The Latest News About Beat Thang & Beat Thang Virtual Beat Machines
We’re doing it BIG at NAMM this year! Lots of demos plus opportunities for you to meet Dallas Austin, the BKE founders, 13 year-old music prodigy Isaiah Fogle and more. Stop by booth 6909 and enter for a chance to win your very own Beat Thang! The winner will be announced on Sunday. See you at the show!
You’ve got your Thang. You’re already making beats, but you’re ready to go deeper, and get into the nuts and bolts of this Thang.
You’re ready to enroll in Beat Thang University. But there’s no need to worry about tuition or registration. Simply visit LearnBeatThang.com and soak in the knowledge.
You’ll find dozens of easy to follow video tutorials with everything from How to Navigate Your Thang to Advanced Sample Chopping and beyond. Look for how to videos that help you get the most of the Beat Thang and Beat Thang Virtual. We’ll soon add production tips, sound design advice and songwriting workshops from some of the hottest producers and writers in the business.
So fire up that Thang, open your mind, and surf over to LearnBeatThang.com. Knowledge is key.
The folks over at iStandard Producers got a chance to bang around with the Beat Thang. Here’s what they had to say:
“After nearly five years in development, the Beat Thang levels the playing field – simplifying music production down to its core…” TJ Devoe – iStandard Producers
Sounds like they made some nice tracks with the Thang for the video as well. According to the credits, all music used in the video was made on the Beat Thang.
Originally posted at: http://blog.istandardproducers.com/2011/08/beatthang/
Yeah, we know. You’ve been bangin’ on the Beat Thang Virtual for a while, and you’re JUST NOW starting to get into the meat of the over 3000 sounds that came with the software when you bought it. Well, guess what? We’ve got even MORE firepower for ya!
Beat Thang Expansion Packs provide you with that many more options when you’re looking for the perfect beat (Peace to Afrika Bambaataa)!
First up to bat is the Beat Kangz Series. We recorded so many sounds and built so many kits when we were designing the Beat Thang sound catalog, that there were tons of kicks, kits, hits, synths and tricks overflowing in the vault. And yes, we saved some of the freakiest, funkiest sounds for you to grab now.
Volumes 1-4 of the Factory Preset Expander Packs provide you with more preset kits and more killer sounds. Once again, the Beat Kangz do the sound design heavy lifting for you, so you can jump right in to making music. And of course, you can still edit all the sounds and kits just like you did before. Think of this as an even larger template for you to build upon.
And as if that weren’t enough, we’re enlisting some of the most talented producers in the game to develop sound packs for us. This is the Artist Series, and producers like Aaron “Freedom” Lyles (Usher, Ultramagnetic MCs, Michael Jackson), South Central’s Laylaw (Ruthless Records, Dr. Dre), and DJ Ill Factor (Justin Timberlake, David Banner) share their sound libraries, and create all new sounds to help you step your game up.
Once again, each Artist Series pack includes Beat Thang kits and instruments so you can get up and running in a hurry. BUT we’ve also provided the sounds in .wav format, so you can drop them into Reason, Fruity Loops, Live, Cubase or even your MPC.
So if you’re ready to jump off into some new sounds, cop these downloads and get down to business. And just so you know, we have more Artist Series packs in the works with some of the hottest producers in the game from many different genres. Sign up for the BeatThang.com mailing list or visit Beat Thang Blog often to stay in the loop.
CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR BEAT THANG EXPANSION SOUND PACKS NOW
“We wanted everyone to be able to produce music the same way we do,” says Dallas Austin of the idea behind the Beat Thang.
The Grammy-winning producer-songwriter-“keyboard fanatic” and owner of Atlanta-based Rowdy Electronics is introducing this groundbreaking mobile music-making machine through a joint venture with Nashville’s BKE (Beat Kangz Electronics.) The Beat Thang went on sale exclusively at Best Buy July 17, 2011 as a limited edition with a suggested retail price of $1,500.
Dallas Austin is the man behind multiplatinum hits by the likes of Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, TLC, Madonna, Pink and Gwen Stefani. At Austin’s level, producing music the same way he does means access to a library of 3,000+ original sounds (live drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, strings, horns, Latin and African percussion); hundreds of beats, patterns and loops; 65 digital effects (EQ, compression, reverb, delay, filter, chopped, screwed, reverse record); sampling; waveform editing; and mixing and mastering functionality, among other marvels.
Fully portable but also able to integrate with a Mac or PC, the Thang has a 3.5-inch color video LCD screen. It offers endless customization possibilities, including the option to tailor your setting to wherever inspiration strikes – at home, in the club, on the corner, onstage, even in the studio. Its cutting-edge features can be enjoyed anywhere courtesy of a rechargeable battery and sturdy metal frame no heavier than a laptop.
“We’re musicians and beat-makers and artists, so the development of the Beat Thang got an extra layer of creativity and love,” says BKE President Aja Emmanuel, formerly a globe-trotting product specialist for Sam Ash Music and Samson Technologies and an independent hip-hop artist (perhaps best known for the 2002 album It’s Time.)
Emmanuel and Austin are proud to note that The Beat Thang has already won high-profile fans like Jermaine Dupri, P. Diddy, will.i.am, Jim Jonsin and “American Idol” in-house mentor Jimmy Iovine, who went so far as to introduce the handy piece of hardware to “AI” audiences. Austin will go even farther when he takes the Beat Thang with him to space aboard Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2013.
Here on Earth, Austin is co-hosting pre-release parties with Best Buy in Nashville, Atlanta, New York and Miami to demonstrate the Beat Thang for industry VIP’s. States Austin: “We’ll be showing everyone how you can sing into it, play keyboards into it, put beats into it – anything,” he says. “We’ll also have a few for pre-order because once we hit the release date, it’s anyone’s guess how many will be available to the industry. We only produced 1,000 units and the buzz is running pretty hot.”
Of course when Austin and Emmanuel started out in the music business, there was nothing like the Beat Thang. “It’s like we made a list of everything we’d ever wanted as producers…and then went to work to put it all in one powerful machine that we could take with us whenever we wanted” states Emmanuel.
Notes Austin: “I remember being 11 or 12 and going to the music store every day to play the instruments. I couldn’t afford any of them. And now Aja and I are going worldwide with the music machine of the future!”
