palmer Guitars/Tropical Music. 7. John Strand of Cherub Technologies. 8. Reunion Blues’ Brian Dahgren. 9. Vocopro’s Pam Edgar. 10. George Ben-son greets fans at the Ibanez booth. 11. American Recorder Technologies, Inc.’s Alan Adelstein.12. Terry Mario, Dana Bourgeois, Bourgeois Guitars. 13. Michelle Haas, Bob King, Mighty Bright. 14. Roy Santa Cruz and Mark Esquer, Peace Musical Company. 15. Dream Cymbals and Gongs: Brian LaRue and Craig Snowden. 16. Roy Burns of Aquarian. 17. Casio America: Greg Dean. 18. cd-baby: Brad Bush. 19. Roland Corp. president Kaz Tanaka. 20. Tish Ciravolo of Daisy Rock Guitars.
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Scan code to access MMR’s video footage from NAMM.
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The NAMM U Breakfast Sessions – with informative panel discussions, celebrity appearances, guest speakers, and free (!) food have long been must-attend events for Show attendees and this year was no different…
Themed “Make It Count,” the 2012 NAMM Show kicked off Thursday morning with its traditional Breakfast of Champions session. NAMM CEO and president Joe Lamond welcomed a ca-pacity crowd eager to hear from music industry veterans.
Marcus Ryle, Line 6, co-founder and senior vice president, was instrumental in the creation of a number of ground-breaking products, including digital tape recorders for home use. Ryle recalled his early days in music and his interest in creating new sounds.
Rick Camino and Will Urban of the online retailer Hello Music, a virtual store accessed by members only, then spoke to the assembled crowd. Hello Music members are sent a daily e-mail at 9am offering four new products at dis-counted prices. Items are generally fea-tured for 48 hours. These event driven e-blasts are said to build brands and communicate tips.
George Hines, CEO, George’s Mu-sic, then discussed his retail success and economic ups and downs during his 35 years in the industry. He stressed that, “Consumers are rapidly changing and retailers need to adapt to consumer ex-pectations.” Hines is attempting to re-invent the retail standard by having live chats on the company’s Website, incorpo-ration of QR codes, and more than 900
events at the stores. Hines asked: what are retailers do-ing to drive people into their stores and what happens once they are there? Hines aims to combine retailing and “e-
tailing” through online promotions.Ray Kurzweil, CEO, Kurzweil Tech-
nologies, Inc., pioneered the field of key-board synthesizers. During the Breakfast of Champions, Kurzweil was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his accomplishments in the fields of optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recogni-tion technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. A standing ovation was given to surprise celebrity guest Stevie Wonder, a longtime friend of Kurzweil. Wonder praised Kurzweil for making the world more accessible to handicapped and disabled people, especially the blind. NAMM’s Music for Life Award was pre-sented to Wonder, honoring him for de-cades of musical contributions.
After a pleasant performance by the
Vitamin String Quartet, who charmed the bleary-eyed crowd with string rendi-tions of classic pop hits like Queen’s “Bo-hemian Rhapsody,” Friday’s NAMM University Breakfast Session featured marketing and PR guru, David Meer-man Scott.
Author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Scott spoke extensively about the need for immediate engagement with the market and customer base. Citing the YouTube sensation, “United Breaks Guitars,” a song that tells the story of how one airline passenger’s guitar was broken by careless baggage handlers, Scott pointed to how the quick internet response by Taylor Guitars, which were mentioned directly in the song, was a great PR opportunity. “Speed and agil-ity are decisive competitive advantages,”
Marcus Ryle, Line 6 and Joe Lamond.
Rick Camino, Will Urban and Joe Lamond. George Hines and Joe Lamond.
Joe Lamond presents the Lifetime Achievement Award to Ray Kurzweil.
Stevie Wonder accepts NAMM’s Music for Life Award from Joe Lamond.
Most Important Meal of the Day...
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1. David Benedetto, Gene Garb and Ken Maehl, NEMC 2. Frank West, Lowrey. 3. Mike Dorf-man, Trick Percussion 4. Pedaltrain’s John Chandler. 5. Antigua Winds’ Randy Huey, Grant Henry, and clarinet artist Tom Puwalski. 6. Steve Ridinger of Evets Corp. 7. William Tu of C-Mark. 8. Celestion Speakers’ James Gibbons.9. Breezy Ridge’s Karl Broderix. 10. DJ Majra (L) at the Monster Cables Booth. 11. Jeff Van-fossen, Coda Bow. 12. ”You Rock Guitar’s Dan Mumm, Kevin XXX, and Joey Massa.”
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he noted, indicating that quick think-ing smaller retailers might have a leg up on larger organizations that rely on an elaborately planned marketing and PR scheme. (United Airlines never bothered responding to the complaining customer, even after his song generated over 10 mil-lion hits on YouTube.)
One takeaway from the social net-working explosion is that to stand out, it’s imperative to be real. “Nobody cares about your products except you, so tell your story directly to an interested audi-ence,” says Scott. “Speak like people, not like corporations; if you’re human, you can be much more successful.”
Saturday’s breakfast kicked off with a stage full of golden anniversaries, with representatives for everyone from Audio-Technica to the Denver Folklore Center celebrating 50 years in business.
The brash choir, Spellbound, from Brea Olinda High School in Brea, Calif. (one of the school’s two renowned show choirs) wowed the early morning crowd with renditions of “I Need a Hero,” “Re-spect,” and “Sweet Dreams.”
Then Playing for Change founder Mark Johnson, a former audio engineer at New York’s Hit Factory, spoke about his organization to unite the world through simultaneous performance of music. “The
best music I’d ever heard in my life was on the subway on the way to the studio, not actually at the studio” he said. He show-cased a video he’d produced that included a global jam session by musicians in lo-cales all over the world – a kora player in Mali, singers in Jamaica, a bassist in Rio de Janeiro, and the Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars, among many others.
The featured speaker Saturday was marketing expert John Arnold, who ran through a thorough presentation on the year’s top ten web marketing trends for retailers. Arnold warned against the dangers of early adoption in some cases, explaining that retailers must distinguish between two long-standing sayings: “The early bird gets the worm,” and “The sec-ond mouse gets the cheese.”
Arnold highlighted several strategies based on social networking that retailers can use to best connect with new and long-standing customers, encouraging retailers to take advantage of mobile pull market-ing, “three screen marketing,” and “social CRM” (Customer Relationship Manage-ment). He also preached the importance of not giving products away just for the sake of doing business. “Customers expect deals now,” said Arnold. “You need to make sure that when you’re giving out deals, you’re getting something in return – information, referrals, anything.”
The Vitamin String Quartet at the NAMM Breakfast, Friday. David Meerman Scott at Friday’s NAMM Breakfast.
NAMM celebrates companies reaching their 50th anniversary this year.
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54 MMR MARCH 2012
Worst Resilience: Nobody would expect folks to work (or eat) in the pouring rain. But the outdoor cafés closing for the whole day after a brief, light drizzle on Saturday morning? Lame…
2012 BEST & WORST OF SHOW AWARDS
Best ‘Wait, Is that Booth… On Fire?’ Promotional Display: Sabian’s unique “smokestack” arrangement of cymbals was eye-catching and, if first encountered at 9 am on way too little sleep, downright alarming.
Worst Breakfast to Duck out of Early: Thursday morning’s NAMM Breakfast of Champions. We’d cleared our plates and finished off three cups of coffee by the time Ray Kurzweil accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award, so we figured it couldn’t get any better. Who knew Stevie Wonder was about to hit the stage? (Apparently many – including, thankfully, at least one of MMR’s staff). Ah, the pitfalls of caffeinated, overlap-ping appointments…
Best Tiny Plate of Food: This year’s New Orleans-themed Chairman’s Reception re-ally took it up a notch with all sorts of delicious finger-foods, appetizers, and des-serts. While we’re not sure how this particular item is especially evocative of the Big Easy, MMR’s NAMM team is in agreement that the Ale
Braised Short Ribs on a Bed of Gruyere/
Cheddar Macaroni & Cheese was worth repeated servings…
Best Footwear: MDA’s Madeleine Crouch sure knows how to brighten up an ensemble! These red, elaborately pat-terned cowboy boots nicely set off her elegantly un-derstated black pantsuit (This is my attempt at describ-ing fashion. Pretty weak, I know…).
Best Wish Fulfillment: Anyone reading these ‘Best & Worst’ summaries in the past few years knows that the absence of a nearby In-n-Out burger joint has been the cause of much griping. NAMM must’ve taken notice of all the whining, as they arranged to have In-N-Out Double-Double burgers available in Hall D at the new “California Cookout.” Drool…
Best Sunglasses-Required Drum kit: The Mirror Chrome Nitron Gretsch kit at the KMC booth plays like a dream, sounds great, looks expensive (at $10,859 it is expensive!), and... can burn through a person’s retinas if stared at for too long. This kit definitely was the most “bling” (the kids still say that, right?) drum set in Anaheim this year.
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Worst Grasp of Geography: Marriott bellhop: “Taxi to John Wayne Airport?” MMR Crew: “Um… sure?”
Alas, no… And assuming “John Wayne Airport” was just an alternate name for the Long Beach Airport cost us roughly $100. Whoops!
Best Approach to Portable PR: Irwin Berg of Humes & Berg Mfg. shows off his wearable digital promotional video display.
Worst ‘Look’: A message to all adult males: Do not try and rock the Justin Bieber look. It’s unquestionable that Cana-da’s favorite teenybopper export is leaving his mark on popular culture, but if you’re in your 30s and sweeping your bangs to the side, wearing unlaced brightly colored hi-tops and baggy hood-ies, you really need to stop. Aging metalheads and the like are nothing new to the NAMM Show, but the surprising number of grown men trying to ape the fashion sense of a barely pubes-cent pop star this January was… unset-tling.
Best ‘Can-Do!’ Attitude: Universal Percussion’s Tom Shelley was so determined to bring his home state’s (Ohio) Handel Pops to Tuesday’s MDA Reception that he had a whole bunch of the tasty treats packed in dry ice and delivered to Anaheim.
Best Layover: Playing the slots in the Vegas air-port while waiting for the connecting flight to Long Beach on Tuesday. Up $8 – now I can pay off that car loan!
Worst Noise Pollution: Where were the decibel police this Janu-ary? They certainly weren’t spend-
ing their evenings in the obscenely noisy lobbies at the Marriott and
Hilton.
Best Display of Bravery: It’d take more than the live gator at Gator Cases to rattle MMR’s Laurie Guptill.
Best ‘Exotic Travel’ Product: The Powell Flute Headjoint that was brought to the International Space Station by Colonel Catherine Coleman.
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NAMM Media Day PreviewNAMM’s Media Day Preview, which took place on Wednesday, January 17, a day before the official start of the 2012 NAMM Show, featured 20 of the prod-ucts deemed most innovative, exciting, or otherwise newsworthy by NAMM staff. Products ranged from the bulbous, eye-catching kit from Molecules Drum Com-pany to foot drums by Farmer Musical Instruments and the Slaparoo, a playable stick from Andy Graham Productions, as well as new guitars, amps, key-tars, microphone products, and other acces-sories.
The Media Day Preview also fea-tured an appearance by NAMM regular Mike Huckabee. The former governor and presidential candidate gave a brief speech and then showed off his bass chops with a blues jam alongside guitar-
ist Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Afterwards, NAMM CEO Joe Lamond introduced Brian Wilson, of Beach Boys fame, who was the recipient of the NAMM “Mu-
sic For Life award. In the presentation, Lamond cited Wilson’s dedication to a number of NAMM causes throughout the years.
Molly Gene of Farmer Musical Instruments demos the company’s deluxe foot drum.
Andy Graham of Andy Graham Productions demonstrates the Slaperoo.
Bassist and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
NAMM’s Scott Robertson kicks off the Media Day Preview.
On Wednesday ( January 18) morning, The Guitar and Accessories Marketing Association (GAMA) held their annual membership meeting at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel.
In addition to “normal” business – Membership and Financial Reports, nominations for the next year’s Board,
et cetera – the get together also featured a special presentation touching upon a (perhaps the) topic of interest to guitar retailers, suppliers, and players in the past couple of years: recent develop-ments and activity regarding the Lacey Act, legislation initially introduced to protect endangered or otherwise “ille-
gal” wildlife, fish, and plants (in-cluding woods), but a law which has been causing considerable – and by most accounts, undue – hassle for MI manufacturers and distributors. Guest speakers Mary Luehrsen (NAMM direc-tor of Public Affairs & Govern-ment Regulation), Jim Goldberg (principal at Goldberg & Asso-ciates, Washington D.C.), and
Leo Coco (senior policy advisor, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, Washing-ton D.C.) outlined efforts being taken by NAMM and others to help react to, and reshape, the current implementation of the Lacey Act.
“We’ve dug in deep for NAMM mem-bers,” noted Luehrsen in discussing the organization’s advocacy of the recently introduced RELIEF (The Retailers and Entertainers Lacey Implementation and Enforcement Fairness) Act, as well as the many NAMM resources that have been made available to dealers and suppliers to help navigate the murky Lacy Act wa-ters. “We are not calling for the repeal of the Lacey Act,” said Goldberg. “We are trying to fix some of the unintended con-sequences.”
GAMA Annual Membership Meeting
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys accepts the prestigious NAMM “Music for Life” Award from NAMM CEO Joe Lamond.
