2009 January

Archive for January, 2009

Namba Gear’s 2009 NAMM Show Roundup

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

All Girl Mexican Mariach Band Welcome to our little roundup of some of the more interesting things that we saw at NAMM this year. Our first photo was a performance of a Mexican mariachi girl band. They were a cross between traditional mariachi music and the Gypsy Kings. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find out their name.

Namba Gear’s Booth At NAMM Namba Gear’s 1st NAMM show and we had a great location in the middle of the technology companies thanks to our friends at Bias software. If you look closely, you can see the M-Audio Axiom25 in a Mayan Brown Big Namba Studio Backpack on the top shelf of the display.

Vestax VCM600 inside the Big Namba Studio Backpack We had been asked to find out if the new Vestax VCM 600 DJ controller would fit inside the Big Namba Studio Backpack, so we went on an expedition to find out. The answer is YES; because it is thin, we can angle it into the top of the controller compartment and it fits perfectly!

Akai APC40 Ableton Live controller Excited that our initial expedition went so well, we went looking for other cool things to put inside the Big Namba. We came across the dedicated Ableton Live controller built by Akai called the APC40. Huston Singletary gave some great demos using this controller at the Ableton booth.

The Native Instruments Maschine The next day we went over to the Native Instruments booth to check out their new sequencer controller named Maschine. This one fit into the Big Namba Studio Backpack with plenty of room to spare. The pads were responsive and it’s sexy too.

The Akai MPK25 MIDI Keyboard Controller Akai also had a new 25 key MIDI controller with trigger pads called the MPK25, so we put it into the Big Namba just to make sure. Yes, another controller fits the mold.

Marcelo from Brazil Jesse Spohn from Broadjam We had quite a few interesting Namba Gear sightings while at the show. We saw Broadjam’s Jesse Spohn walking around with his Kava Laptop Studio Bag. Marcelo Haddad from Brazil had his Big Namba and a big smile for the show.

Cool French dude, Laurent from Flux software Our next door neighbor was this cool guy from Orleans, France named Larent Sevestre. Larent had this incredible mastering tools software called FLUX. I tried to capture the screen graphic in this photo because it was one of the most beautiful software graphics I have every seen. After hearing me rap about the Namba bags every day, even Laurent had to get a Shaka Laptop Messenger to take home.

Chris Adams & Woody Moran wearing a slightly serious look. Namba Gear also signed a representation deal for Latin America with Chris Adams of Studio Sound International. Chris is going to help us bring Namba Gear products to all the musicians south of the USA border. Pictured is Chris Adams and “yours truly” at the Namba Gear booth.

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Margaret McClure and Seventhings - Namba Gear Featured Artist

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

NAME: Margaret McClure & Seventhings

CITY: San Diego, CA

FAVORITE SOFTWARE: Apple Logic

NAMBA GEAR: Big Namba Studio Backpack & 3 Kava Laptop Studio Bags

Seventhings” the band, original music written/ recorded by writing team Margaret McClure and Andy Machin. They describe their new music as ” Guitar driven Modern Pop-Rock mixed with electronic elements”.

The music of Seventhings is being featured on MTVs “Making The Band IV”,”My Super Sweet 16″ ” Taquita Kaui” also “Rock Star Wives”, “Road Rules”, “Access Hollywood”, several shows on CMT, VH1, N and PBS . Their song “I’m Gone” is featured in a Lifetime movie “She Drives Me Crazy”. And the list is growing! McClure and Machin are currently shopping songs to artists through independent publishers and co-writing with top songwriters as well as developing artists. They play often at venues throughout Southern California. With Andy Machin on lead guitars/ vocals, Rick Lorenzini keys/ guitar/ harmonica/ vocals, Margaret McClure vocals/ guitar/ percussion, Bjorn de Boer bass and George Nelms drums.

WEBSITE: “Seventhings” www.theseventhings.com & www.margaretandymusic .com

Recent Projects:
This year Andy Machin and Margaret McClure are working on the final touches of two new albums soon to be released by new artist Phoebe Blume and new artist Sherry Lavelle.

Andy and Margaret are also working on an interesting project with fellow two-timeBroadjam 6-pack grand prize winner as well as last years 3rd place winner songwriter “Liz Miller” and 07’s 6th place winner and 08’s 4th place winner, singer songwriter “Phoebe Blume”. We are collaborating on a song that will be recorded on the John Lennon tour bus sometime in 2009. Liz and Phoebe will be joining our band ” Seventhings” for a day to record the song we write. We filming a documentary of this process and how we all met through this contest/broadjam and became friends and co-writers and a band for a day. We enter the song in the John Lennon songwriting contest, American Idol contest and pitch it to major publishers. also we will try to take the final film to the Sundance Film Festival..wish us luck!!

What I like best about my Namba Gear: We are loving our new namba bags. Last week I (Margaret) took my new grey Kava messenger bag on a trip to Vegas with my laptop, 2 hard drives, mics, a camera, 4 cords, 2 books, zip drives, cds, and a change of clothes…. it was all organized padded protected easy to carry and I looked cool too…oh and it wasn’t black, so I could see it in the sea of black!!! love it !!!

And the Big Namba Studio Backpack is perfect for gigs. We can put all our expensive vocal mics and cords in it all safe and sound we can even lock it which is nice. Our old backpacks were flimsy and we were always worrying about the contents getting dented in transit. We had to wrap the mics in bubble wrap. Namba Gear is intelligent, streamlined and well thought out, It just helps simplify the life of a traveling, gigging musician. We can tell that they were designed by working musicians for working musicians. Thank you so much Namba Gear!!

Favorite Remote Recording Location: Fav remote location has got to be any hotel room that we are staying in, cause we are workaholics! Or anywhere that has interesting acoustics. Margaret has been known to edit vocals while sitting in the passenger seat of a speeding car…

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Kava Laptop Studio Bag Nominated for Best Bag/Case of 2008 by Music & Sound Retailer Magazine

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

In the December 15, 2008 edition of Music & Sound Retailer magazine, the Namba Gear Kava Laptop Studio Bag was nominated for Best Bag/Case of 2008. The Kava Laptop Studio Bag was released in March 2008 and was the inaugural product for Namba Gear.

Namba Gear owner, Woody Moran, was quoted, saying, “It is gratifying for Namba Gear to be nominated for creating high-performance transport solutions for laptop musicians, remixers and DJs. As our retailers have told us, it is so rewarding that simply showing a musician or DJ a quality bag for their gear actually connects-the-dots for a mobile laptop studio or performance application.”