For obvious reasons, it has been a relatively quiet year for new tech, and it looks like this trend is set to continue for some time…
NAMM 2021 has officially been cancelled, to be replaced by a Believe in Music virtual event. The music trade event was originally scheduled for the week of Jan 18 2021, but with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it isn’t really a huge surprise to see a decision like this reached. Organisers cited the health & safety of NAMM members being a top priority.
NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond said “While it remains unsafe for us to gather in person in January, Believe in Music week will use new, intuitive technology to connect us all to harness the incredible energy that happens when we come together.”
Companies obviously already have the difficulties of supply chain and workforce disruption to cope with, and now that one of the marquee events of the calendar is not happening, the urgency to have products ready to display there may diminish.
Its not all bad news though – Rane just launched the 72 mk2 and Twelve mk2, updates to their exceptional mixer and digital decks. They fix a few issues from the previous versions (notably on the mixer, adding an external crossfader tension adjust, a baffling omission from the original!) and introduce a host of new and improved features. The Twelve Mk2s now generate control tone for Traktor and Virtual DJ. For a full review, check out this great piece here.
Over at Native Instruments, the company behind the Traktor DJ software, they have just announced that Constantin Koehncke is to become their new CEO, while Robert Linke will be Chief Product Officer & President – both are internal promotions, with the people they are replacing remaining with the company. The statement from the company demonstrates their confidence moving forward – “Native Instruments today is in a very strong place and it’s on this foundation that Constantin and Robert will bring fresh energy, continuing to deliver exceptional products. Their many years of leadership in Marketing and Products and countless successful contributions made them the perfect choice to lead Native Instruments into the future.”
As one of the most innovative DJ and music tech companies in the world, it will be interesting to see what they have in store in the coming years! In the here and now, Traktor Pro 3.4 beta has just introduced the addition of a smart playlists feature.
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