A drum kit from Molecules Drum Company. Te Lawrence shows off Pock-etStrings, a portable tool for practicing guitar.
Mary Luehrsen, Jim Goldberg, and Leo Coco at the GAMA Membership Meeting.
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1. Morley’s Randy Wright and Bill Wenzloff. 2. Donn Denniston and Randy Robertson of Littlite. 3. Judy Minik and John Stoner of Conn-Selmer Inc.. 4. Bill Filek and Dan Barker of EMD Music. 5. John Gresko and Steve Rois of Direct Sound Headphones. 6. Carl Anderson and Jim Klingler of American Way Marketing. 7. Vater’s
Ken Murphy, Mark Pozzo, Alan Vater, and Chad Brandolini with Lionel Blanc from Sticks Musique (second from left). 8. Paul Beard holds the Jerry Douglas Blackbeard resonator Beard guitar. 9. Sharon Schaal and J. Medynski of J.D. Calato Mfg. 10. Beechler Mouthpieces’ Judy Roan and Dave Pell. 11. Husband and wife team of Samuel and
Lulu Bonanno of Kamoa Ukuleles. 12. Barry Heid and Mike Lizotte of Manhasset Stand Co. 13. Terry and Ann Warburton of Warburton Music. 14. Pianodisc’s Tom Lagomarsino and Cecil Ramirez. 15. Andrew Turtle and Lawrence Reid of Jones Double Reed Products. 16. Chrystal and Steve Clayton, Steve Clayton, Inc.
17. MMR’s Sidney Davis, Danny Rocks of The Company Rocks, and EMG’s Hap Kuffner on Thursday night. 18. lan Parsons and Brad Smith at the Hal Leonard press conference. Alan Parsons, legendary engineer of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, has teamed with Hal Leonard to produce a ten hour, 3 DVD set, The Art and Science of Sound Recording. Alan interviews engineers, producers and artists about their experiences in the studio, choosing and using recording equipment and the process of making a record. 19. Pascal Mulot and Wojtek Pilichowski performing at the Hayden booth. 20. New Sensor’s Ralph Trimarchi and Mike Matthews. 21. Larry Hulsey and Elizabeth Randall, GHS Strings. 22. Chris Pelletier and Bart Comiskey of Aurora Strings. 23. Sterling Ball was (understandably) all smiles at Ernie Ball’s 50th Anniversary bash on Saturday where Ball took the stage to handle bass duties for the early portion of the evening’s performances. 24. Rosemary and Tony D’Andrea of D’Andrea Mfg. 25. OnBoard Research’s Jackie Bentley and Art Harvey. 26. Jam Hub’s Steve Skill-ings, Marci Skillings, Dave Mccarthy, and Veronica Pierni.
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1. Bob Reynolds, Lukas Ercanbrack, Adam MacBlane, and David Kornusov at the P. Muriat booth. 2. ToneGear: David Chaippetta. 3. Traveler Guitar: Jeff Garvin. 4. Galaxy Audio’s Grant Brewer.
Fender’s Andy Rossi at Wednes-day night’s gathering.
Ornate basses from the Fender Custom Shop on display in Anaheim.
Fender got things started early in the week with a Wednesday night party at their showcase in the Convention Center, showing off everything from new guitars from the Custom Shop to their Fender Premium Audio System in a Volkswagen Jetta parked out front.
Fender CEO Larry Thomas took to the stage to announce that in 2012, “Our job at Fender is to honor the legacy of the
brand and build upon that legacy… Our mission is a renaissance of Fender. We have brand new products coming from every brand. The innovation is coming from everywhere… Our R&D depart-ment has close to 800 new products in the works for our brands.” Thomas pointed toward a reemergence of classic instru-ments like the Takamine line of guitars and Gretsch’s new banjos.
Later on, Phyllis Fender, wife of the late legendary company founder Leo Fender, stood proudly at the edge of stage as famed country picker Doyle Dykes blazed through a set with his son, Caleb, and bassist Dave Pomeroy.
Fender CEO Larry Thomas with his wife, Gina, at Wednesday night’s Fender Showcase/Party.
Fender Party
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1. The team from Hofner/Classic Musical Instruments – Graham Stockley, Rob Olsen, Klaus Scholler, Tom Belotti, Thomas Hoya. 2. Santa Cruz Cowgirl Guitar. 3. KMCMusicorp’s John C. Chermesino in front of the ornate Takamine 50th Anniversary model acoustic guitar. 4. LPD’s Marc Davis, Sonia Vallis and David Roof.
On Friday night, representatives from NAMM’s Fly-In team, which lobbied members of Congress last May on topics such as Music & Arts in Education Fund-ing and Intellectual Property and Copy-right Infringement/Piracy were joined by members of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to discuss events and developments in the past seven-plus months.
The (then) recent devel-opments, which more than likely removed the Stop On-line Privacy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Prop-erty Act (PIPA) from the legislative calendar this year left some of the evening’s
panelists scrambling to reshape the meet-ing. “I had a long and detailed reported prepared,” laughed Jim Goldberg, prin-cipal at Goldberg & Associates. “For the moment the Internet folks have won – for the moment…”
NAMM Fly-In Advocacy Update
Mary Luehrsen (NAMM director of Public Affairs & Government Regu-lation), Jim Goldberg (principal at Goldberg & Associates, Washington D.C.), and Leo Coco (senior policy advisor, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, Washington D.C.).
Dave Pomeroy, Caleb Dykes and Doyle Dykes per-forming at the Fender NAMM Party on Wednesday night.
Mike Eldred introduces the Fender Custom Shop designers at the Fender NAMM Party on Wednes-day night.
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Jim Levesque, Paul Calvin, Mark Anderson with Yamaha’s Deal-ers’ Choice Award for “Product of the Year,” the AvantGrand.
Product of the Year: Yamaha Avant Grand
Band & Orchestral Line of the YearYamaha’s Brian Petterson, Jonathan Goldman, Jona-thon Breen, Garth Gilman, Roger Eaton, and Makoto Tani with the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Band & Orchestral Line of the Year.”
PRESENTATIONSMMR DEALERS’ CHOICE AWARDS
Web Site of the YearCraigie and Deborah Zildjian receive the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Web site of the Year” on behalf of The Avedis Zildjian Co.
Accessory Line of the YearJohn D’Addario, Jr., John D’Addario III, and Brian Vance with D’Addario & Co.’s Award for “Accessory Line of the Year.”
Acoustic Piano Line of the YearMMR’s Rick Kessel presents the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Acoustic Piano of the Year,” (the Kawai K-3), to Mr. Hirotaka Kakahashi and Mr. Morie of Kawai Corporation.
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Home Digital Keyboard Line of the YearDane Madsen holding Yamaha’s trophy for “Home Digital Keyboard of the Year.”
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Microphone Line of the YearMark Humrichouser with Shure’s Award for “Microphone Line of the Year.”
Bass Line of the YearKen Youmans receives Ibanez’ trophy for “Bass Line of the Year.”
Electric Guitar Line of the YearJustin Norvell with Fender’s Dealers’ Choice Award for the “Electric Guitar Line of the Year,” the Telecaster.
Software Line of the YearLee Whitmore of Avid Technology, Inc. with the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Software Line of the Year,” Sibelius.
Amplifier Line of the YearFender’s Shane Nicholas holds the trophy for “Amplifier Line of the Year.”
Sound Reinforcement Line of the YearHartley Peavey with Peavey’s Dealers’ Choice Award for “Sound Reinforcement Line of the Year.”
Percussion Line of the YearPearl Corporation’s Terry West and Steve Armstrong with the Award for “Percussion Line of the Year.”
Pro Digital Line Piano of the YearMMR’s Christian Wissmuller presents Roland’s Chris Bristol with the Deal-ers’ Choice Award for “Pro Digital Line Piano of the Year,” the RD-700NX.
Recording Equipment Line of the YearMark Roldan and Ira Blanco of Samson Technologies Corp. receive the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Recording Equipment Line of the Year.”
DJ Line of the YearMMR’s Iris Fox presents the Dealers’ Choice Award for “DJ Line of the Year” to Alan Cabasso and Team Gemini.
Acoustic Guitar Line of the YearThe Lâg Guitars team with the Dealers’ Choice Award for “Acoustic Guitar Line of the Year”: (back row) Mike Bradley; Joe Castronovo; Gérard Garnier; Michel Lâg-Chavarria; Brian Piccolo; Diana Cecchini; (front row) Jocelyn Diot; Benjamin Garnier.
Print Music Publisher of the YearHal Leonard Publishing’s David Jahnke, Keith Mardak, Doug Lady and Jeff Schroedl accept their MMR Dealers’ Choice Award for “Print Music Publisher of the Year.”
Lighting Line of the YearAmerican DJ’s Brian Dowdle, Toby Vesazquez, with Scott and Chuck Davies receiving the company’s Award for Lighting Line of the Year.
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1. Wendy Hsiao, Mark Snelling, Jessica Tsai, and Andy Cocklin of Hercules Stands. 2. Billy Duffy (The Cult), Stevie Salas, Bernie Williams, Jimmy Dunlop (CEO of Dunlop), Kerry King (Slayer), and Mick Thomson (Slipknot) at the Dunlop Booth. 3. Michael Palmer, Lynn Martin, Allen and Heath with the GLD-80 mixer. 4. Zak Ambrose and Rozanna Weinberger, Rozanna’s Violins. 5. Mauricio and Plutarco Toloza, Sonora. 6. Phyllis Webb, Beth Dee, The Magic Fluke. 7. Jim and Jenny Hall, Hall Crystal Flutes. 8. David Kilkenney and Jack Faas of Anthem Musical Instruments. 9. MMR’s Rick Kessel visits with Chris Meikle of St. Louis Music. 10. Josef Regnet of Schaller GmbH. 11. Washburn Guitars’ Gil Soucy. 12. Paul Reed Smith, PRS Guitars. 13. Joe Arias, Crafter Guitar. 14. Mark Ingber, Score Market-ing. 15. Randy Robertson of Littlelite. 16. Bob Morrison, Beth Sorenson, and Karen T. van Lith of Make-Music, Inc. with Bob Fletcher of Fletcher Music Centers. 17. Richard Romero, Tony LaLonde, Jodi-Ann Parker and Daniel Matthews, Players Products. 18. TKL Products’ Everett Porter, Kevin Dougherty, Donna Dougherty, Daneen Holcomb, and Tom Dougherty. 19. B. R. Wexler, Wexler Music with industry veteran Pat Brown. 20. Tom Bedell of Two Old Hippies. 21. Andy Papiccio of AP International/Floyd Rose. 22. Ellen and Jim Cavanaugh, Super Sensitive Musical Strings. Prior to the show Ellen was voted president of the Music Distributors Association. 23. Chris Labriola and Marshall Johns, Peter-son Electro-Musical Products. 24. Husband and wife team of Lynda and Tim Elvy of Legere Reeds.
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27th Annual TEC AwardsThe sound engineers, editors, produc-ers and other audio professionals behind Robert Plant’s Band of Joy, Adele’s 21, Roger Water’s “The Wall Live” Tour, In-
ception and NBC’s Saturday Night Live were among the many winners at the 27th An-nual Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards.
The gala, co-presented by the TEC Foundation for Excellence in Audio and NAMM, was held Friday evening at the Hilton Anaheim as a special event of the 2012 NAMM Show.
In addition to 27 awards for Out-standing Technical and Creative Achievement, an enthusiastic crowd of sound and music products industry professionals witnessed the presenta-tion of the prestigious Les Paul Award to guitarist, composer, and producer Steve Vai. Sponsored by the Les Paul Foundation, the award is given annu-ally to a musician or recording profes-sional whose work has epitomized the marriage of music and technology. The award was co-presented by Les Paul’s son Russ Paul and celebrated rock bass-ist Billy Sheehan.
Steve Vai accepts the Les Paul Award.
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Press Conferences & Product Introductions
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Yamaha Press BreakfastOn Thursday, Yamaha opened the doors to its exhibit hall to show off a bevy of products from keyboards to guitar amps to accordions.
In the Marriot’s Pacific Ballroom, guests were given first-hand demonstra-tions of the company’s powerful new DXR and DXS Series of powered speak-ers, as well as new MGP mixers. Around the corner, Armando Vera showed off the new USB-compatible THR10 and
THR5 guitar amps, retro-designed com-pact amps capable of sending and receiv-ing signals to and from computer audio programs.
Also on display were the bold Hex Rack II drum set mounting system, the 01V96i mixing console, and crowd-pleasing demonstrations of Yamaha’s Remote Live technology, allowing musi-cians off-site to perform on a Disklavier in the convention center.
Yamaha’s Armando Vego with the new Yamaha THR amp.
Demonstrating Yamaha’s Keiko ABE Grand Marimba.
Yamaha’s Tony Escueta demonstrates the Yamaha 01V961 mixer.
Peavey Press ConferencePeavey Electronics introduced two sig-nificant new products on the first day of the NAMM show this year, inviting Antares Audio president Andy Hildeb-rand onstage to explain his company’s involvement in Peavey’s new AT-200 guitar.
Antares is the inventor of the well-known Auto-Tune technology wide-spread in audio engineering in recent years, and they’ve teamed with Peavey to create a guitar with the software hard-wired into its circuitry. The AT-200 takes blatantly out-of-tune guitars and, as Peavey’s Max Mobley demon-strated, automatically readjusts the out-put signal to sound correctly in-tune.
