the marketing really ruined it, but i heard that they dont have that marketing team anymore, so maybe it will be put in the hands of someone that will actually work the bugs and stuff out of it.

it has ndc like jjos2xl does which is cool, but one thing that really really sucked about it is that you have to go 1 or 2 menus deep to turn down the volume. search youtube for it. they didnt put a volume knob, that is just absurd to me. wtf were they thinking?

and also, it looks like a toy and has words like blang and whatever else, that really sucks. if they would have kept it more professinal in that respect i think that they may have sold better.

i also heard somewhere that the os is or may be open source, so if it is, maybe in the future we could see someone re-writing the OS to work really nice. i dont remember exactly what they said about it, and i dont think they had any links to back it up, so take that with a grain of salt. it would be pretty cool though.

all in all, the marketing company ruined it, and also their flashy-ness and made up words for the effects was doomed from the start imo. it does have potentail though.

also one really cool thing is that the pads are set up like an octave of a keyboard, so you can easily translate your keyboard skills to this machine.

I really wanted to get one for the ease of recording it's keyspan features and it being hardware. I have a hard time understanding the computer/software style of recording. i like pattern base recording and then adding the patterns together to make a song and it seems as the beat thang does this. I was following this guy dlpeace from youtube and like his vids on the BT until he said that it crashes a lot in this vid : BKE BEAT THANG VS MPC RENAISSANCE PT 5 Final - YouTube ...

Yeah he was the biggest supporter until he had to admit defeat. It has the worst file management system of any beat machine in existence and it crashes constantly when youre digging into subfolders of your own samples. No matter what you see or hear, it is almost impossible to make a decent ditty without it crashing. One dude said he replaced his 5 times before saying to hell with it and realizing they are all pretty much lemons. It seems like their OS developer(s) are juniors or something because the OS needs SERIOUS improvements if they want to stay afloat. DL has completely abandoned the Beat Thang and has it up on ebay. Hes on the Renaissance bandwagon right now and he definitely aint going back to the failure known as Beat Thang. Keep in mind Im talking about the hardware, not the software. The software version may work great but the hardware is a complete disaster unfortunately...Do not waste your money on this trust me.

If you want a really cool sample-based hardware beat machine you might want to take a look at Elektron Octatrack. It definitely takes time to master it but it is absolutely worth it.

IMO the worst thing about the Beat Thang from a marketing perspective is it's name.

he never mentioned all of the crashes, fx being global only, long reboot times, etc
until after the fact. what a clown.

to his credit, he seems to have mellowed out

lol @ no volume knob.

DL's videos are tough to watch...yea he has chilled out a little..but when the Ren first dropped you could tell he was mad as hell he wasted a stack and a half on BEET THANG.

That video was funny....maddddd propaganda.

No Volume knob

the marketing for that thang was poorly done

I love my Beat Thang 1.3, no problems here. If you are having trouble, try a factory reset and a fresh install, call the help line and they will walk you through it. Adhere to the rules of operation and you should have no further problems. Cheap SD cards can cause trouble too. I give it thumbs up!

Whats so great about it apart from the ability to paly back your samples ect?What character does it have that excedes the others?Cheers M

Bullsh*t. I used high-end SD cards and I've never been able to make anything useful with it. It crashes and just keeps crashing.

Sent it back to BKE to get fixed and they didn't even open it up. They think I don't know this, but I KNOW they didn't check any of the internals.

A factory reset and fresh install does nothing to fix the poor OS programming and weak-sauce hardware inside.

Goa, DO NOT think about getting this. You will be disappointed.

I am convinced, you're not Kev. What are you doing when it crashes on you? Are you this angry all the time? geez!

Hello Goa, here's my review:

I originally became interested in the Beat Thang from the online reviews and the youtube videos by Beat Kangz. So I bought it and was not disappointed. Up until I bought this the only way I could sample something and play it for live or recording purposes was a Digitech Delay pedal from back in the early 1990's (only 2 seconds, only one sample sound, turning it off would erase the sample.) So I bought Beat Thang to sample real drums and other instruments or even bird sounds from out on he lawn. I like some hiphop and I make acoustic/hiphop type stuff without all the rap. So I bought it for its modern sounds too. Also sick of looking at the computer screen, also unlimited memory with the SD cards. Illuminated pads and back lit screen. Multiple tracks. So for me like I said its a hardware work station. Operates similar to the Roland drum machines I've used in the past, so the learning curve was appreciated. The pads are silk smooth and its built well physically. I can use the old school din midi instruments I have to access its sounds when the pads don't feel natural for some things I do. I can export to usb stick or hard drive. I can see a young guy doing his entire back up on this thing. So for me I use it for drums, when my drummers aren't able to attend recording sessions mostly. I have accessed some of the other sounds for backup, but I really mostly purchased it to replace a drummer when none was available. So DR 770 had no back lighting, the sounds were becoming dated, the pads were too small, it heats up (alot), the R-5 sounds are too dated for me, but it is a good controller for my addicitive drums software, cause the pads are nice and big, and it still looks mean! But aside form that Beat Thang is my main rig now, all of the DR770 and Addictive drums have been sampled on Beat Thang, I use them all the time, and they don't crash my system...Beat Thang is battery powered. So maybe me and Big Smo are the only ones in North America using a functional Beat Thang Kev?

