Beat Thang

i must admit i'm a tad curious about this little box. i'm sure we can all agree it's overpriced... but what's it do? is it any good?

hip hop is really heavy into the Akai MPC, and i would be shocked if Beat Thang weren't at least somewhat similar.

edit:

  Quote

The effects are grouped as follows:

 

Freak - Choruses, Flangers, Filters, and Phasers

 

Delay - Single and Multi-Tap Spatial Delays

 

Verb - Reverbs; Halls, Rooms, and Chambers

 

Bang - Total mix mastering effects; EQ, Compression, Limiting

 

Blang - Not an audio effect, but changes the global lighting effects of the Beat Thang device.

edit II: after reading the manual, i think i have my answer: it is like the Akai MPC, but with the following changes:

- Less Features

- Mic Pre w/XLR

- Pitchbender

- Lots of Built In Samples

- Glossier on-screen interface and general skin-deep pizazz

i thought this was pretty telling:

as vs my mpc1000, it's not very good. no layering samples -- one sample per pad, it'd seem. much simpler filter; just a lowpass. 1000 has two filters per pad, and they can be HPF/BPF/LPF. no chaining fx (routing is fixed). the manual has absolutely nothing on the sample edit function, which means it's probably pretty simple. hard to tell from the manual, but i suspect it only does sixteen tracks at once.

i suppose it is more geared to hip-hop than us tweakheads. could see it being used as a hip-hop notepad due to the sample library+XLR jack -- who knows. but overall, i don't see it standing up to a 1000, which will give you more for less money.

  On 8/7/2011 at 12:59 AM, hahathhat said:

Blang - Not an audio effect

not that "Freak" is either.

i wish i had a drum machine that had a "freak" button on it. just like, you press it and everything goes fucking totally mental.

  On 8/7/2011 at 1:47 AM, BCM said:

i wish i had a drum machine that had a "freak" button on it. just like, you press it and everything goes fucking totally mental.

circuit bending

  On 8/7/2011 at 1:55 AM, yek said:

  On 8/7/2011 at 1:47 AM, BCM said:

i wish i had a drum machine that had a "freak" button on it. just like, you press it and everything goes fucking totally mental.

circuit bending

no like, everything goes fucking mental - your fridge turns into an earwhig, your gran wins the world darts championship, fucking everything.

  On 8/7/2011 at 2:00 AM, BCM said:

  On 8/7/2011 at 1:55 AM, yek said:

  On 8/7/2011 at 1:47 AM, BCM said:

i wish i had a drum machine that had a "freak" button on it. just like, you press it and everything goes fucking totally mental.

circuit bending

 

no like, everything goes fucking mental - your fridge turns into an earwhig, your gran wins the world darts championship, fucking everything.

ketamine

this is super entertaining: massive thread on mpc forums

tl;dr - i'd stay away from this thing.

LOL, well it is pretty, but yeah seems really limited compared to an MPC for $1500. There is probably gonna be so many kids stealing their grandmas tv trying to get street with this hood shit

LOL for sale at best buy? What a joke.

absolutely nothing but marketing.

I actually feel bad for the people that buy this pile of shit.

Heh, I remember hearing about this a while back, wasn't bothered then. amazed it actually made it to completion, still don't give a shite,

incredibly overpriced, and from reading up bait about the company themselves, looks like you can't really expect anything in the way of after Market support.

what a joke.

Looks like their main selling point is the included samples which I think is always a bad sign. just about every piece of hardware/software comes with sounds and patches from professional sound designers. no big deal that's just standard. it's worrying when that fact becomes the selling point over the hardware itself.

oh, it can use batteries...

trying to think what other things cost $1500 and also use batteries. answers could include a FKN GOOD LAPTOP AND MIDI CONTROLLER?!

really what a pile of turd. Get the distinct impression that so much money had been invested into trying to get this released that they had no choice but to go through with it. After spending so much on design and development (which even for a POS is a lot) advertising, trade show appearances, sound design credits, and OS design etc etc. they've simply had to release it in a small run (smallest production run possible I expect) and at a ramped up price, to try and minimise their losses.

I expect that the company who mad this (Beat Kangz?) will disappear very soon after this. leaving all the dumb dumbs who buy this with absolutely no customer care or hope of future updates or bug fixes for what is almost certainly going to be a buggy OS.

it's actually a shame tbh. I like the idea of new companies bringing cool products out, it's always going to be a tough journey but can be done. monome is a very good example. But for that approach to work, you have to be very professional, very supportive of potentially future customers, and incredibly exacting over quality. There's no surprise that stuff from smaller companies will often have a higher retail tag, smaller companies, smaller runs, higher production costs etc, but the hope is that you'll be able to justify that extra cash with a quality and unique product. Not the case here.

Oh, should also mention, I absolutely hate the use of slang or "cool" spelling of thangz on supposedly professional products. Instantly makes the kit look like a toy, and puts me off using it for fear of sounding like a massive twat. "soundz wicked bruv, you should add a bit more blang to the kickz, and some klangz to yo snarezez, sick bruv init"

you need to freak up that bassline bruv!

  Quote

Dallas Austin is a crook and a booty ninja!

 

lol

I like all the blurb about supposed "industry secret" type patches, that "top producers" are like, all reluctant to give up and stuff...

damn I want those patches.

It is properly fucking ugly on top of how useless it is.

Winning combo!

lol techdiff pretty much nailed it.

At first sight I thought this is a low budget toy that comes in a big box under a christmas tree.

I get a proper Barcode Battler vibe off of this thing that I just can't shake.

did dallas austin turn white?