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Recently, the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) returned to the Anaheim Convention Center. According to an event spokesperson, 1,650 exhibitors – representing around 5,000 brands of instruments, engineering gear, stage equipment, and other musical apparatus – were joined by the approximately 70,000 musicians, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and music lovers who attended NAMM throughout its Jan. 20-24 duration.
Once again, my experience of the event was limited, and this year all I had an opportunity to check out was the showroom floor. Additionally, while I did not attend the annual, accompanying Technical Excellence and Creativity (TEC) Awards show, this year’s innovation award recipient was Billy Corgan, who also performed at the ceremony. Now, onto the gear.
While I always do my best to research new equipment drops prior to attending – as well as wander around blindly just to see what new instruments and gadgets lie in wait of discovery – I do have a go-to list of companies which reliably premiere something new and exciting most years. On that score, Third Man Hardware had two new delay pedals on display, including the Troika Delay Standard and the Black Mountain Roto-Echo; the latter is particularly novel, as it features an oversize wheel meant for changing delay parameters with your foot while playing guitar.
Korg’s display area featured a number of new innovations. Among these, the most unique had to be the new Phase8 Acoustic Synthesizer. This eight-voice synth features analog tines, that when struck or interacted with, send signals through its processing units to create unique sounds which can be manipulated and sequenced into patterns. The floor models were displayed alongside little bins of various metal and wooden objects, which guests could use to interact with the tines. The whole unit was also jacked into an Erica modular synth to add additional dynamism to the unit’s output. Korg was also promoting their new MicroAudio 22 and MicroAudio 722, a couple of analog sound filters designed for use with Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs).
This year, the Stylophone booth highlighted a number of recently released and up-and-coming products. While last year’s NAMM show featured the company’s theremin and drone synths – and the rest of the year saw the release of three additional analog devices – this year’s new additions were the Voice portable sampler and the On-The-Fly (OTF) sequencer.
Beyond the booths of the proverbial usual suspects, the new technological revelations that grabbed my attention came from both big corporations as well as boutique companies. Given that this writer is a devotee of tiki culture, I was delighted to behold designer/technician Desmond Bowe’s Tiki Tube Amps. Bowe has a history in IT engineering, and he has carved out a unique niche for himself by fusing his knowledge of amplification technology with tiki wood-carving designs. Additionally, NAMM 2026 marked the official launch of his Atomic HiFi Speakers.
Another unique hybrid of visual art and music came in the form of Wesla Bay Weller’s products. While Weller creates numerous varieties of art made from retired instruments, her kaleidoscope collection occupied a central portion of her display. A couple of items I peered through included a flute and a portion of a drum stick – each of which had been revamped into kaleidoscopes. Weller won the 2026 NAMM award for Best in Show with her creations.
Getting back to visually pleasing as well as sonically intriguing instruments, Les Claypool’s latest brainchild, The Whamola v2.0, was on display at the Pachyderm Instruments booth. Looking more like a harpoon than a musical instrument, the Whamola features a single string stretched across an alumnium body with a hardwood fingerboard. It is played by plucking the string or whacking it with a stick, while using a handle-like whammy bar to alter the instrument’s pitch.
Next up, a very hot ticket throughout last year was the Orchid ORC-1. This deceptively simple-looking synth from Telepathic Instruments is a songwriter’s delight. Its highlight features include the abilities to generate chords within a given key and then play the notes of said chords in arpeggiated forms. Early drops saw the unit selling out within seconds, and while the unit retails for somewhere in the $600 range, a company rep said that people were buying them and then flipping them for tens of thousands of dollars. The floor models at NAMM were displayed, appropriately, within mini garden vignettes.
The final stop on this year’s little tour was at the Casio showcase area, where the buzz centered around the new SX-C1 sampler. While still in its prototype phase, the – once again – deceptively simple-looking device weilded incredible power. This baby packs 16 pads, 64 GB of memory, and a built-in mic/speaker. It’s hard not to draw a parallel between this unit and Teenage Engineering’s line of samplers; both look like toys but are capable of highly dynamic sound manipulations and sequencing functions. Needless to say, this design trend is very eye-catching. As for the SX-C1, Casio has not revealed the drop date nor the anticipated price.
Once again, my little round-up barely scratches the surface of the products, sights, sounds, innovations, and personalities that the annual NAMM show brings to Anaheim, California. However, it is always an amazing surface to scratch, and it serves to remind this writer of the immense community of artists, marvels of design, and tools for making beautiful music that lie in wait for both industry professionals and creative types to discover.
