Radial Engineering now has their Recoil Stabilizers and a wide range of sizes. The units sit under your monitors providing a rock solid base that translates into better audio. The demo in the booth has to be heard to be believed, the stereo image and low frequency information is much more centered and full on the speakers sitting on the stabilizers.

Waves was showing their iGtr, a pocket-sized box with guitar amp simulation and effects. Sure to be a hit with the NAMM'ies.

Ultrasone was displaying a number of new headphones including the PRO 650 and PRO 750 models which uses the same technology as their Edition 9 high end headphones. The units feature thicker ear and headpads of rich leather and an upgrade to the transducers. --Kevin Becka, Mix magazine

Now for some small talk. Novation is going small with its Automapping MIDI technology by introducing the Nocturn, a MIDI control box with two rows of knobs and some buttons. It's small enough to fit in the empty top-panel space of most MIDI keyboards and is well-suited for conrolling plug-ins. It also has Novation's Speed Dial, which controls any software parameter that the mouse cursor is on. Nocturn is scheduled to ship in March for a MAP price of $99.

Also on the topic of shrinkage, Access has shrunken its Virus TI Polar synthesizer down to a module that's the size of a paperback book. The Virus TI Snow has a copact editing interface with dedicated filter cutoff and resonance knobs, as well as three other knobs that default to relevant parameter for each synth patch. 21 buttons and a backlit menu also make editing sounds very manageable. The Snow has MIDI I/O, stereo analog inputs and outputs and a USB port; even though it's small synth, it still has the huge Virus TI sound.
Markkus Rovito, Remix magazine

Euphonix Artist Series Controllers
Euphonix provides an advanced look at the company's affordable new Artist Series MC line of products for DAW control. MORE

SSL VHD Input Module, Stereo Bus Compressor Module
Solid State Logic will feature two new components for the X-Rack modular rack system -- the VHD Input Module and the Stereo Bus Compressor Module -- at booth #6907, Hall A. The Stereo Bus Compressor Module, the first double-width module occupying two X-Rack slots, delivers the classic tonal characteristic of the G-Series Compressor but with the added benefit of the ultrahigh-bandwidth, ultralow-noise SuperAnalogue™ circuit design. The VHD Input Module is based on the input section of the SSL E-Signature Channel 1U rack processor. The VHD Input module combines five elements: a high-bandwidth mic amp stage that can handle mic, instrument or line inputs, SSL's Variable Harmonic Drive circuit; an additional line input/trim control section; a set of HPF and LPFs; and the Listen Mic Compressor.
www.solid-state-logic.com

Doepfer Musikelektronik A-100 CV/Gate Keyboard
A monophonic analog keyboard with CV, gate, velocity and after-touch, the first use of the keyboard is to control the A-100 modular, but as the CV follows the 1V/octave standard and the gate output can be set to +5V or +10V or switch trigger, it is useful to control other analog synthesizers or modular systems. The keyboard has a (polyphonic) MIDI output available. The keyboard length is four octaves key and the device is equipped with a rugged metal case. Other versions with two, three or five octaves are available only as D.I.Y./OEM products. Winter NAMM Level 2, 210 Meeting Room D
www.doepfer.com

Intel-Cakewalk Onward and Upward
We're here with Dan Snyder of Intel, and if you've been paying any kind of attention to the pro audio industry the past couple of years, you must be aware of the reach that Intel has.
Hey guys, things are going great here at NAMM -- my favorite tradeshow of the year! Being a guitarist I love to check out the show floor and drool all over the new gear! We at Intel just launched sixteen new processors last week at CES and we are thrilled to see how the developers and computer makers use and abuse our stuff. Cakewalk for example has completely optimized Sonar to use all the CPU cores (or "brains") it sees, so our quad core processors will be kept very busy. No rest for any of you cores, haaha! Check out Cakewalk's booth here at the show to see them in action. MORE

Nathaniel In the House
We're here with mobile man, Studio Without Walls, writer par excellence and the new face on the back page of EM. Mr. Nathaniel Kunkel!
In addition to a bunch of fun mix projects that I've been working on, we, at Studio Without Walls, have been putting a lot of effort into creating some disk images for distribution made from our working-testing Intel Pro Tools systems. So many of my peers and I have been putting significant effort into getting our new Intel architecture Pro Tools rig stable that we figured it was about time we made all that effort available to everybody else. We're hoping that concurrent with announcing Leopard compatibilty, we'll be capable of publishing links to these images. I'm sure that Intel will be interested in disseminating this information, but in lieu of their effort, you can always check out studiowithoutwalls.com and we'll be sure to have that information available for all of you out there in the production world. MORE