 Hey, this is Dani with The Verge and we're here in Anaheim, California at NAMM, which is the National Association of Music Merchants show. Now, a lot of this show does center around traditional instrumentation. So we're talking pianos, drums, guitars, things like that. But there is a portion of it that is devoted to technology and there's a lot of it. So we're going to wander inside and see what we find and play around with a lot of cool stuff and hopefully we will uncover some cool technology that we can share with you. So there's really been two overarching themes that have been really interesting at NAMM this year and that's the educational side where people are really trying to simplify the music making process and make it so that total beginners can enter and not feel scared and can learn to play any sort of instrument with relative ease. We saw Teenage Engineering, they came out with some new pocket operators and they're very cool little calculator size kind of mousetrap looking things that are sequencers with a very minimal set of buttons and their new ones let you actually record vocal samples into them. So you can take your own voice and create a completely synthesized version of it and play around with it. It's really wild, they're cheap, they're fun to use. Those were great. And then we also saw this little thing called the blip blocks which is a synth that's meant for three to eight year olds which is insane and it's got these little arrows on the top that show you the signal, how it goes throughout the instrument from button to button to the eventual output. So the idea is for little kids to get comfortable with the origins of synthesis before they actually graduate to something that requires a little more precision and attention. Then we also saw the one highlight piano strip. So it's an 88 key strip that you place on top of your keyboard and guitar hero style it teaches you how to play the notes light up as they're supposed to drop down on screen and you just follow along. I tried playing it, I screwed up quite a few times but after about five minutes I got the hang of the melody and nailed 100 percent. I felt really good about it too, it was great. We're also seeing this whole category of sort of third party add ons if you will, things that you can use in conjunction with equipment that you already have to add functionality or to make them even better than they already were. Another thing that we saw was a little rectangle called the phase and the phase is something that you put on top of a record on a turntable and it communicates with a hub and your computer to eliminate the need for a tone arm. So you can scratch a record, you can scrub through a song and you don't need to have a needle and you don't need to have a tone arm at all. It's wild. Also solving the tone arm problem we had a company called Rain which had actually created a brand new turntable from scratch that did not have a tone arm built into it whatsoever and that had a little pad on the side where the tone arm would traditionally be but it was a smart strip instead and you could just take your finger and run it down the side and use that to find your position within the song wherever you wanted the song to land. Just in a weird part of the music spectrum there have been a couple of VR experiences as well. There's a company called Aero Drums which lets you play drums in VR. So you have the sticks and then you have metallic reflectors on your feet and then there's a camera and using Oculus you can play an entire drum kit without making any noise, without actually buying a drum kit at all and you can swap out the drums to make a custom drum kit to whatever specifications you would want. So there's definitely a couple of companies that are trying to figure out how music can be accessible in a VR space, how successful they are. I'm not really sure but it really was fun to try them out at the very least. So those are really the two main categories that we're seeing here at NAMM and it's a really interesting time because over the past few years there has been this intersection of music and tech that has really tried to simplify the music making process and it's cool to be here and to see all of it in person and to watch that revolution happening. For more information and to follow more news about music and technology follow us at theverge.com.
 Hey, this is Dani with The Verge and we're here in Anaheim, California at NAMM, which
 is the National Association of Music Merchants show.
 Now, a lot of this show does center around traditional instrumentation.
 So we're talking pianos, drums, guitars, things like that.
 But there is a portion of it that is devoted to technology and there's a lot of it.
 So we're going to wander inside and see what we find and play around with a lot of cool
 stuff and hopefully we will uncover some cool technology that we can share with you.
 So there's really been two overarching themes that have been really interesting at NAMM
 this year and that's the educational side where people are really trying to simplify
 the music making process and make it so that total beginners can enter and not feel scared
 and can learn to play any sort of instrument with relative ease.
 We saw Teenage Engineering, they came out with some new pocket operators and they're
 very cool little calculator size kind of mousetrap looking things that are sequencers with a
 very minimal set of buttons and their new ones let you actually record vocal samples
 into them.
 So you can take your own voice and create a completely synthesized version of it and
 play around with it.
 It's really wild, they're cheap, they're fun to use.
 Those were great.
 And then we also saw this little thing called the blip blocks which is a synth that's meant
 for three to eight year olds which is insane and it's got these little arrows on the top
 that show you the signal, how it goes throughout the instrument from button to button to the
 eventual output.
 So the idea is for little kids to get comfortable with the origins of synthesis before they
 actually graduate to something that requires a little more precision and attention.
 Then we also saw the one highlight piano strip.
 So it's an 88 key strip that you place on top of your keyboard and guitar hero style
 it teaches you how to play the notes light up as they're supposed to drop down on screen
 and you just follow along.
 I tried playing it, I screwed up quite a few times but after about five minutes I got the
 hang of the melody and nailed 100 percent.
 I felt really good about it too, it was great.
 We're also seeing this whole category of sort of third party add ons if you will, things
 that you can use in conjunction with equipment that you already have to add functionality
 or to make them even better than they already were.
 Another thing that we saw was a little rectangle called the phase and the phase is something
 that you put on top of a record on a turntable and it communicates with a hub and your computer
 to eliminate the need for a tone arm.
 So you can scratch a record, you can scrub through a song and you don't need to have
 a needle and you don't need to have a tone arm at all.
 It's wild.
 Also solving the tone arm problem we had a company called Rain which had actually created
 a brand new turntable from scratch that did not have a tone arm built into it whatsoever
 and that had a little pad on the side where the tone arm would traditionally be but it
 was a smart strip instead and you could just take your finger and run it down the side
 and use that to find your position within the song wherever you wanted the song to land.
 Just in a weird part of the music spectrum there have been a couple of VR experiences
 as well.
 There's a company called Aero Drums which lets you play drums in VR.
 So you have the sticks and then you have metallic reflectors on your feet and then there's a
 camera and using Oculus you can play an entire drum kit without making any noise, without
 actually buying a drum kit at all and you can swap out the drums to make a custom drum
 kit to whatever specifications you would want.
 So there's definitely a couple of companies that are trying to figure out how music can
 be accessible in a VR space, how successful they are.
 I'm not really sure but it really was fun to try them out at the very least.
 So those are really the two main categories that we're seeing here at NAMM and it's a
 really interesting time because over the past few years there has been this intersection
 of music and tech that has really tried to simplify the music making process and it's
 cool to be here and to see all of it in person and to watch that revolution happening.
 For more information and to follow more news about music and technology follow us at theverge.com.