If you've never been to a trade show - much less ever participated in a trade show - you simply can't imagine the level of brain-freezing sensory overload that goes along with this particular territory. Getting married, perhaps, inflicts a similar assault on one's RAM.

I've been going to NAMM since before MIDI was invented. I saw E-Mu demonstrating the first dedicated sampling instrument, the Emulator. Caught the launch of the Memorymoog, and the MC-202, interviewed Dave Smith 'about' MIDI, witnessed the birth of DX7, interviewed Harold Rhodes and Bob Moog and many other pioneers, was at the launch of General MIDI, and (fast-forward a decade or so) got a sneak preview of the Motif in a room at the Marriott Hotel a year before it was launched.

I've visited NAMM variously as a pundit, punter, performer, manufacturer (Phat.Boy received its first airing at Winter NAMM 1998), and now as a media producer. I can't explain it, but the pressure is pretty much the same whether you're speeding over to Kinkos to photocopy a brochure for your modest 10 x 10 booth down in the dungeon, or authoring a DVD that's going to be played in front of VIPs at a major dealer launch.

Here at Keyfax we are, as I sit and make like I'm not doing 'this,' putting the finishing touches to the new-look Motifator.com. With so much new media flying around I think I should be teleported to the show this year. Blogs, podcasts, video, RSS feeds, wikis.. it's exhilerating, exhausting, and exasperating in about equal measures.

Last night four of us stayed until 11.30. Well, I left at 11.30 at any rate. To my consternation I discovered that the MO has not ever had any 'Listening Room' material. Do you guys simply not go there or have you just been too polite to let me know? No worries, you now have two pieces of music I constructed for the Go Mo DVD, along with a clutch of official demos from the instrument itself.

Before sending them to Jason for MP3ing I figured I'd just add a bit more oomph using the MO's master compression. Made a substantial difference, in fact, and somewhat let Jason off the hook in Cubase 4 land.

As I write (or 'blog' I should say - do I know nothing about new technology?) we are a feverish sea of images, music, video, words, and specifcations.

Pretty much like it'll be for the next four days down at Anaheim.