So it's almost midnight (or still mid-afternoon if you're counting jet-lag) and Day One of the main European music trade show "Musik Messe" (pronounced "messer") here in Frankfurt Germany is drawing to a smokey close.

Big news in the Yamaha-Steinberg family is "Sequel," an instant music-creating program (along the lines of a certain Apple App.!) but that's x-platform, intuitive, and incredibly fun. You can read all about it over at our sister site http://www.steinbergusers.com.

This year's (trade) fair (Messe is "fair" in German)seems overrun with bizarre products. So far I have come across a Trance (music) tutor for cellists, a book whose untitled cover features thirty completely naked women above a revised version of the New Testament, a MIDI controller kit with modules (pots, sliders etc) that you plug into a customised briefcase, like Lego, a very cool internet radio/iPod speaker system (from Terratec), lots of new studio hardware to compliment "in the box" recording environments, and a MIDI accordian who's advertising image is a naked man with this item strapped on his back (what is it with Germans and nudity at the moment?.

Are the days of companies being able to release something normal, like a keyboard, or a guitar, finally coming to a close?

No, of course not. Yamaha is showing the XS and MM6 (and yes the indifatigable Bert Smorenberg is very present here, in case you were wondering), along with some interesting new mixer products.

Messe is not only about products, though, it is - and especially for me right now - very much about meetings.

And lots of them tomorrow. As the show progresses, though, I am making a comittment to myself to write a daily blog of the news and views as it happens. Well, happens to me at any rate!

Auf Weider Sehn for now.