More than a great gear expo, Industry Day featured cool jams with hot student talent…
Paul Bothner Music visited COPA Cape Town and gave students the opportunity to learn more about the inner workings, advantages, features and benefits of some truly cutting edge and popular gear. The students seemed to love the featured gear and let rip with some really great playing.
Students, like guitarist Chris Noble (pictured below), gave us quite a showcase of the “EMG-pickup loaded” signature series Jim Root Fender Telecaster! Other notable gear included the Roland Cube 10 watt GX series amp and a valve-powered Vox Night Train NT15C1.
Amongst the bassists, the beautiful Fender American Precision Special proved to be quite a showcase as well, with even COPA instructor, Andre Swartz (pictured above) showing us how it makes music work with just about any playing style. Andre played big, fat funk and jazz lines through a Fender Rumble 40 bass amp. Incidentally, it weighs in at a record 8.16 kg. It’s probably the lightest bass amp around… but the tonal tonnage and volume is huge.
A few of COPA’s drumming students gave us an advanced technical showcase of fusion, funk and rock styles on the Roland TD-11KV electronic drum kit. The jam sessions were really easy on the ears because of the performers’ musical approach and the low overall volume. Roland electronic kits have volume control and tonal options which make them a real bonus for any level of musician.
This is probably any drummer’s ultimate rig – circumventing the usual bland practice pad tone for drummers — because the Roland kits have a crazy range of drum sounds available, at the tap of a button…
In fact, the rest of the band can play along through any size amp (practice or stack), even at home, not having to worry about neighbours. Naturally, blasting away on-stage is easy as well with no drummer’s microphone checks necessary and with the kit being so mobile, one person can carry all of it into the venue, electronic cymbals and all, by just folding it inwards, to fit through the doorway.
Mandisi Mafu (pictured left), our AKAI Pro Specialist, and Roland Keyboard Specialist Kyle Petersen were in control of the AKAI & Roland display room. Students checked out vocal looping with the BOSS VE-5 and had more than a glimpse of other state-of-the-art gear. Mandisi noted that the students are so busy that some of them weren’t aware that there are such devices available. They hadn’t considered the potential of developing such ideas on their own. The current reality is that there’s a great market for musicians who use loopers and work without a band of musicians accompanying them. It seemed that many musicians who entered the AKAI Pro and Roland area were also unaware of how high the electro product line had ascended in practicality and out-of-the-box advancement, as well.
Paul Bothner Music also ran a lucky draw which featured give-aways to students (pictured right). Prizes included Fender, Mapex, and Zildjian T-shirts, packs of Rotosound electric guitar and bass strings, and Zildjian accessories in the form of cd wallets and dog-tags. We’ll announce the winner of the R500 voucher soon… Watch this space for more.
Judging by the kind of display of students’ technique, COPA is a great place to initiate your metamorphosis and become a professional musician.