Yamaha’s Fred Poole then brought Quiet Riot’s Rudy Sarzo onstage to introduce the new Cirrus Rudy Sarzo Signature bass, built for sustainability from maple, mahogany, and bamboo. “It was really important to me that we find ways to combat deforesting while designing this new bass,” said Sarzo.
Orange Amps PreviewOn Friday morning, Orange Amplifica-tion hosted a Press Preview (with com-plimentary breakfast snacks and cham-pagne – classy!).
The company’s Doug Doppler put a number of new amp offerings from Or-ange through their paces, including the OR50, the Micro Terror (run through a
PPC108 cab), and the brand new Signa-ture #4 Jim Root Terror head and cab, developed in association with the famed Slipknot and Sone Sour guitarist.
Orange’s founder, Cliff Cooper was on hand to greet attendees and folks were already snatching up copies of his just-released tome, The Book of Orange.
Cliff Cooper, founder of Orange Music Electronic Company, Inc.
Hartley Peavey, Max Mobley, Antares Audio Technologies president Andy Hildebrand, and Fred Poole introduce the new Peavey AT-200 Auto-Tune Guitar.
Rudy Sarzo and Fred Poole introduce the new Peavey Cirrus Rudy Sarzo Signature Bass.
Orange’s Doug Doppler puts some of the company’s new amplifiers through their paces.
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Happy Anniversary! Companies Marking Milestones at 2012 Winter NAMM
1. Ron Manus and Bryan Bradley of Alfred Publish-ing with the MMR Anniversary Plaque marking the Alfred’s 90th year.2. The Ernie Ball booth honored the company’s 50th Anniversary with tuxedo-clad booth personnel on-hand in Anaheim. Brian, Sterling, and Scott Ball displaying the MMR Anniversary Plaque marking the company’s achievement.3. Travis and Paul Thieman of String Swing with a Plaque from MMR marking the company’s 25th An-niversary.4. Dean Markley of Dean Markley receiving an Anni-versary Plaque from MMR for 40 years in the business.5. Andy, Bob, and Willi Zildjian of Sabian with the An-niversary Plaque from MMR honoring the company’s 30th Anniversary.5. An MMR Anniversary Plaque went to son-and-father team, Cory and Richard Berger of Grover Musical Products on their 90th Anniversary.
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Graph Tech Press ConferenceGraph Tech president Dave Dunwoodie was on hand at a press conference to in-troduce two new products from his com-pany – the strikingly resonant TUSQ guitar picks and the oil neutralizing Pre-Play hand and instrument care.
Dunwoodie showed off the new TUSQ picks, which are made from the same synthetic material that Graph Tech has been making guitar nuts and sad-dles out of for years. He dropped them on the podium to perform what Graph Tech calls the “tinkle test,” listening for
the picks’ distinct, per-cussive “ting” while bouncing off its sur-face.
PrePlay, the first product in Graph Techs new Chops line of handcare, contains extracts from sandal-wood, lemongrass, black tea, mallow, clove and more, designed to balance skin pH on contact and preserve guitars,
hardware, and strings, as well as increase play-ability. The product, which is available in a pump-action bottle, has been in development for 18 months.
“It needed not only the right benefits, clean, condition, pH balance, and fast absorption,”
said Dunwoodie. “It also needed to have the right feel once you played guitar.”
Dave Dunwoodie at the GraphTech press conference.
Buffet Group: New Name, New Logo
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The Buffet Group, formerly known as Buffet Crampon, announced the new company name and unveiled a new logo at a press event at their NAMM booth. The new logo features five flow-
ing lines that form a “V” shape over a solid square. The five lines represent both a musical staff and the five brands that the company owns – Buffet Crampon, Besson, Antoine Courtois, Julius Keilw-
erth, and Wen-zel Schreiber – explained Buffet Group CEO, Antoine Beaussant, while the square repre-sents the solid base of the company.
The new name of the
company also has some symbolic signifi-cance, both as a nod to the past and a look forward to the future. By keeping the brand name “Buffet,” the new name is a link to the past, noted Beaussant. The addition of the word “Group” points to the increasing-ly international aspect of the well-known French company – France only accounts for six percent of the Buffet Group’s busi-ness.
Beaussant also indicated that the Buf-fet Group will continue acquiring com-panies until it has a full range of wind instruments, while exploring emerging markets through its own distribution net-work. The company employs a top-down model, focusing on pro instruments and then expanding downward, with an em-
Buffet Group: Antoine Beaussant and Francois Kloc.
The Buffet Group’s new logo.
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phasis on quality. “Our ambition is to be-come the world reference within the wind instruments industry,” said Beaussant. “We want to demonstrate that success can only be built on the highest quality standards.”
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Sabian’s Player’s Choice ContestDuring a NAMM press conference, Sa-bian announced the winners of their Play-er’s Choice contest, in which fans voted on which four of 12 cymbal prototypes would be brought to market in 2012. Introduced by artists Mike Portnoy and Terry Bozzio, the four cymbals joining Sabian’s ranks are the AAX Aero Crash, the HHX Zen China, the AAX Stadium Ride, and the HHX Click Hats. Drummers from over 150 countries logged on to vote for the cymbals, which were demoed online by the likes of Neil Peart, Bozzio, Portnoy, and Dave Weckl.
Sabian artist Mike Portnoy.
Sabian artist Terry Bozzio.
Bob and Andy Zildjian of Sabian.
1. The Cecilio Team: Cecilio Musical Instruments. 2. David Levine of TRX & Full Circle Management.3. Misa Digital Instruments: Michael Zamiris.4. Melissa Rees with the Rees Harps’ Sharpsicle harp.
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Reference LabsAngelo Tordini, the mastermind behind Italy’s Reference Labs audio cables, hosted a trio of musicians in Hussain Jiffy, Luca Di Luzio, and Jerome Ali as he showed off the company’s new RMC-S12. multi-cord, 12-pair cable for studio recording. “It’s high profile,” he said. “The same construction can go into a cable of just one pair.” Tor-dini noted that cables are fine-tuned to re-spond to specific harmonics – either those of acoustic instruments or voice, or signals coming from electrified sources. “A totally pure signal.”
Tordini proudly displayed the recent
Sonny Rollins album, Road Shows Vol. 2, for which he lent Rollins a few of the new mic cables and was later surprised to find a special thank-you to Reference Labs in the liner notes.
After a jam session, Jiffy, who runs a re-cording studio in Los Angeles, took a minute to chat about the cables as well. “All of my cables and snakes are all Reference Labs,” he said. “The sound quality is incredible. Every component in your chain, as you know, is an important part getting your sound. If you have great mic pres, but bad cables, your sound won’t be good.”
Jerome Ali and Luca Di Luzio jam at the Reference Labs booth.
Bassist Hussain Jiffry and Reference Labs’ Angelo Tordini.
Theo Wanne Mouthpieces Press ConferenceSax great Keith McNelly and clarinet virtuoso Tim Price were on hand to demonstrate two new products from Theo Wanne Mouthpieces.
McKelley showed off the new Man-tra tenor saxophone, which Wanne called “the most resonant, free-blowing sax of its kind.” Price played punchy licks and soft, bluesy melodies on Wanne’s new Gaia Jazz clarinet mouth-piece. “This is going to reenergize and entire generation of clarinet players,” said Price. “This is the best mouth-piece in decades.”
Theo Wanne and Tim Price at the Theo Wanne saxo-phone and clarinet mouthpiece press conference.
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1. Hughes and Kettner’s Kai Sonnhal-ter, Rudiger Forse with guitarist Dave Koval. 2. Allparts’ Phil Florian, Allen Chance, and Greg Luna. 3. At the SKB booth: Rob Shannon, Kathy Galbraith, Curt Bisquera. 4. Steve Wasser, Rebecca Eck-les, and Rebecca Weissman of Verne Q. Powell Flutes. 5. The Brea Olinda show choir Masquearade performs for NAMM Music Education Days. 6. Sam Finlay, Judy Gage and Ben Blumgart, David Gage Instruments. 7. Amati USA’s Rana Singh. 8. Chris Cairns of American Music & Sound. 9. Christ DeNatale of ArtistWorks. 10. Gary Girouard of Galileo Music. 11. Fernandez Gui-tars’ Andres Jaramillo. 12. Korg’s Rich Formidoni. 13. Tycoon Percussion’s Ivy Yo. 14. SHS: Warren Kost, Guy Petty, Patty Gilbert. 15. At the RPMDA booth: Rachelle Gayer, Carl Fischer, Madeline Crouch, RPMDA, Melanie Prescott, MMR. 16. Rich McKenzie, Michael Zucek and Jake Connolly, Connolly Music Company.
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Casio Media Cocktail Party Casio’s new XW-P1 is a 61-keyboard performance synthesizer designed for recording musicians. The features allow artists to produce 400 editable sounds such as stereo pianos, strings, guitars and drums. The XW-G1 keyboard groove synthesizer is designed for DJs and club performers. The synthesizer al-lows musicians to digitally capture performances as well as record and save sample loop, enabling musicians to build and mix sounds at their fingertips, even as they perform.
The XW-P1 synthesizer will be available in March, while the XW-G1 will be available the fol-lowing month.
Stephen Schmidt, vice president of Casio’s Electronic Musical Instru-ments division introduced two new music synthesiz-ers, the XW-P1 and XW-G1.
Gon BopsGon Bops’ Randy Chaisson announced that, for 2012, the brand has realigned all packaging and marketing to have a more consistent look across the board.
And building on the success of the products released last year, Gon Bops has introduced two new cajón models, El Toro and the Fiesta. Designed for the profes-sional market, El Toro is made of hard-wood mahera and uses internal guitar strings for an authentic sound. The Fiesta cajón is an economical alternative aimed at the entry-level market or for those play-ers who might not want to take a more ex-pensive instrument on the road.
“2011 was an impressive year for Gon Bops,” said Chaisson. “We increased our distribution net-work worldwide, increased many dealers in the U.S., and had a lot of success with
Randy Chaisson of Gon Bops.
1. John, Ellen and Jim Cavanaugh of Super Sensitive Strings/Bari get a visit from Verdine White and Andre O’Neil of Earth, Wind & Fire. 2. Kyser Musical Products’ Greg O’Haver, Randall Williams, Chuck Day, and Nichola Palmer
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1. Chuck Green, Steve McIntosh, and Andy McIn-tosh of Roc-N-Soc. 2. U-BASS: Rick Carlson, Abraham Laboriel, and Mike Upton. 3. Guitars Manuel Rodriguez & Sons: Manuel Rodriguez, Jr. 4. Disc Makers’ Kate Sullivan. 5. Doug Gibbs of Four Force LLC.6. Hohner, Inc.’s, Scott Em-merman. 7. TASCAM’s Maiko Kimura.8. Steve Vai at the Ernie Ball 50th Anniversary event. 9. Corey Mastropietro, Michael Mastropi-etro and Nick Costa of MCD Percussion 10. Tom Getzen, Johnny Britt – artist, Mary Rima, and Brett Getzen of the Getzen Corp.
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the products we introduced at the last NAMM Show. We are moving forward with a completely independent sales force comprised with many of the industry’s
leading sales representatives. We’re confi-dent that these sales reps will help us move forward into 2012 and help us gain even more market share.”
PRS Press ConferenceAt the PRS press conference Paul Reed Smith announced that the signature art-ist guitars will be updated in 2012. The SE line will add an SE Dave Navarro signature guitar with jet white finish and gold hardware. The SE Orianthi finish will change from Red Sparkle to Scarlet
Red. Nick Catanese has also been work-ing with PRS to renovate his signature SE. The PRS Private Stock department will offer a Neal Schon Limited Run of no more than 60 guitars. A Private Stock Acoustic Cody Kilby model will also be added.
Michael Ault demos the Neal Schon Limited Edition guitar.
Paul Reed Smith holds the new SE Dave Navarro signature guitar.
Cody Kilby plays his Private Stock signa-ture acoustic guitar.
The National Piano Foundry Presents Gerald Clayton at Lounge 88The stage at Lounge 88 hosted a quiet, but tricky performance from young New York-based jazz pianist Gerald Clayton, presented by the National Piano Foundry on Thursday afternoon.
The wide-open exhibit hall was far from the cozy club that the Utrecht-born musician evoked – his approach brought to mind a pensive night out in low-lit Manhattan lounges – but the crowd re-mained patiently focused on Clayton’s pensive work on the keys.
The National Piano Foundry presented Gerald Clayton performing at Lounge 88.
Remo’s New ProductsRemo introduced a handful of new prod-ucts at the 2012 NAMM show, including new snare, tom, and marching heads, as well as several new world percussion products.
Inspired by the successful and rela-tively new line of X series drumheads, Remo’s X14 snare drumhead is con-structed with a coated single ply of 14
mm polyester film for “Xtreme” single-ply durability. The 14 mm single-ply coated film produces darker midrange tones with greater attack and volume. It is 40 percent thicker than the stan-dard Coated Ambassador, and 20 per-cent thicker than the Ambassador X. “The X14 is the world’s most durable single-ply drumhead,” says Bob Yerby,
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Remo’s Bob Yerby and Sue Kincaid with the new Ambassador X, Vintage Emperor, and Warriors in Pink heads.
Remo’s Chalo Eduardo demonstrates the newly designed Mondo Djembe.
