Jamon wrote:
Every time I see them write, "if you aint up on thangz", I hear Snoop Dogg from Still D.R.E. singing that line.
It's interesting how after one image seems to be failing they can bring in someone else who represents a different style.
There's nothing real about any of this. Hip hop is fully matured, packaged, and sold. It's time for a new flavor, this gum is stale.
Yes, that's the Snoop song to which we are referring. Glad you caught that.
Each of the Kangz and everyone who works for the company is an individual, so we have different "images" and personalities. You'll see that in our writing. We're not some nameless, faceless corporate entity. We're real people just like you.
Jamon wrote:
I know Nadir's post wasn't directed at me, since I have no problems with the Kangz image. But it changes nothing technical.
The fact is, the Beat Thang is a PC running software built on the Juce framework. I think that's great, and hope they publicize Linux, Juce, and LADSPA, thanking the open source community for making their product possible.
But it means that it is not like an MPC and never can be. There's nothing wrong with that, a lot of people like PC-based gear.
To me though, it cannot be as solid as an MPC in a typical studio environment. The MPC can theoretically respond faster, and more consistently, to control external MIDI gear, and feel faster to work with because of low internal latency.
In reality, I've never measured the MPC. For all I know it has sloppy timing, and more latency than the average PC. But I have measured PC software, and know what the shortcomings are.
Regardless of the Beat Thang image, which can change at a whim, the technology cannot change. It is PC software, on a slow PC. It does have latency, and I suspect more than an MPC.
I'm not a tech dude. I'm a musician and a marketing guy (and according to you guys, not a very smart one), but I'm not having an issue with latency on my Beat Thang Virtual. I'm getting none when I bang the computer keyboard and none when I'm using a midi controller.
If you experienced latency on your machine, perhaps you should check your buffer size. I've got no complaints at 512. If you're talking about "theoretical" latency, I can't answer that. I'm a musician. It sounds good to me.
Jamon wrote:
That doesn't mean the product is worthless. There are things about the Beat Thang that give it potential to do stuff an MPC never will be able to.
But that is the problem, they are marketing this as an MPC competitor. It even looks like a MPC, with those same function buttons below the screen.
The Beat Thang is competition for the MPC. Again, some of you cats will never give up your MPCs, just like if you had asked me a few years ago if I could think of a better setup than Nuendo 2 and Reason running in Rewire, I would have called you crazy. That was my setup, and I did some of the best music of my life on that system. Then I upgraded to Nuendo 3 and Reason 3 and it all went haywire. But that's a different story.
The point is The Beat Thangz (Virtual and Hardware) offer similar features to an MPC just like NI, Roland, MOTU and other companies offer alternatives. Play the Thang, and decide for yourself. We give you similar functionality, a nice work flow, an easy to use interface, and a kick azz library of sounds. Sample, sequence, (autochop, time stretch and vst coming soon).
But I'm a musician. What I like about the Thang is how easy it is to make music. I don't have to be a rocket scientist or computer programmer like you guys here. I write songs, and I want to get the idea out as quickly as possible. Beat Thang Virtual let's me go for it.
Jamon wrote:
If you handed me Beat Kangz Electronics, the first thing I'd do is cut out most of the fluff and streamline the software to do 1 thing very well.
The price would be slashed to $699, and I'd get rid of the iPhone / Virtual, keeping only the hardware. Then I'd get them shipping soon.
Next, I'd setup a community website, with source control. Multiple dev kits would be released, and the only official app would be the basic one.
The basic app wouldn't do much at all. It'd make the machine just like a ROMpler. You select sounds, play them, and it can record/play a sequence.
The public would invent the rest. They'd share and develop multiple versions of software that can be loaded onto anyone's machine for free.
That's the power of PCs. That's why we put up with latency and other problems, because of that diversity. Without that, why bother?
Soon the Thang would be running apps that make it a synth, beatbox, FX unit, you name it. It'd be a powerful little swiss-army knife.
People with MPCs would even buy one. You can use the better software for faster sampling. It can automate lots of repetitive tasks.
The screen is better for waveform viewing, it can create lots of samples easily, and someone even wrote an app to export Akai programs.
Then you can even plug your MPC into it, and it can read it through USB, and auto-copy your stuff over to your MPC for use there.
Instead, the Beat Thang is over $1,000, trying to compete with what it is physically impossible to compete with.
The only way to win is with marketing tricks, which we are getting better at seeing through thanks to the enlightening power of the internet.
You have some interesting suggestions, Jamon. Unfortunately, we haven't found a way to lower the price point, but the Beat Thang offers a lot more than your theoretical machine (let's call it the Jam One) does.
First of all, we put a lot of time and energy into doing some hardcore sound design. That's something most manufacturers don't do. That happens to be one of our strengths, so we went with that. We did the heavy lifting so you don't have to.
But feel free to use your own sound library. Simply drag your kits, sounds and instruments into the Beat Thang data folder, and you've created your own Thang.
We do have an online community. We're still ramping it up, but it's gonna be a beast. You'll be able to do just about everything you listed and more. Feel free to join our community. Soon you'll be able to trade custom kits, sounds and tracks with other Kangz and Queenz in the Kangdom (I know. You guys HATE IT when we use terms like that! You can just be a "user" if you like.) That's down the road a piece. We've got other work to finish first.
The Thang has synths, beatbox and an FX unit. You're describing the Beat Thang, but where you would put the work off on other users, we did the work for you. That way guys like me, who are not computer programmers, can still work with it RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!
So if you'd like to call the Beat Thang a "Swiss Army Knife" of beat making, I won't be mad at you. If you prefer to do your sampling on an MPC, you can do that, and still drag your files over to the Thang. No fuss. In fact, you'll want to put those sounds on the Thang because, unlike the MPC, the Thang has virtually NO LOAD TIME.
We could go on some more, but I've got to pack for a flight in the morning. (Any of you guys in Atlanta? Catch us at the International Soul Summit at the Renaissance Hotel, or come and catch my showcase at Apache Cafe on Friday night.)
I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. I mean, we can talk theory all day, but you'll see the difference when you USE the Thang.
Get your copy of Virtual if you'd like to try out the GUI before the hardware comes out. The interface is identical, and anything you do on the software will be transferable to the hardware. And it's only $149.
Thanks again, fellas!
