NAMM what gives?!?

#21
There are so many more guitar players than bass players, it's really not shocking that guitar wins the day when it comes to the push for new product. And as others have said, bass players seem to stick to the old designs. Every time Fender makes a new bass, for instance, everyone spends all day hating on it, meanwhile fawning over the 11 millionth seemingly identical iteration of a P-bass.
 
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#23
ole Jason said:
NAMM has been increasingly irrelevant over the years as social media and the internet have become the main avenue for company interaction with customers. There just isn't really any reason to debut something big at NAMM when you can have the same outreach any time of the year.
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I think it's worth keeping in mind that NAMM isn't actually set up to be customer-facing.

B>
 
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#24
HamOnTheCob said:
There are so many more guitar players than bass players, it's really not shocking that guitar wins the day when it comes to the push for new product. And as others have said, bass players seem to stick to the old designs. Every time Fender makes a new bass, for instance, everyone spends all day hating on it, meanwhile fawning over the 11 millionth seemingly identical iteration of a P-bass.
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It's not identical. it's a very slightly different colour!

B>
 
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#27
ole Jason said:
NAMM has been increasingly irrelevant over the years as social media and the internet have become the main avenue for company interaction with customers. There just isn't really any reason to debut something big at NAMM when you can have the same outreach any time of the year.
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Except here you can go and PLAY them. There is something to that...
 
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#28
dcbassist5 said:
Almost NO love for bassists.

Ibanez released a bunch of new Basses.

Way Huge released the Pork Pickle

Blackstar released some combos for bass

Ampeg released 2 new bass pedals

Fender found a way to rerelease more 3TS, Natural and Olympic White Jazz and P Basses and raise the price hundreds.

Not much else. Disappointing!
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There are two questions that bet to be asked.

1) What, exactly, did you want to see this year? In other words, what doesn't the market have that you need or want?

2) What is you budget for bass gear this year? How much do you think you will spend on brand new basses and amps this year? If it is zero, or not much over zero, you are like 99% of bassists out there (myself included).


Manufacturers don't put out new models so we habe new pics to drool over. They put out new models to sell thousands of units to customers who will buy brand new gear.

The market (in my view) is saturated for bass. There are hundreds of companies competing for not exactly billions of dollars annually.

So it is safer to tweek tried and true formulas for the most part (strictly from a business standpoint) rather than reinventing the wheel every 365 days.

In the last few years (including this year) we have seen....
1) Music Man take on the P and PJ and they seem to be popular.
2) Mesa take the bass world by storm with the Subway series and their acoustic DI.
3) A production 5 string Six.
4) An exponential expansion of dedicated bass effects.
5) Leaps and bounds in lightweight modular amps and cabs.
6) A few more players taking swings at being major competitors in the bass market (including Hammersmith and others).


.....and those are just a few off the top of my head.

I would argue that in many circles basses and rigs look nothing like they did 20 years ago.

This is a good time to be shopping for bass gear in my view.

Also, nobody wants a twisted neck all aluminium 1 pound bass that has a USB plug spot can update pickups models for $10,000. The market is ready for slightly different. It isn't ready for flying basses and floating bass rigs.
 
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#31
NaH said:
Except here you can go and PLAY them. There is something to that...
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When I've gone, it actually had almost nothing to do with an interest in seeing gear, and everything to do with meeting new people, networking, and catching up with friends and my reps in the industry I rarely get to see. Had I gone out this year, it would've been the same story. Anyone who comes back from NAMM and tells you about some piece of gear they got a good chance to listen to is LYING to you. It's too loud to actually demo anything (with the VERY few exceptions of vendors with sound isolation booths), and as we pretty much all know, trying something out in that environment or a music store gives almost NO impression of how that bass/amp/pedal will actually suit you in an ownership/studio/gigging situation. It's nice to see things with your eyes (which you can do online), but it's a loud, bustling metropolis at NAMM, which doesn't lend itself to intimate experience with a piece of gear. It's like trying to check out a guitar in the concourse of a stadium when the big game has just ended and everyone is funneling past you. LoL good luck with that.
 
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#33
ole Jason said:
NAMM has been increasingly irrelevant over the years as social media and the internet have become the main avenue for company interaction with customers. There just isn't really any reason to debut something big at NAMM when you can have the same outreach any time of the year.
Click to expand...
The point of NAMM was not interaction with customers, at least on the retail level. Wholesale, yes, the manufacturers are trying to line up deals with vendors, and new products are revealed with all sorts of dazzle dazzle. It’s industry, don’t forget, and you actually get to fondle the stuff, maybe even play it. YouTube demo videos can only do so much. Plus, for those who get to go, it’s real social interaction, not fake internet social interaction. Who wouldn’t want to be across the street from Disneyland in January?
 
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#36
From a player's perspective, as well as that of a knowledgeable MI Biz buyer's; you certainly can examine and appraise a piece of gear, but HEARING it??

NOT!

Absolutely IME/IMO the Worst place ever to try and check out a bass or amp!
Horrible acoustics combined with crowd noise and other "instrumentalists" playing, with skill levels ranging from Marcus Miller to your run-of-the-mill GC basher. Terrible.

NAMM exists primarily for NAMM and the City of Anaheim to make $$, as well as a showcase for Mfrs to find Distributors, etc, and write orders.

Attending as a bassist, with the intent of evaluating and feeling out new gear...
I dunno; good luck with that. Maybe some out there can do do it, personally it was never possible for me, even when I made an honest effort to do so.

Lots of great eye-candy though, and a chance to see builds by a number of World-Class boutique builders that you won't find in Sam Ash, e.g!:cool:, and first-looks at the new offerings.

Seeing, not hearing, was always my experience anyway.

And BTW, I thought there was an appreciable amount of new bass gear for 2018; same as most shows.
 
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#37
dcbassist5 said:
Almost NO love for bassists.

Ibanez released a bunch of new Basses.

Way Huge released the Pork Pickle

Blackstar released some combos for bass

Ampeg released 2 new bass pedals

Fender found a way to rerelease more 3TS, Natural and Olympic White Jazz and P Basses and raise the price hundreds.

Not much else. Disappointing!
Click to expand...

New Dingwall bass models, new pedals from Darkglass, Tech 21 and others, new cabs from Genzler, Berg, Audiokinesis and others, new 5 string Rickenbackers, dozens of smaller brands like Serek and Chapman debuting new models, a 3000 watt Jule tube rig with two subs cabable of pushing 20Hz, and that's just for starters...seems like maybe you just haven't walked around enough yet ;)
 
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#40
MDBass said:
New Dingwall bass models, new pedals from Darkglass, Tech 21 and others, new cabs from Genzler, Berg, Audiokinesis and others, new 5 string Rickenbackers, dozens of smaller brands like Serek and Chapman debuting new models, a 3000 watt Jule tube rig with two subs cabable of pushing 20Hz, and that's just for starters...seems like maybe you just haven't walked around enough yet ;)
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The Darkglass, and Tech21 aren’t really new....
 
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