Remo artist Daniel Peña demonstrates the Remo Valencia Bongos.
Remo Belli of Remo.
Remo’s VP of Sales and Marketing. A new addition to the Vintage Em-
peror line, Remo’s Clear Vintage Em-peror Tom Drumheads are constructed with two free floating plies of 7.5 mm clear polyester films. The Clear Vintage Emperor features warm transparent midrange tones with enhanced attack and durability.
For marching bands, the Clear Em-peror Crimplock tenor heads feature two plies of specially selected heavy-duty film for a total thickness of 15-mil, creating an
extremely durable head with increased tone, attack and projection.
In the world percussion market, Re-mo’s new Mondo Cajon provides power-ful bass and slap tones, and also comes equipped with Texture Targets, which can be placed anywhere on the drum for enhanced brush-like sounds using hands, sticks, or brushes. The six adjust-able coiled steel snare wires produce a unique snare and bass tone separation. Manufactured in Spain by leading indus-try craftsmen, it is designed to create the
most sophisticated snare effects and rich bass tones. The Mondo Djembe features new rounded tuning brackets, designed to be more comfortable on the hands and legs, and a “Skyndeep” head.
Remo has also joined in the Warriors in Pink campaign, which is dedicated to raising awareness and funding to fight breast cancer. When a specially designed “Warriors in Pink” drum or accessory item is purchased, a portion of the pro-ceeds will be sent to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
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1. Zach Marr and Harvey Levy of Levy’s Leathers, Ltd. at the Chairman’s Recep-tion. 2. Tom Mulhern with Joe Zon, Zon Guitars. 3. Tech 21: Tyme Rogers, John Bednar, Dale Krevens, B. Andrew Barta, and Lloyd Schwartz. 4. Alto Profes-sional Group’s Paul Gallo. 5. Marc Lesser of Electro-Harmonix. 6. Chris Martin of C.F. Martin & Co. 7. John Ayrock at Ace Products. 8. Bill Hanser at Hanser Music. 9. Cort Guitars’ Jack Westheimer. 10. Jarrell Guitars’ Greg Binions 11. Franco Sattamini and Dave Schumacher, RS Berkeley. 12. Blocki Flute Method: Bethany Tiss & Kathy Blocki. 13. Larry Leithem and Pekka Rintala of B-Band. 14. Paul and Seth Sheldon of Diplomatte Musical Instruments. 15. Mike, Irwin and Sharon Berg, Humes and Berg. 16. Sherwyne Arios, Quantum Sales, Michael Ferruci, Voyage Air Guitar. 17. Dave Wayne of Summerhays Music accepts the Pinnacle Award from Mr. Kawai and Mr. Morie dur-ing the Kawai dealer awards ceremony.
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Audio-Technica 50th Anniversary Party at Disney’s Stage 17Hundreds were on hand at Audio-Tech-nica’s 50th Anniversary gala to celebrate five decades of success across the world in the recording and live sound industry.
With a Japanese-themed dining spread (sushi, potstickers, and spring rolls lined the venue’s serving platters), the night officially kicked off with a perfor-mance from a quartet of traditional taiko drummers. Afterwards, everyone in at-tendance was lead in a hearty sake toast before a full-on jazz performance hosted by saxophonist Dave Koz, featuring a big band lead by drummer Gregg Field.
A number of guest performers graced the stage for a few songs each, including Arturo Sandoval, Monica Mancini, and Mindi Abair.
Yamaha Keyboards Dealer BreakfastYamaha’s annual Dealer Breakfast fea-tured an enormous roomful of dealers from across the world joining in on the discussion of what seems to have been an up year for the company’s keyboard division. After an exciting performance by pianist Tony DeSare on the signature Disklavier – he used the instrument’s sam-pling and multi-tracking abilities to per-form a four-hand rendition of Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” – the group got down to business for a spirited review of the year’s news. Vice President of Cus-tomer Sales and Marketing Rick Young noted several bright spots on the past twelve months, including a renewed com-mitment to research and development and an invigorated focus on the company’s AvantGrand pianos and remote lessons.
1. Eminence: Laura Ryterski, Chris Rose, Cobi Stein, Rob Gault, Gary Morrison, Matt Marcum, Josh Martin, Shannon Rose, and Anthony Lucas. 2. Aaron Johnson with Greg Dahls, Oregon Burls. 3. Rebecca Eckles and Steven Wasser of Verne Q. Powell Flutes & Sonare Winds. 4. Jessie Gilligan and Jody Espina of Jody Jazz Mouthpieces.1
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President Tak Nakata took to the podi-um for a triumphant announcement that, despite being hit hard in Japan with last year’s earthquake and tsunami disaster, Yamaha is able to report that all produc-tion is operational again and that all prob-lems on that front have been resolved. He also gave a sincere thanks to everyone in attendance for sticking with the company throughout those difficulties.
Keyboard division vice president Paul Calvin went over several new on-line marketing tools available for dealers and new approaches for endorsing artist relations and activities. National Sales Manager Bob Heller and Mark Ander-son went over the “Uniquely Yamaha” educational program with its focus on
remote learning, music and wellness, and hybrid pianos.
New employees Bonnie Barrett (Di-rector of Artist Services) and Ed Bezur-sik (Piano Marketing Manager) were introduced. Bezursik declared that his approach for 2012 would “focus not so on marketing articles or flavor-of-the-month programs, but real promotions that real dealers are executing.” The company then awarded its Bosendorfer Dealer of the Year award to Bay Area shop, The Music Exchange.
Throughout the breakfast, music was provided by house musician Dan Rodo-wicz, who last year picked up the nick-name “Fingers” while performing as house organist for the Oakland Athletics.
Yamaha Corporation Presi-dent Tak Nakata speaks at the Yamaha Keyboard Dealer Breakfast.
Paul Calvin and Bob Heller present Music Exchange with its Outstanding Dealer Award.
Tony DeSare performs at the Yamaha Keyboard Dealer Breakfast.
Ed Bezursik, Bob Heller, Mark Anderson, Paul Calvin at the Yamaha Keyboard Dealer Breakfast.
The Music Link’s Chris Lekas, Jim LaPlaca, Travis Atz, Scott Thompson, Brian Jones, Jeffrey M. Boron, and Mat-thew Fischer.
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1. Madeleine Crouch holds the Martin S-1 Ukulele up for auction at the Music Distributors As-sociation Closing Reception held on the evening of Tuesday, January 17. 2. Dennis Drumm of Fret King Guitars/JHS Music. 3. Scott Mount of MTS Cases. 4. Chris Lombardi, Don Lombardi and John Good , Drum Workshop. 5. Vince McBryde of Universal Melody Services. 6. Dr. Lars Buenning of Schaller Electronic. 7. Donald Rhodes at Tropical Music Pro Audio. 8. The AIM team: Perry Pinot Osami Mizuno, Fukuhara Yuta, and John Fullerton. 9. Audix’s Cliff Castle, Autumn Villar, Mark Wilson, and Lofty Whitaker.
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NAMM isn’t just about products – it’s also about meetings. Lots and lots (and lots!) of meetings…
And sometimes those two intersect, as is the case with the Independent Music Store Owner’s group, which held three meetings on a single day of the show.
On Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. the group, now over 600 strong, held a vendor breakfast where in addition to the eggs their iBuy program was buffeted. “It’s evolving nicely,” reports president Gordy Wilcher, also of Ow-ensboro Music in Owens-boro, Ky. “And this year we had a lot of interest from po-tential new vendors.”
iMSO continues to be first and foremost a forum for independent stores to share ideas, practices, and tips with the overall goal of effectively promoting music making. The iBuy program has grown out that, and aims to harness the buying power of individual independent music storeown-ers. Wilcher says that for the past nine months they’ve had an active shopping cart for members with nearly 50 par-ticipating manufacturers and suppliers. “The manufacturer’s and suppliers have complete control over product offered, how it’s presented, prices, quantity, video demonstrations, everything,” he says. “[Distributor] Hanser for example has their entire catalog on it. It’s great be-cause it exposes our members to their product, and if you’re tied up serving people at your store all day, that night you can sit down at your computer in your home, log on, and order by clicking away.”
In addition to Hanser, M&M, Arma-dillo, Budda, Bedell/Two Old Hippies, and Dean are among those participat-
ing. “We don’t have a lot of participat-ing from the ‘big boy’ [manufacturers] yet because it’s harder for those who have territorial franchises. We do have some participation from Korg, Vox, and Mar-shall though.”
The group is working with Pro-Active Websites, and Wilcher says they
are pleased with their abil-ity to react to the changes being suggested as the site evolves. “We’re listening to our members and they want to make it simpler, and we’re working on improvements.”
In addition to that meet-ing, there was one at 4:30 p.m. for new and perspec-tive members who were welcomed by the board. Wilcher says around 40 peo-
ple turned up and a dozen of those joined on the spot.
“At 5:30 we had a voting members meeting,” he says, noting that it’s free to join the group but a $50 a year due al-lows voting privileges. “We had a great response to that as well, which is saying a lot considering how far the convention is for most of us.”
But some things aren’t changing.“We are evolving, but we still re-
main true to our mission,” Wilcher continues emphatically. “We are here to remind the industry that the inde-pendent retailer is still the best bet to grow this industry long term. We’re not just selling products; we’re training and educating end users. Every day thou-sands of people are learning to make music in independent music stores and we hope they recognize the value of that. Part of it is MMR, which from the very beginning has been an ally and a reason for our success, and we’re grate-ful for that.”
Percussion Marketing Council Awards and Annual MeetingAt a ceremony held in the NAMM Press Room, the Percussion Marketing Coun-cil honored eight dealers who have made great contributions to the PMC’s ef-forts by supporting PMC programs and “preaching the mission” of encouraging
people to play drums. Recipients include representatives from U Rock Music Cen-ter (Pa.), White House of Music (Wis.), Guitar Center, Jim’s Music Center (Ca-lif.), Jeff Ryder Drum Shop (Texas), Di-censo’s Drum Shop (Mass.), Percussion
Gordy Wilcher
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Independent Music Store Owners Group Continues to Grow
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Back Row: Gus Willman, White House of Music; Ryan Boguscz, U Rock Music Center; Glenn Noyes, Guitar Center Management; Jeff Ryder Jr., Jeff Ryder’s Drum Shop; Rob Joly, Jim’s Music Center; Darren Goldstein, Jim’s Music Center; Front Row: Chris White, White House of Music; Scott Spindler, U Rock Music Center; Brad Smith, PMC co-executive director, Hal Leonard Corporation.
Center-Houston (Texas), and IRC Music Center (Ind.).
The following morning, the PMC annual all-membership meeting was a chance for PMC members to assess the progress of the various initiatives enacted by the council over the past year. 2012 marks the third consecutive year of a col-laboration with The Vans Warped Tour, where local music stores set up a booth to offer free lessons and give away swag. In 2011, the PMC booth was set up in seven tour locations, giving between 50-70 les-sons at each. “It’s pure community out-reach for touching new percussionists,” said KMC’s Bob Jesperson, who was recently named a PMC executive officer, along with Yamaha’s Dave Jewell. “Re-tailer involvement is critical,” said fel-low officer Brad Smith of Hal Leonard. “And it’s working! The system is already in place. We are always improving but we have it down, having already done it for two years. The infrastructure is there and, for retailers, the price is right.” The PMC is actively seeking local partners to advance the PMC’s initiative with the Van’s Warped Tour.
The PMC’s Percussion in the Schools program is looking for more facilitators in all parts of the country. There were over 60 in-school concerts in 2010, but only 48 in 2011 due in part to decreased funding by NAMM. However, with so
many schools also facing budget crunch-es, in some areas the restrictions of al-lowing a commercial enterprise (i.e., music store or MI manufacturer) help organize an in-school event seem to be relaxing. It was noted that the process of gaining access to the schools might be accomplished more easily by becoming involved with a specific ensemble or mu-sic program and it’s parent and booster group. Once a connection is made, the amount of commercial involvement is negotiable.
The PMC’s Roots of Rhythm pro-gram continues successfully reaching an audience that is often uncharted in the MI universe. Through cross-disciplinary projects involving history, drum making, and performance, art, physical education, and other non-mu-sical teachers are becoming involved, noted Dr. Craig Woodson, director of the Roots of Rhythm program. In ad-dition, each ROR class features a bal-ance of hand drum, mallet, and drum set activities. Although children often make a drum or other instrument dur-ing the class, Woodson assured retail-ers and manufacturers that those same students typically then go out and purchase the real thing. Retailers in-terested in sponsoring a workshop are encouraged to contact Dr. Woodson at www.rootsofrhythm.net.
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Shigeru Kawai Dealer DinnerThe Shigeru Kawai Grand Pianos are the legacy of Shigeru Kawai who, prior to his passing in 2006, devoted his life’s work to the art of the piano. The grand pianos that bear his name are designed and crafted by skilled piano artisans. Fewer than 250 are built each year. New models were debuted at the Shigeru Kawai Dinner at NAMM.
Kirill and Anna Gliadkovsky perform on the Shigeru Kawai SK-7.
Brian Chung, senior vice president and gen-eral manager of Kawai America Corporation welcomes guests at the Shigeru Kawai Dinner.
Hirotaka Kawai, son of Shigeru Kawai recalls his father’s dreams of excellence in creating pianos.
