Archive for February 6th, 2008

Anaheim, CA, February 6, 2008 -Elixir® Strings hit a high note with NAMM University during Winter NAMM 2008 with the debut of its Elixir™ Cables, deemed a “Best-In-Show” product within the Best-in-Show panel‘s Round 2: Gotta Stock It! category.

Elixir™ Cables, which represents the celebrated manufacturer‘s first fretted instrument accessory outside of guitar strings, received the “Best-In-Show” designation after a panel of six well-known industry experts walked the convention floor, scoping out the most exciting new products and services. Winners were announced the final day of the show.

“Elixir Strings is honored to have its new product line, Elixir Cables, named as a ‘Best-In-Show‘ product by NAMM University,” says Craig Theorin, Elixir® Strings product manager. “Throughout the 10 years as the long-life string brand, Elixir Strings has dedicated itself to developing and delivering high valued products for today‘s musicians. We are proud to receive this recognition and are delighted to know that our new cable line is being well received, which indicates that we are upholding our commitment to our delivering innovative and valued products.”

Featuring a patent-pending design, Elixir™ Cables delivers the most tonally transparent instrument signal. These innovative guitar cables offer the truest voice for your guitar by providing clearer high frequencies, and smoother, more balanced mids. Elixir™ Cables is developed by Elixir® Strings and its parent company, W.L. Gore & Associates, which has been developing high-performance cables for the last 50 years.

The cables within the new line are available in lengths of 10, 15, 20 and 30‘ (both right and straight angle jack plugs are available). Elixir™ Cables also features a unique combination of extreme durability and flexibility, with non-twist memory for superior performance and easy, efficient use. The robust, branded plugs include custom grip housings for sure handling.

About Elixir® Strings

Elixir® Strings is the pioneer in coated string technology and is available in two string ‘flavors.‘ Ultra-thin NANOWEB® Coating provides the bright tone and punch of uncoated strings, yet keep their lively tone three to five times longer than ordinary strings. The thin coating is nearly undetectable - providing the feel of traditional strings. Elixir® Strings with original POLYWEB® Coating also sound great three to five times longer than ordinary strings, have a balanced tone with smooth response, feel comfortably smooth, and reduce finger squeak. Elixir® Strings are available in a full range of gauges for acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, banjo, and mandolin.

Today, Elixir® Strings are installed as original equipment by a growing list of discriminating electric guitar and bass manufacturers including Ibanez, Tom Anderson Guitarworks, Brian Moore Guitars, Carvin, Melancon Guitars as well as premium acoustic guitar luthiers such as Taylor Guitars, Santa Cruz Guitar Company, Alvarez-Yairi, Lakewood Guitars, RainSong Graphite Guitars, Carvin, and Goodall Guitars. Elixir® Strings are endorsed by popular artists such as Melissa Etheridge, Train, Dave Mason, Michael W. Smith, Jim Messina, Christopher Cross, Bob Seger, and Drowning Pool.

Elixir® Strings are manufactured by W.L. Gore & Associates, the company widely known for such innovations as GORE-TEX® fabrics. For more information, please visit www.elixirstrings.com.

Powerful Yamaha Recording in a Portable Package

Yamaha Corporation of America introduces the Pocketrak 2G, a light and compact pocket recorder featuring 2GB of built-in memory, long battery life, easy USB file transfer, and Steinberg Cubase AI DAW software.

The Pocketrak 2G builds upon a successful lineage of recording technology from Yamaha and features 2 tracks of CD quality recording in PCM, MP3 and Windows Media (WMA) formats. It‘s perfect for podcasting, field and location recording, audio for video and more.

“The goal of any pocket recorder is to be ready to capture audio wherever and whenever it happens,” said Athan Billias, Director of Marketing - Technology Products for Yamaha. “The Pocketrak 2G‘s small size, long battery life, and large built-in memory provide Yamaha quality recording anywhere, anytime, and comes with Cubase AI for a complete music production solution.”

The Pocketrak 2G includes a rechargeable AAA nickel-hydrogen battery capable of providing 19 hours of MP3 recording to it‘s 2GB of internal memory. Plugging its sliding USB connector into a powered USB bus simultaneously recharges the battery and transfers files to a PC or Mac.

The Pocketrak 2G is the only portable recorder to house an on-board speaker in addition to a headphone jack, making it a handy portable music player that supports MP3 and WMA files with DRM10 support.

Included in the box is the Pocketrak 2G, a USB extension cable, stereo earphones, a leather carrying case and stand adapter, as well as Cubase AI, an “Advanced Integration” version of Steinberg‘s legendary digital audio workstation software specially built to seamlessly integrate with Yamaha hardware.

The Pocketrak 2G will be available in April, 2008 and will retail for $399.

For more information, visit www.yamaha.com.