Uit een van de replies uit de Harmony Central Beat Kangz topic...geen wonder dat er zoveel "lol" om is....*zucht*... :
Unfortunately, I didn't go to NAMM this year, but a lot of friends went, and they're equally amused. Here's what we know so far:
• The Beat Kangz were showing the Beat Thang at the Pintech booth. Pintech is a budget electronic drums company from South Carolina that (I believe) licenses mesh head tech from Roland, but sells them at a much lower cost. Their electronic drums aren't bad, but their drum brains, at least according to an ex-roommate of mine, sound like ass. Great customer service tho'.
• According to a friend in the Numark/Alesis/Akai booth checking out the APC40, the Beat Kang guys showed up with the Beat Thang around their neck. After striking up a conversation with an end user, they proceeded to insult the MPC and tout the Beat Thang as the "MPC Killa".
• According to a PM from an employee of Roland US who hangs out at Fantomized, the Beat Kangs showed up in the Roland booth at NAMM—allegedly right next door to Pintech—and were trying to push Beat Thang on people in the booth. They were kicked out not once, but
twice. At one point, it was suggested that the NAMM guys could, and would disable power from the entire Pintech booth if the Beat Kangs entered the Roland booth again with the Beat Thang around their necks. No further disruptions took place.
• Therefore, the only company babbling about "haterz" is the one actively hating on other MI companies.
• The Beat Kangs designed sounds for a Zoom drum machine called the StreetBox (SB-246). Its samples are considered to be pretty good, although the whole machine is decidedly budget. It also has pads that light up along with the sequences, similar to the Beat Thang.
• The Beat Kangs claim they went to Akai with the Beat Thang but were turned away, only to have Akai not only steal a bunch of their ideas, but a collection of their sounds as well. I can only assume they're speaking of the Akai XR-20 drum machine, a budget box similar to the SB-246 that doesn't sample.
• The Beat Thang touts no load times, yet its memory is based on volatile RAM (256MB, half that of the MV-8800) and its storage on either USB or SD cards. Streaming uncompressed samples from SD cards results in a maximum polyphony of 4 to 6 mono notes, assuming a large enough RAM buffer is provided. The two SD slots would provide a maximum of 6 simultaneous stereo samples, hardly enough to produce proper tracks. Most likely, the "instant load time" claim references the built-in ROM sounds. As anyone knows, any budget drum machine or Casio keyboard has ROM sounds, and similarly, have "instant load times".
• The Beat Kangs have a video on their YouTube channel where they spend several minutes poking fun of an overweight woman on an LA street corner.
• One friend was told the Beat Thang would probably sell for $1500. Another was told $1000. A third was told "We don't know yet, but likely way less than $1000". On more than one occasion, a legitimate technical question was met with "hip hop guys don't care 'bout that".
• The Akai MPC was slagged incessantly in the Pintech booth.
• Yee941(2) claimed to not work for the Beat Kangs, yet knew intimate details of their NAMM booth as well as all members' schedules. He later admitted to being hired for his "guerilla marketing tactics". If awareness magically equated sales in MI, he succeeded.
• Allegedly, other forums have suggested the Beat Thang is a hoax, hence the insistence by Beat Kangz members that it is, indeed "real". Few, if any HC members have questioned its existence. Only its legitimacy.
• None of the Beat Kangz are embedded OS programmers, nor are they electrical engineers. Therefore, there is a group of engineers, product designers, managers, and investors who have willingly allowed the Beat Kangz to represent their incredibly hard work (and significant startup capital). They more than likely will read this thread—and not like it one bit. I feel extremely sorry for the people who've worked on that box, knowing that all their hard work will most likely result in anemic sales at best.
• No matter how cool the Beat Thang may end up being, very few people will buy one, because BKE, as a company, fosters a lack of faith in providing professional service, support, sales, or even distribution. Can you imagine the Beat Thang guys discussing margins, repair networks, stock adjustment, or dealer agreements with Guitar Center executives?
• Worst of all, the Beat Kangz' beats are marginal at best. They're not terrible for dirty south, but that's like saying waterboarding isn't a terrible way to be tortured.
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