1. Hosa Technology’s Jennifer Paquette, Hoyt Binder, Jonathan Pusey, and Kyle Lassegard. 2. Seymour Duncan’s Mark Boomer, Lisa Vandermeulen, James Garza, and Saulina Martinez.
Sabian’s 30th AnniversaryThis year marks Sabian’s 30th anniver-sary. Sabian founder Bob Zildjian ad-dressed the gathering at a celebratory reception, joking, “The only thing I can say is that 30 years ago, our competition told everyone, ‘Don’t buy any Sabians – they won’t be in business very long.’ So if you’re getting sick of us right now, wait until the next 30 years!”
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NAMM’s SupportMusic Coalition hosted a live teleconference and web-cast featuring celebrity panelists shar-ing their personal experiences about the benefits of school music education and their involvement in the entertainment industry.
Panelists included Deanna Brown Thomas, president of the Brown Fam-ily Children Foundation and daughter of James Brown; Bernie Williams, author, Latin Grammy nominated musician and former New York Yankees outfielder;
Bootsy Collins, Bootsy Collins Founda-tion, singer and songwriter; and Phil Col-len; guitarist and vocalist for Def Leppard. Eric Martin, president and CEO, Music For All, introduced the panelists. Mary Luehrsen, Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations for NAMM mod-erated the lively panel. The event conclud-ed with Graham Welch, president of the International Society for Music Education and Stanley Jordan, guitarist, presenting the first Global Sonar Award to NAMM for its ongoing support of music education
programs. NAMM has donated nearly $80 million to music programs over the past 10 years.
Joe Lamond, NAMM, Phil Collen, Deanna Brown Thomas, Bernie Williams holding the Global Sonar Award, Stanley Jordan and Graham Welch.
Left to right: Bootsy Collins, Phil Collen, Bernie Williams, Deanna Brown Thomas, and Mary Luehrsen.
Graham Welch addresses the SupportMusic Coalition.
“Live from the NAMM Show” National Webcast-Celebrities Advocate for Music Education
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1. Kenneth Khuong, Jenny Rathsavong, and Kelly Yim, Cecilio Musical Instruments. 2. Saga Musical Instruments’ Naveen Narayan, Rich Ferris and Bryan Uhlenbrock. 3. Janet Godin of Godin Guitars visits with Bill Carpenter and Judy Dodds of Hamilton Stands. 4. Yorkville Sound’s Joe Warrick and Phile Betette 5. Shubb Capos’ Mike Phelen and Gary Mobley. 6. Pedulla’s Micheal Pedulla and Christine O’Connor. 7. Eric Gales and Seymour Duncan. 8. Michael O’Lee, Eleca. 9. Mike Martin at the Casio USA Press Conference XW-P1 & XW-G1.10. Sonia Rutstunat at the Santa Cruz booth. 11. Latin Percussion’s Joe Vasko. 12. Lee Anna Vamp at Coffin Case. 13. Olympia’s John Kim. 14. Andrew Morris and Brian LaRue, Dream Cymbals and Gongs. 15. Mark Wood and Laura Kaye of Wood Violins. 16. Christina Cobas and Steven Wasser, EK Blessing. 17. Violins Co Gatchell Violins Co: Steve Crisafulli and Allen Gatchell.
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How to Get a Job in the Music IndustryThe Crane Institute for Music Business at SUNY Potsdam hosted the Sandy Feldstein Industry Roundtable in the NAMM Foundation Learning Lounge. The open forum discussion “How to Get a Job In the Industry” was moder-ated by Joe Lamond. Music educators attending the NAMM Show as part of
“Music Education Days,” and music industry college and post-graduate stu-dents attending the NAMM Show as part of NAMM’s “Generation Next” program were an eager audience. The roundtable discussion is dedicated to SUNY Potsdam alumnus and long-time music industry icon Sandy Feldstein.
Panelists left to right: John D’Addario, executive vice president, D’Addario & Company, Inc., Chuck Surack, president, Sweetwater Sound, Larry Morton, president, Hal Leonard Corporation, Craigie Zildjian, president, Zildjian Cymbal Company, Remo Belli, Remo, Inc.
Don Johnson Service AwardSid Davis, group publisher, MMR, pre-sented the 4th annual Don Johnson Ser-vice Award to Keith Mardak, chairman and CEO Hal Leonard Publishing.
Mardak’s philanthropic endeavors in-clude the Boys & Girls Clubs of greater Mil-waukee, the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Keith puts together partnerships and makes available opportunities to children and or-ganizations in desperate need. Believing in the transformative power of music, he com-bines artistic integrity with entrepreneurial savvy, making dreams a reality for those in need. He also encourages the employees at Hal Leonard to give of themselves.
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Sid Davis announces that Keith Mardak, Hal Leon-ard, is the recipient of the 4th Annual Don Johnson Service Award for his stewardship and support of the Boys and Girls Clubs of greater Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
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2012 BEST TOOLS FOR SCHOOLSFor the third consecutive year, MMR’s sister publica-
tion, School Band & Orchestra, was at NAMM with a
team of educators to brave the din and glitz of the
music products showcase with the goal of pinpointing
and calling attention to the most practical and helpful
tools for schools. Armed with ballots that included a
number of relevant categories – from Best Tool for
Young/Elementary Students to Best Teaching App –
music teachers at the convention nominated a wide
array of companies and products, which were vetted
by a panel of experts and made public in a special
presentation on Sunday, January 22.
Rick Kessel, publisher MMR, moderates the Best Tools for Schools Awards at the NAMM U Idea Center. Left to right: Dr. Robert Berry, San Bernando Valley College; Michael Ruiz, Murrieta Valley School District; Theresa Chen, Opus Music Founda-tion.
Best Teaching Tool for Young/ Elementary StudentsRecorder Express Game by Joy-Tunes and Alfred Music PublishingRecorder Express, an interactive video-game for elementary-level students by JoyTunes with accompanying method book by Alfred Music Publishing, is a fun and educational way to practice recorder using the actual instrument as the game’s controller.
Best Teaching Tool for Beginning StudentsPneumo Pro Wind Director by Blocki Flute The Pneumo Pro is a simple and effective tool designed to teach beginning flute students proper embouchure for strong and consistent tone.
Best Teaching Tool for Intermediate StudentsJiggs pBone (Dist. by Conn-Selmer)Made of lightweight plastic and available in four different colors, this relatively inexpensive trombone isn’t a toy; Tools
for Schools panelists thought that the pBone sounds similar enough to a brass trombone to make it an economi-
cal alternative, at least for practice purposes.
Best Teaching Tool for Advanced StudentsMusicalEar by MusicalEarMusicalEar is a versatile com-puter program designed to train aural skills and develop a better understanding of music for com-position, theory, and arranging. It can be used independently or with Sibelius.
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2012 BEST TOOLS FOR SCHOOLSMost Innovative Teaching ToolModality by MusiCreedA circular music slide designed to assist in teaching music theory, the Modality features interchangeable rotat-ing discs that indicate the tones in a particular scale or mode.
Best Percussion Teaching ToolRhythm Watch RW105 by TamaThis trusty metronome from Tama contains a myriad of helpful features for any musician looking to improve time-keeping skills.
Best Woodwind Teaching ToolVersa-X Ligature Educator Sample Pack by RovnerThis assortment of mouthpieces from Rovner will make it particu-larly useful for educators to help students select the appropriate ligature.
Best Marching Band Teaching ToolSilencer Mouthpiece Mute by JazzLabThe Silencer is a simple mute that attaches to a mouthpiece, enabling saxophone and clarinet players in marching bands and other ensem-bles to warm up quietly.
Best Jazz Teaching ToolChordWand by PianoWandThe ChordWand is a ruler that can be placed on a standard keyboard marking the notes in various scales.
Best Concert/Orchestra Teaching ToolAcoustic Conditioning Panels by YamahaYamaha’s Acoustic Conditioning Panels are thin, economical panels designed to improve acoustics in any room. The ACP’s moderate soundproofing qualities are an added bonus!
Best New Teaching AppGuitarToolkit 2.0 by Agile PartnersThis handy and recently updated app for iPhone and iPad includes a met-ronome, tuner, interactive chord sheets, and other in-dispensible tools for guitar players at every level.
Honorable mentions:
Tiggzi Mobile App Builder by Tiggzi
Symphony Pro app for iPad by Xenon Labs
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1. KMC Musicorp’s Mark Nelson and Jay Wannamaker. 2. J.J. Babbit’s Jim Green and Rocco Rocky Giglio. 3. The Music People team; Tommy Coombs, Jim and Sharon Hennessey, Mike Kane, Katie Yeager and Bob Murray. 4. NS Design’s Ned Steinberger. 5. Larry Demarco of Electro-Harmonix. 6. Paul Rea, Petrof. 7. Randy Chaisson of Gon Bops. 8. Ken Weller, Celestion. 9. Neil Larrivee of Vic Firth. 10. Peerless Guitars: Seo Young Lee (AKA Min). 11. DJ Tech Pro USA’s Phil Lentini and Andrew Hong. 12. Wechter Guitars: Abraham Wechter and Gerson Rosenbloom. 13. Flaxwood: Rick Nelson and Jukka-Pekka Karppinenof.14. Vanetta Wilson and Jed Robertson of Chesbro Music Corp. 15. Audio 2000’s: Haw-Renn Chen, Tiffany Chen, Paula McNamee, and Maricela Ramirez.16. Richard and Eric Cocco with Bob Archigian, E & O Mari, LaBella Strings. 17. Richard Bunze, Kat Calder and Mario Biferali of Godin Guitars.
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1. Susie Merritt, Kimberly Lewis, Sandy Rickter, and Kahler Williams of George L’s. 2. John Sheridan, Wil-liam Salas, Tracie Merritt, Dogukan Okur of Supernatural Cymbals. 3. Knowledge of Music: Mark Sanderson. 4. Fitness Audio: Robert Holombo 5. Yvonne de Villers of Luna Guitars. 6. Sheryl Laukat of Cannonball meets with trumpet performing artists – Lin Rountree, Rayse Biggs, (Sheryl Laukat), and Joey Sommerville. 7. The Wanne brothers, Theo and Tom show off their new tenor sax at the Theo Wanne Mouthpieces booth. 8. Buchla Electronics’ Michael Marans and Don Buchla. 9. Ferree’s Tools’ Curtis
Ferree and Larry Gerhardt. 10. Musiquip’ s Lisa Griffiths and Erik Lind. 11. Virgina Castro, Rania Olayan, Get M Gear. 12. Schilke: Julie Andrea, Andrew Naumann. 13. Rodgers: Bruce Hindla, Dan Miller, Gary Kibble, Dr. Robert Tall. 14. Kyle Eggum, Mike Wong with the Crossrock carbon fiber classical guitar case. 15. George Benson plays the new LGB300VYS George Benson signa-ture model from Ibanez.
Vandoren Vandojam at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, Downtown Disney
Eric Marienthal. Gary Smulyan. Jerry Vivino. Sharel Cassity.
Lowrey Annual Dealer Event
Hirotaka Kawai, presi-dent, Kawai Group of Companies, addresses the Lowrey Dealers at the annual dinner event.
Frederick C. Lowrey Lifetime Achievement Award, Lacefield Music: Seijiro Imamura, Joanie Manero, Cathy Krubsack, Lacefield Music, president, Andy Cerone, Lowrey RSM.
Dealer Excellence Award, Fletcher Music Centers: Seijiro Imamura, Lowrey Executive VP, Joanie Manero, Lowrey RSM, John Riley, Fletcher Music Centers, president, Rick Dorn, Fletcher Music Centers, Executive VP.
Frederick C. Lowrey Lifetime Achievement Award, Piano Gal-lery: Seijiro Imamura, Joanie Manero, Stan Beagley, Piano Gallery, president.
Dealer Excellence Award, Critch-ett’s Piano &Organ: Dave Brown, Critchett’s P&O, president, Jim Wieda, Lowrey, product development manager.
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1. Paul Chu, Al Harris, and Joe Cardinale of Hunt-er Musical Instruments. 2. Bohemia Pianos’ Martina Bocanova, Bert Neidhardt, and Marcella
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Schramlova. 3. Wayne Williams, Chuck Franklin and Jimmy Russell of M&M Distributors. 4. Saga Music’s David Gartland, Isaac Moore, and Richard Keldsen. 5. Ray and Sue Mooers, Laurie Rasmussen, Dusty Strings. 6. Bourns: Chuck Manzano Jim Lawson Paul Snow. 7. Amedia Cymbals USA: Phil Rowland and Dominick Gagliano. 8. Epilog Laser: Peck Sidara, Syndy Neyland. 9. CAD Audio’s Tony O’Keefe. 10. Hailun: Chuck Hansen (Hansen Pianos, Reedley, CA), Brandon Lewis (Perfect Pitch Pianos, Dallas, TX), Joe Defio ( Sales Executive U.S. West), Lauren Wallace (Vice President Sales & Marketing), Sam
Bennet (Pianoworks, Atlanta, GA), Paula Thompson (Magic Lid), Hailun Grand Model Vienna 180 with propless lid, Basilios Strmec (President). 11. Paula Kassouf, Pamela Liu, James Py, and Jonathan Tai of Peak Music Stands. 12. Dean Daubs of Concord International Group. 13. Will Cornell: AMV Sales & Consultation LLC. 14. Larry Fishman at the Fishman Trans-ducers booth. 15. Marc Quadagno, James Fox and Scott Fisher of Raw Talent Guitar. 16. BARI Woodwind Supplies’ Ron Van Ostenbridge with Ellen Cavanaugh, Janis Sumner, and Dan Cavanaugh of Super-Sensitive Musical String Co.