Thanx MG.Seems like theres an inconsistant amount of beatthangs around.

The original owners developers of this Beat Thang are a bunch of arrogant pricks.

They got everyone on the software side of things and then when the hardware side came up they didn't want to know about transfers for licence and others.

Sold out to some hotshot rap producer.

Another piece of junk software fallen by the wayside.

One of the reasons I never invest in SW anymore and dodgy companies.

As others have said if it came in 24/48 k it may have been worthwhile.

Cheers

Hello Again,

This review was helpful for me to decide what was out there and what prices I was looking at, like I said I was looking to upgrade from the DR770 and away from the DAW (Cubase) and Addictive Drums which involved looking at the computer screen for hours/days/years/decades:
Drum Machines Review 2014 | Best Beat Maker Machine | Beat Machines - TopTenREVIEWS

Today I was hunched over Beat Thang and just exported a song file, Beat Thang automatically detected which tracks had sounds on them and sent them to a USB stick, I then imported them into Cubase SX, Cubase prompted me and asked if I wanted to convert the wav files so I converted them to 24/48. So for all the nay sayers, once again, it can be done. My project is set for 24Bit recording at a sample rate of 48k at the time of importing the drum and bass guitar tracks from Beat Thang (yes Beat Thang has real basses in it from factory).

Here this fellow show how to export a pattern, neat that you can edit in real time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pkbW1ng-ec



Have a great day y'all!

BTW for those who have Beat Thang, there is a free Ludwig "70's" kit available at :
Analogue Drums: sounding different since 1999

Just be sure to edit the names of the samples before you copy them to your SD card, they seem to be a bit long for Beat Thang's screen. I did just to save potential hassels. You can make any style of music with this kit! And its FREE!!! YEEEEEE-HAWWWWWW!

Once again, just to clarify...all the vids I see from Beat Thang show them doing everything in pattern mode, and writing most of the drums to one track, then they switch tracks and throw in a synth or whatever. With their being only a stereo out and not multiple outs, I was looking at it from a completely old school audio point of view. Separate line outs to the mixer/ interface etc.....BUT, with the export feature I can export each track. That is I recorded the Kick drum on track one, the snare on track two, the high hat on track three, the ride cymbal on track four, the crashes on track 5 and the bass track on track 8. AND there are still 10 tracks I could have used up, but didn't require them (ie. I could have put a cowbell on track 6, a tambourine on track 7, some B3 organ on track 10 etc).

Now then I could see some people being a bit picky and wanting to have individual outs for a live performance, but in most cases a mono mix is not different or important from stereo in a club full of sweaty bodies and loud, loud loud music!

And just to clarify that, Beat Thang sounds so good, and it has its own mixer in it, Beat Thang needs only to be amplified!

crystal clear

Hello Again!

A quick web search yielded Boss DR770 .wav files as samples available for free download! Also R-5 samples available for download! I sampled my own a few months back but you can save yourself the head ache! lol

I Can't believe the web is still full of Beat Thang shills.

how many music production forums have the beat kangs and their secondary accounts been banned from ?

Hello Again Folks,

For those of you contemplating purchasing Beat Thang, I say do it, if you don't like it you can return it. Personally I have not had the chance to try these other devices being posted, but I am using Beat Thang trouble free. I am using the 3000+ sounds it comes with. I am using samples I've made myself, and I am finding some very well recorded free samples found on the internet at 24 Bit/44khz. I have exported songs constructed from my own patterns to a USB stick and imported them into my R16 recorder, and also have imported them into Cubase SX. I have pitch shifted some samples, so the claim that Beat Thang 1.3 can't do this is totally lies.

Beat Thang for me was worth the price, it sounds great, it looks good in fact it reminds of the Batmobile, which is cool. Having an illuminated screen is so nice, but the illuminated pads are also good for my eyes in these dim lit rooms. The pads are like vanilla and I can use the export feature to USB which is so handy. With SD memory you never run out of room for samples, drum kits, instruments, patterns, effects and songs.

If anyone serious has any questions about Beat Thang, you can direct them my way and I'll answer them the best I can. I find it a total annoyance that Beat Thang threads are mercilessly under siege by folks who have never used one, or never took the time follow the instructions on usage (they've been in the "business" for long, bla, bla, blah). I am prepared to make youtube videos to defend my usage of Beat Thang. I've made rock and roll, blues, folk, jazz, hiphop and EDM and heck even some country music on Beat Thang, the sound is second to none.

If you had Beat Thang and gave it up because you feel more comfortable with other devices then so be it, but to discourage others from being able to create music with Beat Thang and enjoy everything it can do is just plain cranky...and poor sportsmanship. My only grip is the manual should have been more in depth. Obviously the world wasn't ready youtube video instruction manuals.

Beat Kangz did a good job. Let's rock and roll!