Mark at NAMM

Howdy Mark,

I bet the accordions don't come in all those nice colors, though ;)

Please do play around with some of this stuff and tell us all about it!

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Mark,

In earlier days when I had occasions to travel on expense account, I always thought a picture provided good support for a lot of receipts. Unfortunately, in most of them I looked like I was having pure fun, so I never turned any in. You look suitably business like, without being unduly oppressed by it. Indeed, that is not Hawaii behind you, but it does appear warm, and on an evening with the expectation of wind chills of 15 below zero, that sparks a bit of envy.

Enjoy!

mgj

Hi, all:

Many years ago, I used to rent keyboards from a local shop, owned by a guy who played accordion in a hard rock band.

Now this was LONG before MIDI, so he had modified his accordion with control voltage and gate outputs, separate for the bass section and keyboard.

He played ARP Odyssey and String Machine through it. In fact, I bought his ARP Odyssey and still use it.

David

By the way, Mark, it's nice to finally have a face to go with the software!

David

Howdy,

Mark, re. the NAMM accordion, I didn't know Elvis played one ;) That _has_ to be his....

David, that had to be a hoot, hearing and seeing this guy playing his accordion.

My personal Sweetwater sales rep has informed me about a new(ish) MIDI pickup system for guitar/bass that allows you to split the fretboard _and_ separate strings, to have different instrument patches for the different areas of each string. You can be the band, all from your fretboard. One of these days...

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi David,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

By the way, Mark, it's nice to finally have a face to go with the software! <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>It's almost always surprising to see a photo of someone you've been talking with over the Internet for years, and sometimes disappointing. It's not disappointing because the guy looks better or worst than one imagined, but disappointing just because he looks different than one imagined. It's like the disappointment of seeing characters in a movie version of a book which pictures in your mind you were attached to.

It was totally different, though, actually meeting in person at NAMM the people I've been chatting with via email and over the last year. It was, by far, my favorite experience in general at NAMM.

There's a good chance that I'll be hitting the road in the next year or two, giving talks and doing demos here and there. If so, it will definitely be part of that plan to meet Composer users in their local areas, and hand out T-shirts or mugs or something stupid like that.

Cheers
-- Mark

Howdy,

Very cool! Now the secret of all bassists is out - you can play in any key using the same fingering patterns (barring open strings) in a similar fasion to the Thummer. I might even be able to learn to play one of those. My brain, for some reason (lack of practice being a big one, probably) still hasn't advanced much on the traditional keyboard layout.

I was looking around a bit, and it doesn't seem to be on the market yet. Is this years NAMM the big breakout?

ttfn,
Sherry

(slapping forehead)

Sherry, he just said it wasn't at NAMM....

Thanks, Mark! You are most kind.

The Thummer is not yet commercially available. I'm looking to raise the money needed to finish its engineering (e.g., make the buttons work better, because they are nearly unplayable as currently designed), manufacture the first production run, and start selling them online.

If you happen to have some spare shekels looking for a good home, check out Thumtronics' business overview:
www.thummer.com/Business_Overview.pdf

Jim Plamondon
CEO, Thumtronics
Austin, Texas
www.thummer.com