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1. SIT Strings: Hoogie Donais, Eddie Speedy, Bryan Trembley, Tim Pfouts. 2. Alan Veniscofsky and Ryan Loftus of Telefunken Microphones. 3. NAMM’s Joe Lamond honoring Sterling Ball and Ernie Ball, Inc. at the concert celebrating the company’s 50th Anniversary. 4. Kay Hayase and Lars Heusler of Forestone Reeds. 5. Graeme Buck and Rebecca Ashe at Trevor James Flutes. 6. Jim Green and Rocky Giglio of J.J. Babbitt. 7. Stan Morgan and Rich Dumstorff at St. Louis Music.8. Bob Fogle and Chris Pittman of Rhythm Band Co. 9. Frank Brockman and Adrian Hayes-Santos of ToneRite.10. Jay and Asher Levy at the Ohana Ukelele booth.11. Oasis: Steve and Dave Hepple. 12. Tri Tech: Paul Acton, Pat Murphy. 13. Wittner: Horst Wittner, Urs Marcandella. 14. Rovner: George and Lynn Reeder.
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1. Roger Kao and Chris Liao of Sunlite Industrial Corp. 2. Joel Menchey of Menchey Music Services with Geimen-hardt Musical Instrument’s David Pirtle. 3. Bridgecraft: Spencer Horwitz, Angelina Folken, Bradley Weinholtz,Albert Contreras, Fatin Saleh. 4. Jim Metz, Andy Blanco, Vandoren. 5. B.R. Wexler of Wexler Music Co. with Andy Herff of Blitz Mfg. 6. Franck Bichon and Jessica Watts of BG Franck Bichon. 7. Mike Shellhammer and Randy Medina, Morgan Hill Music. 8. Ian Wilson, G7th, with the Titanic Limit-ed Edition guitar, one of eight models made in Belfast, Ireland by lutheirs to mark the centennial of the Titanic launch. 9. Steve McCreary holds the C-10 Custom Collings guitar. 10. Mike Crouch and Greg Wilson of MacSax. 11. Suite Musical Instru-ments’ Ellen Lu and Ted Keuhnert. 12. Jeremy Hockham introduces the Electro-Voice Live X Passive Loudspeak-ers. 13. Denny Tedesco introduces the 90 minute documentary, The Wrecking Crew, about a group of studio musicians who played on virtually every West Coast pop hit in the ’60s.
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New Products
American DJ Micro Wash WWCWThe new Micro Wash WWCW is an ultra-bright mini white LED par can that weighs barely more than 1.5 pounds, yet can produce variable color temperatures ranging from 3000°K (Warm White) to 6000°K (Cool White).
The latest addition to American DJ’s Micro Series of mini lighting effects, the Micro Wash WWCW contains 4 x 1-watt Warm White and 3 x 1-watt Cool White LEDs, allowing us-
ers to smoothly blend any shade of white they wish – from the warmest tungsten to the coolest daylight. And because this pow-erful par is so tiny and compact (under 7 inches long), the Micro Wash WWCW great for table or cake spotting, retail displays,
performance stages, mobile entertainers, small clubs and more.Offering the versatility of both manual and DMX operation, the
Micro Wash WWCW features 19 built-in white color macros, a 10° beam angle, strobe effect and 0-100% electronic dimming. It can be run in 5 operational modes: DMX-512 Mode, Sound Active Mode, Macro Mode, Auto Mode, and Manual Color Mode. When oper-ated with a DMX controller, there are two different channel modes to choose from: 3- or 5-channel. A 3-button LED display on the rear panel provides easy access to the fixture’s modes and settings.
The Micro Wash WWCW features multi-voltage operation: 100-240V, 50/60 Hz. It measures 6.9”L x 4”W x 2.6”H/ 175 x 101 x 66mm, and weighs 1.6 lbs./ 0.74 kg. Retail price: $139.95.www.americandj.com
Fret-King Black LabelWorldwide trade distributor John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd and leading musical instrument designer Trev Wilkinson are recently announced the ground-breaking new Fret-King Black Label range of electric guitars and basses. Black Label features 12 different instruments that combine tradition, boutique design, custom shop quality, pro playability and comfortable individuality.
The single cut Black Label Eclat has classic looks and a sophisticated tonal palette. The Country Squire fuses the familiar with the contemporary. The Elise has a body style with a heritage that spans all musical styles, while the Corona, a moniker associ-ated with high-end UK-built double-cut Fret-Kings for over two decades, builds on the roots of this icon. www.fret-king.com
Zildjian Renaissance and Bounce Ride K Constantinople CymbalsThe the 22” K Constantinople Renaissance Ride is a versatile instrument that works well in small to medium size musical set-tings. This cymbal features smoother lathing on both sides and a bell that is unlathed underneath, adding stick definition to the instrument. Three rows of over hammering and four large hammer clusters give it a dark spread with overtones and a bit of “trash.” The K Constan-tinople Renaissance Ride is medium-thin in weight.
The 20” K Constantinople Bounce Ride, a smaller version of the popular 22” model launched two years ago. Like the 22” model, that was developed in conjunction with Kenny Washing-ton, the 20” Bounce Ride features traditional K Constantinople hammering and eight unique cluster hammer marks on top that add just enough “dirt” to the sound. The new 20” model has more pronounced lathing and tonal grooves to produce plenty of dark wash and sustain. The K Constantinople Bounce Ride is medium-thin in weight.www.zildjian.com
Gemini CDJ-650Following in the footsteps of Gemini’s CDJ-700, the CDJ-650 employs many of the same features with a more modest tabletop footprint. With a 5-inch, touch-sensitive jog wheel, plus playback support for CDs and USB memory devices, Gemini’s CDJ-650 offers true professional control. For crafting an expert mix, the unit boasts three program-mable hot cues, a loop section, variable pitch
Lenzner MusiksaitenLeonhardt GmbH
Strings for Stringed and Fretted Instruments
For more than 100 years, Lenzner has produced strings for stringed instruments, a tradition in the area of Markneukirchen in Germany.
Lenzner Musiksaiten is marketing their strings under the brand names GOLDBROKAT, PROTO, AND SYNFLEX.
Exhibiting at Musikmesse FrankfurtHall 1.2, booth D31B
Manufacturer’s Representative:German American TradingP.O. Box 17789, Tampa, FL 33682
Tel: 813-961-8405Fax: 813-961-8514Email: [email protected]
LENZNER MUSIKSAITEN LEONHARDT GmbHWernitzgruener Strasse 3808248 Markneukirchen/GermanyTel: (49)37422-40604 Fax (49)37422-6026www.lenzner-saiten.de [email protected]
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control and a 3.2-inch full-color screen with a waveform display. MIDI and HID capabilities also ensure the unit can be used as a controller with your favorite DJ software. www.geminidj.com
Schaller Da Vinci TunerThe new Schaller Da Vinci tuner opens up an original dimension to guitar tun-ing and tuner design. Along with its el-egant shapes and precious finishes comes the legendary Schaller qual-ity of materi-als and workmanship. The models are available in 24K gold, nickel, ruthenium, chrome, SatinPearl, BlackChrome and SatinChrome all the way to the incom-parable handfinished VintageCopper. Customers can combine those eight spec-tacular finishes and a total of nine indi-vidual components from housing to tun-ing button, from bushing to screw, from shaft to peg to drive and more.
The tuners are specially hardened and UV-resistant to protects the inner life from environmental influences. The transparent cover plate is made of a spe-cially developed high-quality scratch-proof polycarbonate that is also resistant to chemical cleaning agents.www.schaller-electronic.com
Graph Tech PrePlay Hand and Instrument Care ProductPrePlay is the first product in the new CHOPS line of professional hand care for musicians.
Most seasoned pros know what acidic hands can do to their instru-ment, hardware and strings. Acid, from sweaty hands can attack an axe and deteriorate a guitar’s finish, shorten string life and eat away at precious hardware. PrePlay is formulated to balance skin pH on contact; thereby neu-tralizing the acid and protecting the in-strument. The lubricating nature of this product also adds slide, glide and comfort
feel to the neck.PrePlay comes in a 30ml pump action
bottle that contains up to 200 uses.Retail price: $19.95.
www.graphtech.com
Sabian 17” Holy ChinaSabian unveils a new size for the popular Holy China cymbal, sought after since its
introduction last year for its higher profile to raise the pitch, holes for volume and sustain, and a large, unfin-ished bell for cut and durability. It was truly a modern
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Chinese cymbal, initially offered at 19” and 21” due to endorser Chad Smith’s preferences for larger cymbals.
Not as monstrously loud as its larger siblings, the 17” will appeal to drummers who want the unique trashy tone of the Holy China, but less volume. However, even at 17” the Holy China is not for the faint of heart. A unique hole pattern, large raw bell, high profile and wide lip
all combine to create a monster of loud-ness and cut.www.sabian.com
Mapex Drums Saturn Special Edition Birch/Walnut Series Mapex Drums introduces an extension to the distinctive Saturn sound – a Spe-cial Edition Birch and Walnut drum that features a stunning burl maple exterior
and black nickel hardware. Four finish options will be available for this limited run of five piece configurations.
The drums show a figured maple ve-neer covering a birch layer with an inter-nal ring of walnut. Each shell is finished in an eight-coat deep gloss lacquer, and is topped with Remo Emperor batter heads. Finishes are Moss Green, Ocean Wave Fade, Wine Burst and Walnut Fade. Retail price: $2,979 with a snare drum and 8” mounted tom as add-on components. usa.mapexdrums.com
New Options for Bourns Guitar Potentiometers Bourns, Inc., a leading manufacturer and supplier of electronic components, recently announced that it has released a series of new product options to its in-dustry-leading line of guitar potentiom-eters. Bourns has developed a specialty line of potentiometers for electric and bass guitars to upgrade these instruments for improved sound quality, reliability and longevity. The following five new model options are new for 2012: Model PDB241-GNL (No Load Guitar Poten-tiometer; $2.25), Model PDB241-GTR (Left-Handed Guitar Potentiometer; $1.75), Model PDB181-GTR (Left-Hand-ed Mini-Guitar Po-tentiometer; $0.95), Model PDB181-GTR (Long Bushing Mini-Guitar Potentiom-eter; $1.25), Model PDB183-GTR (Long Bushing Mini-Guitar Potentiometer with Push-Pull Switch; $3.85). All prices based on quantities of 1,000.The “no load” guitar potentiom-eter is designed with a long-wearing in-sulator and a positive action detent for improved reliability. The left-handed potentiometers have special reverse au-dio tapers and a logarithmic curve spe-
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cifically designed for excellent volume response at all positions along the poten-tiometer. The long bushing potentiom-eters are excellent for use in solid body guitars and work in all types of electric or bass guitars, with or without a push-pull switch.www.bourns.com
Wechter Roundneck ResonatorsThe Model RS-6610F brings the incred-ible tone of a Tim Scheerhorn hand-spun
aluminum resonator cone to an instrument that feels natural to any gui-tarist. Like all Wechter fretted guitars, these in-struments include a Plek Pro set up for ultimate
fret precision and maximum playabili-ty. The instrument’s mahogany top, back, and sides are finished in a deep
tobacco sunburst and accented with beau-
tiful ivory ABS body binding. In addi-tion, Wechter has introduced the Model RS-6610FC which adds a cutaway to the roundneck resonator for great access up the neck. Both models include a deluxe hardshell case.www.wechterguitars.com
Supernatural Percussion’s Monster Mini Hi-HatsSupernatural’s new Monster Mini Hi-Hat cymbals are perfect for Latin, Jazz, Fusion and World Music applications. They can be used in a tra-ditional high hat arrange-ment or as an added effect. The sounds created are bright and clean and offer the drummer a tremendous amount of groove possibilities.www.supernaturalcymbals.com
Epilog Musical Instrument EngravingEpilog’s powerful and user-friendly en-graving system equipment provides a
fast and easy way to add initials, text or even images to musi-cal instruments and instrument accesso-ries. Epilog’s Legend EXT is the company’s large-scale laser en-graver that combines a robust design with convenient features
that make personaliz-ing instruments easy. Users can create de-signs that add style and flair to the instru-ment of their choice – even large or uniquely shaped items such as guitars.
www.epiloglaser.com
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Rees Harps Harpsicle® G3 HarpThe affordable, lightweight, and Ameri-can-made Generation 3 (G3) Harpsicle® Harp makes an excellent portable choice for established players and for beginning harpists. Ten color choices are available making the Harpsicle® Harps more personal to each custom-er. The Harpsicle® Harp weighs about five pounds and create a loud, clear voice throughout the instrument and can be made even louder by installing an op-tional pickup in the back. Retail price: $399.00 to $799.00. www.traditionalharps.com
Keystone Electronic’s Catalog of Interconnect & Electronic HardwareKeystone Electronics Corp. has released its latest full line Catalog of interconnect components and electronic hardware. The 152-page Catalog M60 has over 1,000 new products covering every cat-egory of Keystone’s product line. Cat-
egory Sections include: Battery Clips, Contacts & Holders, Fuse Clips & Hold-ers, Terminals & Test Points, Spacers & Standoffs, Panel Hardware, Pins, Plugs, Jacks & Sockets, PC Board Hard-ware, Multi-Purpose Hardware.
