Best of show: walk NAMM with us in a gear-mas gallery

Who stood out at this year’s NAMM show, that festivus of gear that brightens our winters from Anaheim? We’ve given you some idea with NAMM and LA’s Buchla & Friends. Here, in images, are our favorites from NAMM, as captured by LA photographer Mehdi Hassine and veteran Berlin hardware guru Gösta Wellmer.

Soundbites: the music inventions of NAMM, Buchla and Friends

Gear-mas comes but once a year. But with swirling doom and gloom, just how is the world of making musical instruments? We sent Nadia Says, along with Burak Yerebakan, Portrait XO, Franck Martin, and Mehdi Hassine to find out, at the mighty NAMM show in Anaheim — and the indie Buchla & Friends in LA, too. Here’s the show viewed through artists and makers alike, one portrait at a time.

Nadia Says - January 30, 2026

What to expect from 2017’s first wave of new music gear

Happy New Year? Not yet. In the universe of music gear, the NAMM show in California is a sort of unspoken new year’s holiday – home to the biggest wave of music tech announcements of the year. It doesn’t cover everything, as many music producer-specific makers have fled the pricey trade show booths for more […]

Peter Kirn - January 6, 2017