The NAMM Reflection.

The great hits:

NAMM 2026 had a ton of vendors, designers, and merchants on the sales floor. Almost too many! Throughout all 3 days of exploring the exhibits though, there were a couple that stuck with me. One, an entirely new product from a company that, while I had heard of it in passing, had not paid much attention to until now. Another, a software that I had been familiar with in the past, but with substantial improvements and new features showcased at NAMM that got me back into the software and family. 

Beginning with the hardware product, ones that most caught my eye were the patchbays by Flock Audio. At the NAMM show floor, they showcased a new series of patchbays. I spent a lot of time speaking with these analog patchbays, but with digitally controlled interfaces. That allows for a much smaller footprint within a studio, and the benefits of a digital interface for controlling your software, all without losing the quality of analog gear. The product that interested me the most out of this lineup was the new Patch se series. This new patchbay releasing this summer is a 24 in 24 out analog patchbay, using flocks digital control technology. Perfect for small or home studios, it allows for a super clean and low footprint, but powerful patchbay. What makes this model stand out for hobbyists is the price. This model is priced at only $999, making it a much more affordable model for smaller studios or home studios than many other patchbays out there. The small footprint also makes it very suitable for a home studio, as it takes up much less space. Utilizing Tascam cables and inputs, all 24 inputs and outputs can be routed using only 8 cables, providing an even more compact footprint. While it does not have the full feature set as the full sized patchbays by Flock, it features all the essential aspects needed for a small home studio or hobbyist musician. 

The second company that stood out to me was DreamTronics. While being a software developer as opposed to hardware, the plugins that they were showing off on the show floor were very interesting. Firstly was the second version of their software SynthV. This is one of the primary 3 Vocaloid editing and producing softwares, the other 2 being Vocaloid and Utau. While they have been onx the market for a while, they recently released a major update to their flagship SynthV studio. This version provides much more in depth voice banks, and far more control features over the first. For more detailed banks, you are able to control the harshness of consonants, lyrical flow and legato, and tons of tone controls from breathiness to whisper or scream singing. Combined with the version 2 of many popular voicebanks, such as Gumi or Teto, this software is allowing for unprecedented control over vocaloid banks, with much faster and more intuitive UI. While not for everyone, I have kept up with much of the vocaloid space for a few years now, and the unique music that it comes out of that community. Seeing the barrier for entry in both the complexity of the software and the quality means the doors are opened for more to join the vocaloid community. Another software they showcased was one called Vocaflex, which doubles as a complimentary tool for SynthV as well as a live voice changer. This software can identify the format of another person's voice using AI, and shifts the format of your voice live to match. This can be used to essentially turn yourself into any type of vocal that your song may need. Once again, while not a tool for everyone, those who produce Vocaloid style music, or music with more avant garde needs for vocals would find these tools especially useful, or simply fans of Teto or Miku.

Internal:

While the show floor did feel overwhelming at first, to be honest it never felt truly too bad. I tend to have a pretty good idea at what gear truly interests me in both modern and future applications. So while there was a lot of cool stuff, a lot of it just fell into the “oh thats neat!” category. The few things that stood out to me I was often able to talk with someone or research the unit on my own. I met up with a few folks from folk audio, as well as an intern from Zoom whom I have followed up with on Instagram. I also have been talking with some other students from SoCal that were in attendance. While the trade show itself is very cool, the feeling that at its center it is a merchants venue never truly leaves. It seems everyone is there to either attempt to sell something, or to network. And while true, and important, I personally feel that the sort of environment created makes it very difficult to truly make a connection past getting a Linkdin. The best conversations I had, and the ones I likely will remember, were ones that had nothing to do with the show, or our jobs, or sometimes even audio. I had made friends with quite a few other students, as one of them was wearing a pokemon bag of the same pokemon as my hat. And while we of course did the traditional networking, what I remember most is just the normal conversations. Or an employee at the Fender guitar booth, we had spent a good 20 minutes talking about different DAW’s, and the best way to start producing as someone who spent most of their life just playing. While these connections are great, I feel to an extent that much of the conversations are weighed down by the “professional networking” vibes of the show. While the job market I want to get into honestly does not have a ton of overlap with the traditional NAMM experience, I feel more strongly than ever that having a non-work focused relationship with the people you are working with is important. Know who they are as people, not just as professionals. My advice to next year's students would be to come to NAMM to make a friend, or an acquaintance, not a co-worker. Everyone at the show wants another co-worker, another client, or employer. But the most memorable moments are the quiet ones, unrelated to audio at all. Just a pleasant time with new people.