This free catalog has more than 5,000 quality products and is illustrated with de-tailed drawings, specifications and product photographs in both Imperial and Metric dimensions. It is the ideal resource for to-day’s electronic engineering community.
Keystone’s manufacturing capabilities include precision tool and die making, custom stamping, machining and assem-bly. Their application engineering servic-es are readily available to meet virtually any special customer requirements. www.keyelco.com
Tech 21 Expanded Boost Series Line Tech 21 has added four new effects to their Boost Series line of pedals: Boost Distor-
tion, Boost Overdrive, Boost Fuzz, and Bass Boost Fuzz. Designed and built from the ground up utilizing the best individually-selected, hand-biased discreet components, each unit delivers op-timized performance with studio-quiet op-eration. The powerful boost function delivers up to 21dB of clean boost, which can be used independently from the effect. A true post-boost, it punch-es up the tone dialed in, rather than smoth-ering it in unwanted distortion.
The Boost Distortion delivers fast punchy tone; its unique SAG control adds an expressive, tubelike response to every pick stroke. The Boost Overdrive pumps up the midrange and adds sustain; the SPARKLE control adds upper harmonics for an open, snappy sound. The Boost Fuzz celebrates germanium fuzz sounds. The Bass Boost Fuzz ranges from the fat, gritty sounds of the ‘60s fuzz bass to the subter-ranean growl of industrial metal.
Other features include Level, Tone and Drive controls, high-impedance in-put, and a silent-switching, custom foot-switch actuator. Operable with 9V bat-tery (not included) or optional DC power supply. Manufactured in the U.S.A. Re-tail price: $195.00. www.tech21nyc.com
Ion LP 2 GoLP 2 GO and DUO DECK are highly portable turntables that include a speak-er, headphone output, battery operation and the ability to convert vinyl records to MP3 music files with just a few mouse clicks. LP 2 GO plays and converts vi-nyl, and DUO DECK plays and converts both vinyl and cassette tapes.
Powered by four AA batteries and fea-turing a built-in speaker and an incredibly compact design, LP2GO is ready to move and is perfect for weekend getaways, the dorm room, or even for the beach. LP 2
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GO can be powered via USB and includes a 1/8” headphone jack to listen to records alone, plus the ability to connect to external speaker systems. LP 2 GO can also connect to a Mac or PC using the included USB ca-ble, allowing music lovers to convert their music to MP3s using the included EZ Vi-nyl/Tape Converter software.www.ionaudio.com
The Ultimate Floyd Rose Titanium TremoloTitanium has an ideal natural frequency and a unique ability to transfer sound energy, allowing every note to ring
through with sustain and tonal clarity. Ti-tanium is also is natu-rally non-corrosive, so this tremolo will never rust, discolor or oxidize. The high strength to weight ratio results in a 40% weight reduc-
tion compared to competitors. Floyd Rose fans can also upgrade their current Original Series Floyd Rose with Tita-nium parts, which are now available À la carte for those who love their current Original Floyd.www.floydrose.com
Brubaker Brute Basses The Brubaker Brute Series bass-es feature a Brubaker patented Bolt
Thru neck joint (tm) for easy access to the upper frets, and a Brubaker dual coil bridge pickup and single coil neck pickup- both passive for
heightened clarity. The basses also include a B-3200 series ac-tive preamp, carefully selected hard maple neck and NATO bodies. Available in 4 and 5 string models and various col-
ors and pickguards. www.apintl.com
Tycoon Percussion Bata DrumsTycoon Percussion recently introduced its new series of Bata Drums. Traditionally, Bata drums are used in ceremonial sce-narios and are played in groups, where a “call and response” pattern is exchanged between the members. Constructed in
Tycoon’s very own factory in Thailand, these drums are made from the finest sus-tainably-harvested Siam Oak wood, and
are individually hand-made and tested, promising only the highest sound qual-ity and durability. Each individual drum also features a premium water buffalo skin head clasped on the drum by chrome col-ored hardware. The Bata drum is just one of the numerous authentic and top-quality traditional instruments offered at Tycoon Percussion. Available in 3 different sizes: 18.5” tall 22” tall, & 27” tall.www.tycoonpercussion.com
Luna Guitars’ “Oracle” Series After a year of pioneering experimenta-tion, the Oracle Rose, Butterfly, Phoenix and Koi instruments offer players some
of Luna’s most stunning designs executed with wood inlays on solid tops while maintaining the solid top’s sonic integrity.
The Oracle Rose embraces the sound hole and trails gracefully onto the lower bout of a solid spruce top with blossoms and leaves of inlaid inlaid paduak, mahoga-ny, and ebonized maple. The Oracle Butterfly alights on a delicate flower at the sound hole made of a solid cedar top inlaid in padauk, quilt maple and ebonized maple. The Oracle Phoe-nix and Koi grace solid spruce tops inlaid in rosewood and mahogany respectively. All four instruments feature mahogany back and sides, satin hardware, a B-band tuner with 3 band EQ, an onboard tuner and XLR output jack. www.lunaguitars.com
Miesel Chin-ChumThe Meisel Chin-Chum, is a cushioned, ultrasuede, padded chin rest cover that
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New Productseasily slips over the cup of the chinrest and protects the player. Chin-Chum also pro-tects the player’s neck from the chin rest’s metal clamp. The Chim-Chum is avail-
able in three sizes: Large (for 4/4 violin, 15” and up viola), Medium (for 4/4 and 3/4 violin and 13”+14” viola), and Small (for 1/2-1/16 violin and 11”+12” viola).www.meiselaccessories.com
String Swing Stylz Guitar HangersString Swing’s six bold, new “Stylz” cus-tomized guitar hangers express guitarists’ personalities while combining the strength and durability of String Swings’ ever-pop-ular CC01K model, delivering the quality that customers expect from String Swing.
Hangers come with powder-coated steel cradles, cushy headstock pad-ding, and a sturdy wall-mount back
plate. All made in the USA. All guaranteed for life. For over 25 years, String Swing, the industry leader in instrument displays.www.stringswing.com
Kala Ukadelic Series UkulelesKala Brand Music recently unveiled new additions to its popular Ukadelic™ Series of ukuleles. New models include Black Paisley, Peacelove, Swirls, Skulls, Leopard, and USA. Other Ukadelic™
models include Paisley, Tie-Dye, Tattoo, Flag, and Reggae designs. All models are available in soprano size, with the reggae model also available in tenor size.www.kalabrand.com
Gator Commander ‘335’ Style Gig BagWith the success of the current Com-mander lineup, Gator adds a new ‘335’ model designed to fit most Gibson ES-335 and similar style semi-hollow bod-ied electric guitars. Gator’s Commander Series features a dual textured weather resistant exterior and polyethylene rein-forced interior shield providing heavy-duty pro-tection in a light-weight, easy to carry bag. The bag is equipped with an army
of storage compartments and pockets to hold a laptop, mobile recording devices, hard drives, cables, and more.
Hide-away padded backpack straps and a reinforced firm grip side handle keeps transport at ease. The gig bag comes complete with a hide-away water resistant rain cover. www.gatorcases.com
Viktorian Guitars El GraceThe traditionally styled El Grace fea-tures an acoustic guitar like attack as well as a warm and long sustain that of-fers a clear dynamic response to a play-er’s technique. The El Grace’s striking natural resonance is derived from the usage of high-tech materials. Using woven composites that are incred-ibly strong yet ultra lightweight allows the El Grace to be molded into an ergonomic design that increases the life of the guitar with virtu-ally no maintenance required. The gui-tar’s cutaway design allows easy access to the higher frets, and its light weight mini-mizes neck and back pain. www.viktorian.com
Jazzlab SilencerThe new Silencer from Jazzlab offers a noise-reducing way for reed players to work through mouthpiece exercises in any environment without bugging the neighbors. The tool makes it easier for woodwind players to continually improve their sound, embouchure, breathing and articulation. The silencer reduces vol-ume of the mouthpiece by 14-20 decibels,
meaning that the noise heard by human ears is 5-10 times quieter. Silencer mod-els are available for bari sax, tenor sex, alto sax, soprano clarinet, and clarinet.www.jazzlab.com
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Jensen Announces New WebsiteJensen® Musical Instrument Speakers recently announce the launch of their updated, more current new website. The
new site fea-tures many online tools to help musicians determine what speaker are the best fits for their needs. Tools like the
Tone Generator, the Tone Chart, sound samples, speaker reviews and videos all make a trip to the new Jensen site a valu-able step toward deciding which speaker to purchase next.
Visit the site at www.jensentone.com.
American DJ’s UVLED Bar 16 Chosen as UV Signature Reader for NAMMAmerican DJ�s ����D �ar �� �i�ht fi ���s ����D �ar �� �i�ht fi�-tures were recently chosen to read the UV signatures on attendee badges at the Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, Cali-fornia.
The bright ultraviolet light has a mul-titude of club and performance uses, and its reliability both as a light effect and a UV card reader is what prompted the organizers behind NAMM to choose the UVLED Bar 16 as the show’s UV sig-nature reader. The ultraviolet bars were installed above all entrances to read the UV signatures on the badges of show at-tendees, bathing the doorways in a cool indigo light and adding an extra level of security at the trade show.
The 16 powerful 1-watt LEDs of the UVLED Bar 16 produce an intensely brilliant black-light that not only reads UV signatures, but can also wash over a wide area, thanks to its unique oval-shaped 10-degree vertical and 40-degree horizontal beam angle, which make it a great club light for setting a blue mood
for a ni�ht on the dance floor. It�s a�so an ideal choice for stage performances, theatrical productions and any type of special effects lighting, including retail displays.
For more information, visit www.americandj.com.
Galaxy Audio to Use Sonic Sales for West Coast Sales. Galaxy Audio recently added Sonics Sales as their manufacturer’s representative for the West Coast. With over 15 years repre-senting Pro Audio and Audio/Visual prod-ucts across the Western US, Sonic Sales has experience with long term productivity and partnerships with manufacturers. Josh Carruthers, (Principal), and Taylor Martyr, (Product Specialist), located in Los Angeles,
David Vogel, (Account Manager), in San Francisco, and Brad Hitchcock,( Account Manager), in Seattle, they are able to pro-vide comprehensive service, support, and training to all current and future Galaxy Audio dealers, including system integrators, consultants and retail establishments.
For more information, visit www.galaxyaudio.com.
Grover Jackson and GJ2 Gui-tars Are the First to Fit New Floyd Rose Titanium TremoloFloyd Rose and Grover Jackson’s GJ2
Guitars, recently debuted and announced the Floyd Rose Titanium tremolo system wi�� be fitted to a�� GJ2 rosewood “Arete 5” guitars and other select models.
Jackson said that the Arete 5 was built with the original Floyd Rose system in mind, but switched to the new Titanium model in order to reduce the guitar’s weight and add sustain and dynamics to its tone. GJ2 Guitars are made in Orange County, California and offer original Floyd Rose tremolo systems as standard equipment across their entire line of gui-tars. For more details, visit www.gj2guitars.com and www.floydrose.com.
Elation Lighting Outfits Super Bowl EventsOver 135 Elation Platinum Beam 5R ACL beam effects were lighting the night sky over the Indianapolis’s down-
Supplier Scene
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Supplier Scene
town during this year’s Super Bowl weekend.
Dodd Technologies of Pendleton, Ind. used the Platinum Beams and Elation ELAR 108 PARs to create a dazzling light-ing design that transformed Georgia Street into a sparkling Super Bowl Village experi-
ence for the hundreds of thousands of visitors that descended on the city for the big game.
All in all, over 600 Elation Fixtures were used in Super Bowl and Super Bowl related events over the weekend. In addition to the Platinum Beam 5Rs and ELARs, these in-cluded the ELED Tri 56, the Design Wash
LED 60, the Platinum Wash LED Zoom, the TVL3000, the Flex Tape and the EPV 762MH moving head video panel.
For more information, visit www.elationlighting.com.
Monte Pittman Signature Jarrell MPS Guitar Gets Debut At Super Bowl XLVIJarrell’s new Monte Pittman Signature Jarrell MPS guitar got its debut during Super Bowl KLVI Halftime Show this year, courtesy of Monte Pittman, who has been Ma-donna’s guitarist for the past ten years. Pittman and his Signature Jarrell guitar join an extraordinary group of guitar-ists who have per-formed at the Super Bowl, including Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Bruce Springs-teen, and Prince. The Monte Pittman Signature Jarrell MPS is the result of the collaboration between the award win-ning visionary designer Phillip Jarrell and world renowned artist, writer, and guitar-ist Monte Pittman. Pittman plays so many different styles of music during any given performance that, until now, he required many different types of guitars to accom-modate his needs. The Monte Pittman Signature Jarrell MPS boasts a mega set of Seymour Duncan pickups with a P-Rail neck, STk-S7 Vintage Hot Stack middle and a custom design SH-13 Dime Bucker Bridge. Both neck and bridge have 3 po-sition mini switches, with custom wiring using a Super 5 way switch, and a kill switch. Jarrell Guitars was named “2010 Manufacturer of the Year” at the Music Industries Association of Canada (MIAC) Show in Canada.
