Here at Budget Guitarist Dot Com, I have considered going to NAMM many times.  The site is big enough to warrant press credentials (NAMM is music industry only for the first few days,) but it’s too expensive to fly out there and stay/eat.  But one day I will go to Winter NAMM, aka the best music convention on the planet.

I’ve spent untold hours reading press releases and online articles and watching videos, to see all the best new cool awesome fun stuff.  And there’s always a lot of it, but I like to make a list of the best, so…

Top 10 Cool Things from NAMM 2019

  1. Electro-Harmonix Attack Decay.  This is a cool pedal that can be used for all kinds of neat backward tape effects as well as super quick decay tricks.  Honorable mention for the Mono Synth, which turns your single note guitar leads into a synth sound.  That’d be cool to run in parallel at a live gig.  For me, not so much, because I play keyboards.  But I’d still love to own one.
  2. Boss Tube Amp Expander.  What a killer, killer idea.  If I’d had one of these, I might have kept my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.  In addition to being what we used to call a power soak (it’s sort of like a master volume after your amp output), it works with the amp to create a better load, it has a reverb and some other effects, it has an effects loop, it has a direct out for recording as well as a power amp output for your speaker, it has speaker emulators… it’s pretty damn amazing.  Unfortunately the price is $1,299, which means I will never, ever, ever buy one of these unless I can pick one up used, 4 years from now, for $500.  But I’ll wait.  HOLD ON – I just realized – the output that goes to your speaker is from the Boss internal power amp.  WHAT?  Yes.  Soooo it’s sort of like recording your amp and playing it back through a power amp into your guitar cab.  It sounds great, but it’s not your amp any more, is it?  Screw this thing and it’s high price tag.  But I typed so much stuff, I don’t want to pull it from this list.
  3. Way Huge Supa Lead Mk3.  I wouldn’t use this as my main overdrive tone, but for a really neat variation, I think this pedal sounds kick ass.
  4. Dr. Epiphone.  I thought this dude was gone!  But he was at NAMM, and I think he’s outrageous.  I love it.  Epiphone in some ways has a much better “brand” than Gibson – most people say “Epiphones are good for the money” and “Gibsons are overpriced.”  They’re pretty much right.  Side note – I am NOT a fan of any Epiphone pickups.  I think they make them a teeny bit muddy on purpose, because if you put a Bustbucker in an Epi Les Paul, it pretty much sounds 98% as good as a Gibson Les Paul.  The Gibsons play a little better, and cost 3 times as much money.  Much love for Epiphone.
  5. Vox AC15 with Warehouse Speaker.  I thought these sounded kick ass!  Made me want to go buy a speaker from Warehouse.  Wampler has been using them for years in his demo amps.
  6. Marshall British-made amp heads (and combos.)  A 20 watt JCM 800 made in England for $1,299?  Too much money for me, and I think the JCM 800 is the most overrated rock amp ever made.  BUT I know people love them, and it’s certainly a great price point.
  7. Wampler Terraform.  I’m a big fan of Brian Wampler and his pedals.  I have two on my board right now.  Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, etc and so on, in one box, with tons of options.  This’d be a neat one for my pedalboard.
  8. Fender… something.  There should be something on here from Fender, right?  The thing I like this year is that they’re doing a special run of one guitar per month in the Mexican line.  That means they’ll be expensive but not a billion dollars.  I like the idea a lot.  But honestly, there’s nothing Fender can do to wow me, unless they cut the price of American guitars in half, which will never happen.
  9. Squier (Yes, the one owned by Fender) has a new Classic Vibe line out, which is super cool.  My fave is the Classic Vibe ’60s Jazzmaster.  That guitar, used, in about 2 years, will be in my collection.  Probably.
  10. Gibson back at NAMM and saying the right things.  Gibson CEO JC Curleigh made a big impression on a lot of people saying things like “Quality control will improve.”  That’s what people want.  Again, I’m not a super fan of the 2019 Gibson lineup because I see price increases and a lack of robot tuners as being the big changes.  I think Gibson needs to give us a good quality $1,000 Les Paul with trapezoid inlays.  No bindings, single color (gold top perhaps.)  They’d sell a kajillion.  But Gibson wants to be Apple – a good quality product for too much money.

There you go.  Up next is the considerably smaller Orlando International Guitar Convention next weekend.  My hotel reservation is booked and I can’t wait.  Yes, it’s nothing compared to NAMM, but it’s 90% just guitars and it’s a blast.