beatboxing
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Google Translate gets Doug E. Fresh-approved Beatbox button
We still don't believe that machines (or machine translation, for that matter) will ever replace the artistry that beatbox pioneers like Doug E. Fresh, Darren Robinson (RIP), or that guy from the Police Academy movies brought to the table, but it is nice to see Google acknowledging the wonderfully percussive nature of the German language phrase "pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch". [Thanks, benhc911]
Google Translate proves beatboxing is a universal language
Hilarious translations? That's yesterday's news. Google Translate's latest trick is beatboxing, yet another talent once normally reserved for humans but perfected by machines. Don't believe us? Head to site, select German to German translation, paste in the following bit of gibberish, and press the listen button. pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch Best of all, you can experiment with different strings of text and various languages to your heart's content. Feel free to post your best results in the comments below.
Stylophone Beatbox electronic beats machine hands-on
We've seen the pros effortlessly tapping away classic tunes on the Stylophone Beatbox, so naturally we had to give it a shot for our faithful readers. Essentially the Beatbox is a portable electronic musical instrument that activates when the stylus contacts the metallic pad. For us the functions were pretty straight-forward to use -- there's a sliding switch for the three sound packs, a loop tool with record and play controls, a volume dial, a loop playback speed dial and a tuning dial underneath. We dig the loop function, but sometimes the Beatbox struggled to reproduce multiple effects at any instance, which is probably why the famed Brett Domino got help in his video. Another issue was that we had to tap fairly hard to get a response, and while you can isolate the tapping noise by plugging in your headphones, your hands would still quickly grow tired from the rapid beats. Of course, you can always cheat by putting in a sample loop via the "MP3" port, but where's the fun in that? Enjoy our amateurish electronic beatboxing after the break -- just promise you won't laugh. Deal?
WWDC Live: bChamp at the iPhone Intelligence Party
At the iPhone intelligence party, it was hard not to notice the guy walking around with the practice amp making 808 sounds. After picking up his audio in all of my other videos, I tracked down monodomo and the bChamp application. Take a look at the video in the second half of the post, you'll quickly get the simple concept behind this beatboxing application. It's currently 99 cents in the App Store [iTunes link].
Rock Band drum kit modded for beatbox control
The Rock Band drum kit continues to attract modders of all stripes, and we're loving the crazy directions people are taking it -- like this beatboxing kick drum mod from Kevin Child. It's a simple hack -- Kevin simply used a Thumper vocal-percussion mike to activate the pedal trigger -- but it's pretty sweet in action, responding to nearly any noise he makes. We'd love to see this thing filtered through a computer with the different pads assigned to various frequencies so you could straight up bust out like Rahzel in your living room, but we'll take what we can get for now. Video after the break.