McNally Strumstick Appearing in New Jennifer Aniston Film The McNally Strumstick makes several ap-pearances in the new comedy from direc-tor David Wain, Wanderlust, about a newly-unemployed Manhattan couple who wind up in a rural hippie commune. The movie, starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston, pokes fun with some cultural stereotypes
while following the couple on a lighthearted adventure. Rudd reportedly introduced the easy-to-play Strumstick to the film’s prop master and director, and they decided it fit right in. www.strumstick.com
Voyage-Air Guitar Expands to UK, Europe, and Japan Distri-butionVoyage-Air Guitars, makers of uniquely portable guitars designed with air travel in mind, have joined forces with The Music Force Distribution (Peterborough, UK) and 3G
International Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Ja-pan) to meet the worldwide demand for its products.
In the U.K., as Mu-sic Force currently sup-plies over 300 retail dealers, their reputation for quality dealer ser-vice will easily leverage the Voyage-Air pres-ence into these markets.
Jon Gold and his partner Roger Seek-ings at Music Force Distribution shared their excitement: “In my 22 years in this industry, I’ve never seen a breakthrough guitar product like this, and I’m thrilled to bring it to our established network of dealers.”
The group behind Voyage-Air’s new Japan distribution, 3G International Co., Ltd., are similarly encouraged by the company’s performance so far. 3G International boasts 30 years of industry experience, working with high-quality instrument manufacturers and Japanese retailers. “Japan is a unique market,” said Mr. Hayakawa. “Many travel by train, or in small cars, yet the quality of tone is very important. Voyage-Air, with its backpack case, is perfect for both the novice and professional guitarist on the move.”
For more information, visit www.voyageairguitar.com.
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11 Holt DriveStony Point, NY 10980Fax: (845) 429-6920
CERTIFIED PRE-OWNED
PIANOSMarshall Music is a seven store family owned business founded in 1948 serving the needs of music educators and professional and amateur musicians throughout Michigan. We are expanding and looking for experienced, personable, creative and motivated professionals with a proven reputation for success.We have opportunities in the following areas;
Senior School Service and Store Management position
School Service Representatives
Sales associates in band and orchestra, guitars, drums and percussion, sound reinforcement, recording equipment
Band and String Repair techs certified and apprentice programs
Industry leading commission and non-commission pay, profit sharing, 401k, and life disability and medical coverage with excellent opportunities for advancement.Send resumes to:
Marshall Music Company, William Gourley, General Manager3240 E. Saginaw Hwy., Lansing, MI 48912Or email to : [email protected]
Maher Marketing for the Music Products Industry
Veteran MI industry marketeer John Maher is
“hanging a shingle” as he puts it, signing up new clients who need help with overall strategy, web consulting, facebook advertising, SEO, art direc-tion, email marketing, video shoots, product re-views, press releases, artist relations, catalog design, sales presentations, you tube management, product launches and trade show coordination... for starters.
Maher has a history of successes including the initial media launch for Crate amps, the
1st Farm Aid collaboration with Alvarez guitars, the introduction of the Peavey Axcess ac-cessory program and the creation of Fender’s Frontline Magazine which is still going strong today. He also developed sales programs for Roland and Boss and created the communica-tion tools that helped win the Alesis Studio Electronics digital tape “format war” which helped clear the way for the home recording studio business. Other memorable industry milestones for Maher include the introduction of Samick’s USA guitar program, the rebirth of the Silvertone brand and, as NAMM’s director of communications, John coordinated the LA convention media campaign along with the NAMM 100th Anniversary yearbook... and he delivered the NAMM board presentation to help launch the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California. John also served as VP marketing for Brook Mays, and as Guitar Cen-ter’s special projects manager, designing and staffing Costco road show kiosks for Music & Arts music stores, and is responsible for the award-winning Reunion Blues video where they throw a guitar off a three-story building, resulting in a viral you tube selling tool that is still going strong today.
“With today’s economy, there is a growing need for consultants.” Maher stated. “Many
companies who are not in a position to hire full-time people still have the ability to budget for experienced outside assistance... and that’s where I come in.”
For more information, visit www.mahermarketing.net or call 707-775-5041.
Classifieds March.indd 101 2/22/12 4:54 PM
102 MMR MARCH 2012
www.mmrmagazine.com
Help Wanted
Merchandise
Guitar Team Product SpecialistsD’Addario & Company, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of musical instrument accessories located in Farmingdale, Long Island, NY. D’Addario has been recently profiled by CNN, CNBC, and the BBC for our commitment to ensuring the future of manufacturing in America. We are searching for two Guitar Team Product Specialists to join our Product Management department.
These positions call for a high level of passion and commitment in a fast-paced, profes-sional environment. The Guitar Team Product Specialists will have a primary responsibility to assist the Product Manager with activities in support of the Guitar Business Unit, which includes the brands: D’Addario Strings and Planet Waves Accessories. Primary responsi-bilities of this position include coordination of Product Development and Product Manage-ment activities, such as; market/customer research, product design and testing, packaging, product lifecycle management, product data analysis and controls, merchandising materials, show and event coordination and travel, artist relations support, consumer relations and social marketing, sales/customer travel, and sales tools/product training.
Qualifications:
• Must be a musician (guitarist or bassist preferred)• Must possess a degree in Business, Music Business or Music Education,
or other related field of study• Minimum of 3 years of experience in marketing development and/or
management, sales or creative development experience preferred.• Must be computer literate (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Visio, etc)• Knowledge of video & audio recording & editing tools a plus• Should possess strong knowledge and experience of various guitar related gear,
MI product and/or retail experience• Strong communication, interpersonal and presentation skills• Highly organized and ability to prioritize• Creative with ability to think on your feet• Self-starter and self-motivated• Ability to work in team environment or independently• Must be available to travel up to 20-30 % to attend applicable music
industry, trade, education and consumer shows/events We offer competitive compensation and benefits, and the opportunity to build a career
with one of the most highly regarded organizations in the industry. For immediate consideration, please submit your resume to [email protected].
You can visit us on the web at www.jdaddario.com.
Reps Wanted Line of digital tuners and proprietary
stringed instrument accessories. Many open territories; band and orchestral
instrument line available as well. Contact Neil Lilien
1.201.233.3025; [email protected]
Brass and Wood wind technicianLynchburg Music Center in Lynchburg VA needs a brass and woodwind technician,
experienced, some string experience helpful. Shop is fully equipped. No overhauls done in
store. Please send resume to [email protected]
SHIPPING YOUR PIANOwith Lone Wolf Trucking
is a “grand” idea! An independent, long-distance Mover
specializing in coast-to-coast residential Relocation.
1-800-982-9505www.lonewolftrucking.com
Alamogordo, New Mexico. 88310ICC MC-256289
Services
Classifieds March.indd 102 2/22/12 4:54 PM
MARCH 2012 MMR 103
MOVING? Let us know 6-8 weeks before your move so we can continue to send your
magazine without interruption.
PAST
E OL
D LA
BEL
HERE
!
NEW ADDRESS HERE! Name ___________________________
Address _________________________
_______________________________
City ____________________________
State ____________Zip ____________
21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494(781) 453-9310
Vintage Instruments
Repair Tools
FAST TURN-AROUND ON STOCK REPAIRS NATIONWIDE
NAPBIRT member, 29 Years Experience
Contact: Dan Rieck, [email protected]
BOW REHAIRING
Expert Bow ServiceOrder forms,Pricing and Shipping label at:
www.bowrehairing.com
Violin bows as low as $10.00 per bow in quantity incl. shipping (see website fordetails.) Large inventory of replacement parts both new and vintage.
IRA B. KRAEMER & Co.Wholesale Services Division
“An industry leader since 1967”467 Grant Avenue, Scotch Plains, N.J. 07076
Tel: 908-322-4469 Fax: 908 322-8613 e mail: [email protected]
www.mmrmagazine.com Wanted USED TUBASANY CONDITION-CASH PAID
THE TUBA EXCHANGE1825 CHAPEL HILL RD.
DURHAM, NC 277071-800-869-8822
WE BUY, SELL, TRADE and ship worldwide.
ONLINE APPRAISAL SERVICEGRUHN GUITARS,
400 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203
(615) 256-2033fax (615) 255-2021 www.guitars.com
Wanted To Buy
WANTED: c.1950 - 1990Musical Instrument CATALOGS
of Electric Guitars, Drums, Band Inst.
Boxful or a few pieces. What do you have?
Email: [email protected]
MMR CLASSIFIEDS INFO: ☛ RATES: Classified Display: $30 per
column inch for text only. $40 per column inch, 1 color, logo, graphics. $50 per column inch 4 color.
☛ PAYMENTS: ALL ADS ARE PREPAID. Charge on Mastercard, Visa or American Express.
☛ SEND YOUR ADVERTISEMENT TO: 21 Highland Circle, Suite 1, Needham, MA 02494 [email protected].
Classifieds March.indd 103 2/22/12 4:54 PM
104 MMR MARCH 2012
Ad IndexCOMPANY NAME E-MAIL/WEB ADDRESS PAGE COMPANY NAME E-MAIL/WEB ADDRESS PAGE
AAl Cass 95
Alfred www.alfred.com/dealer 11
Allparts www.allparts.com 96
Amati’s Fine Instruments www.Amatis.us 68
American DJ Supply Inc. www.americandj.com 5
American Way Marketing LLC www.americanwaymktg.com 67
Audiofly www.audiofly.com 50
Antigua Winds, Inc. www.antiguawinds.com 18
BBand World Music Inc www.ChateauUSAMusic.com 66
Bechstein America LLC www.bechstein-america.com 45
Blocki Pedagogical Flute Products www.blockiflute.com 90
Bourns, Inc. www.bourns.com 79
CCasio America, Inc www.casio.com 13
Connolly & Co. www.connollymusic.com 34
DDana B. Goods www.danabgoods.com 31
David Gage String Instrumens www.davidgage.com 78
Dream Cymbals And Gongs www.dreamcymbals.com 20
FFishman Transducers, Inc. www.fishman.com 70
Fitness Audio LLC www.fitaud.com 92
Floyd Rose Marketing www.floydrose.com 72
GG7th Ltd. www.g7th.com 94
Galaxy Audio www.galaxyaudio.com 66
Gator Cases www.gatorcases.com 30
GEMINI www.geminisound.com 65
HH & F Technologies Inc. www.audio2000s.com 23
Hailun USA www.hailun-pianos.com 41
Hal Leonard Corp. www.halleonard.com 7
Harmona Akkordeon GmbH www.akkordeon-klingenthal.de 79
House of Troy www.houseoftroy.com 44
Hunter Music Instrument Inc. www.huntermusical.com 76
J/KJancic AG www.jazzlab.com 85
Kamoa Ukulele Company www.kamoaukulelecompany.com 90
Kawai America Corp. www.kawiausl.com 35
Ken Smith Basses Ltd. www.kensmithbasses.com 93
Keystone Electronics www.keyelco.com 15
Kyser Musical Products Inc. www.kysermusical.com 91
LLenzner Strings www.lenzner-saiten.de 88
Levy’s Leathers Ltd. www.levysleathers.com 19
LP Music Group www.lpmusic.com 21
MMeisel Accesories LLC www.meiselaccessories.com 73
Music & Arts Center www.musicarts.com 83
The Music People www.musicpeopleinc.com cov2
N/ONAMM www.namm.com 24-25
National Educational Music Co. www.nemc.com 53
OnBoard Research Corp. www.tuners.com 71
P/RPianoDisc www.pianodisc.com 39
Raw Talent Guitar www.rawtalentguitar.com 49
Retail Up www.retailup.com 37
Roc-N-Soc Inc. www.rocNsoc.com 75
Roland Corp. U.S. www.rolandUS.com cov4
SSaga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 89
Saga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 33
Saga Musical Instruments www.sagamusic.com 9
Samson Technologies Corp. www.samsontech.com 3
SHS International www.shsint.net 16
Shubb Capos www.shubb.com 75
SKB Corp. www.skbcases.com 17
TTKL Products Corp. www.tkl.com 1
Tycoon Percussion www.tycoonpercussion.com 87
VVic Firth Company www.VicFirth.com 59
Vic Firth Company www.VicFirth.com 58
WW.D. Music Products Inc. www.wdmusic.com 86
West Music www.tjflutes.com 40
Wittner GmbH & Co. KG www.wittner-gmbh.de 77
YYamaha Corp. of America www.yamaha.com 81
YouRock Guitar www.YouRockGuitar.com 86
Ad Index March.indd 104 2/23/12 9:36 AM
Save
The D
ate
!Networking the
jazz arts community... local to global!
Jazz Education Network
4th Annual Conference
The Jazz Education Networkis dedicated to building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance, and
developing new audiences.
For complete membership information/benefits please visit us at:
www.JazzEdNet.org
Atlanta, GeorgiaJanuary 2-5, 2013
MMR_COV3 COV3 2/22/12 2:58:53 PM
Visualize your music and control your mixes in real time
Try R-MIX with the special iPad version!
Visit www.RolandUS.com/R-MIX for more info.
With R-MIX, you can extract specific instruments from your source mix and adjust their volume—a great way to learn source by ear
Select your instrumental or vocal part of choiceand reduce its volume to create a “minus-one”track (karaoke)
Clean up your old recordings, isolate instruments and remix them by changing volume levels orapplying effects
Play by ear
Create Minus One
Remix &Noise Cancel
MMR_COV4 COV4 2/22/12 2:59:03 PM
