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60 The PCB Design Magazine • February 2016 from drums to brass and strings, and through various musical moods. There are rank ama- teurs and famous performers playing on stages or in exhibitors' booths. Every year, I see liter- ally thousands of musicians, and frankly, I quite often have no idea if they are famous or rank amateurs. In addition to the well-known and time-test- ed instruments like Gibson, Gretsch, and Fend- er, there are also the newer brands that make ab- solutely beautiful instruments, almost pieces of art, such as Taylor Guitars. I knew of them but I had never tried one. This year Andy Shaugh- nessy, Dick Crowe and I decided to team up, and Dick set up an interview with Taylor. The com- pany makes a complete high-end line of guitars using the best available wood and manufactur- ing processes. They are very serious about pro- tecting the supply of the wood and other ma- terials they use, so that they can guarantee the quality of these precision instruments. Taylor has developed a monitoring system called TaylorSense that will send a message to an app on your smartphone if your instrument is being subjected to conditions such as humid- ity, temperatures, or even shock caused by im- pact outside of normal. My thought as I listened to the briefing Taylor so kindly provided was, "At last, true technology at NAMM." Our next interview was with Fishman, a company known for producing a number of am- plifiers as well as a number of other electronic products. One device I found very interesting. It was a kind of synthesizer that allows musicians to convert the sound into that of any other in- strument. One young man demonstrated how the sound of his guitar could be converted flaw- lessly from that of a guitar to a saxophone, a full pipe organ, and anything in between. Fishman has also designed a guitar pickup made by using a 48-layer PCB instead of count- less yards of wound copper wire. So what we have is a 48-layer PCB generating excellent sound, with no detectable hum. Here we have the emergence of advanced PCB manufacturing technology showing its face at NAMM. When I first started covering NAMM five years ago, I found new/old vacuum tube am- plifiers, new solid state amplifiers claiming to duplicate "that vacuum tube sound," and a few amps that actually did just that. I found pre- amps, amps, and recording and interface devic- es, but not a lot of true technological advances. There were lots of new apps and stands and covers for iPads, but not much in the way of ground breaking new technology. This year we are starting to see true advanc- es: The IoT is beginning to make inroads into the world of musical instruments. We also saw advances in recording hardware, software, and apps. I expect that in the years to come we will see even more. This year at CES, 3D printing advancements were evident in musical instru- ment design and manufacturing. What will we see in the way of 3D produced musical instru- ments and devices at NAMM in future years? Be sure to look for interviews in future issues of The PCB Design Magazine for more about the exciting advancements that cover only part of the growing, expansive and exciting event that NAMM has become. PCBDESIGN special section: naMM 2016 review