The Beat Kangz have announced that Beat Thang Virtual – a virtual music production system for Windows and Mac, is now available.

Features:

• One octave pad layout with 8 banks so you can bang out beats or play the keys.
• 16 tracks so you can create patterns that can be performed and remixed on the fly.
• 16 layers of velocity sensitivity for emotive performance.
• High Quality Sampler & waveform editing. Sample your own sounds using your computer’s built in mic or line input.
• Edit sample start and end times. Process samples using features like normalize, reverse and resample.
• Easy to use Realtime Sequencer. Create patterns in real time using quantize, swing, individual bar lengths, tap tempo then string them together in SONG mode.
• Mixer with built in FX Change track, pad and pan levels.
• Add 24bit reverb, delay, flange, phaser, pitch shift, old record and many more.
• Add BANG with onboard mastering.
• Export your songs as .wav files or save them to your Beat Kangz Playa Thang equipped iPhone or iPod Touch.
• Connects seamless with Beat Thang Hardware.

Beat Thang Virtual retails for $149 USD.

The Beat Kangz have introduced PlayaThang (App Store link) – a beat playback application for the iPhone.

Description:

PlayaThang offers simple playback of high quality pre-loaded content – 20 professional beats (3 in the FREE version) created by The Beat Kangz; including mixes by Grammy award winning engineer Commissioner Gordon (Lauren Hill, Damien Marley, KRS-One, Amy Winehouse).

PlayaThang lets you mute, solo and change volume for each of the 8 stereo tracks that make up each beat. You can create your own arrangements of the beats on the fly, write or freestyle until you work it out.

It’s designed for mixtapes, albums, and demos; and all the content comes with a free license. Just give the Kangz a shout on the production credits. The Beat Kangz say that you’ll soon be able to download all beats as hi resolution multitracked files from BeatKangz.com, too.

Beat Thang Virtual: In the studio, with pint-sized beatmakers IcyCold & MX Dub.

via BeatKangz:

13 year-old IcyCold & his 11 year-old brother MX Dub are veteran beat makers. This is their first time playing Beat Thang Virtual.

iPhone Music Software: This is an overview of the features of the Beat Kangz Beat Thang Virtual – a beatmaking app for the iPhone.

Have you tried out the Beat Thang? If so, leave a comment below!

via BeatKangz

Atlantic City, New Jersey Hosted the 2009 DJ EXPO where Beat Kangz Electronics demoed The Beat Thang Virtual for the godfather of hip hop dance music, Afrika BamBaataa.

The Beat Kangz have also announced a promotion – purchase a copy of The Beat Thang Virtual and the Beat Kangz will send a copy to the school of your choice.

Best quote: “What company has rappin prez & VPz bangin beatz???”

The Zro Hour caught up with the Beat Kangz to interview them about The Beat Thang sampling drum machine, and how they moved from creating sample sets to creating functional specs and getting manufacturers to create a new drum machine.

Here’s another teaser from the Beat Kangz, looking at beatmaking on the Beat Thang Virtual, a software version of their to-be-released music production workstation.

Features:

• One octave pad layout with 8 banks so you can bang out beats or play the keys.
• 16 tracks so you can create patterns that can be performed and remixed on the fly.
• 16 layers of velocity sensitivity for emotive performance.
• High Quality Sampler & waveform editing. Sample your own sounds using your computer’s built in mic or line input.
• Edit sample start and end times. Process samples using features like normalize, reverse and resample.
• Easy to use Realtime Sequencer. Create patterns in real time using quantize, swing, individual bar lengths, tap tempo then string them together in SONG mode.
• Mixer with built in FX Change track, pad and pan levels.
• Add 24bit reverb, delay, flange, phaser, pitch shift, old record and many more.
• Add BANG with onboard mastering.
• Export your songs as .wav files or save them to your Beat Kangz Playa Thang equipped iPhone or iPod Touch.

via BeatKangz:

This Beat Was made using 100% Beat Thang Virtual Sounds, Kits and Instruments…. No sample CD’s or loops…. This was made in 30 mins 100% inside Virtual and Exported as a stereo wav file….. Wait till you hear it in High Rez……For all those who think this is just another piece of Software you better think again……. Beat Thang Virtual is deadly and ready to make hits……..It’s loaded with ton of beats in all styles…. Not just preset beats… Platinum Traxx! We didnt hold back!

The Beat Kangz have gotten official with Beat Thang Virtual, a virtual music production system for Windows and Mac.

Beat Thang Virtual features:

• One octave pad layout with 8 banks so you can bang out beats or play the keys.
• 16 tracks so you can create patterns that can be performed and remixed on the fly.
• 16 layers of velocity sensitivity for emotive performance.
• High Quality Sampler & waveform editing. Sample your own sounds using your computer’s built in mic or line input.
• Edit sample start and end times. Process samples using features like normalize, reverse and resample.
• Easy to use Realtime Sequencer. Create patterns in real time using quantize, swing, individual bar lengths, tap tempo then string them together in SONG mode.
• Mixer with built in FX Change track, pad and pan levels.
• Add 24bit reverb, delay, flange, phaser, pitch shift, old record and many more.
• Add BANG with onboard mastering.
• Export your songs as .wav files or save them to your Beat Kangz Playa Thang equipped iPhone or iPod Touch.
• Connects seamless with Beat Thang Hardware.

Beat Thang Virtual retails for $149 USD. Purchasers will get $149 off the purchase of a hardware Beat Thang, expected to ship in October.

This is a demo of Beat Thang Virtual, the Beat Kangz’ new virtual music production workstation.

If you’ve had a chance to try out Beat Thang Virtual, leave a comment with your thoughts!

via griffinavid:

In this vid, we chop up a sample and make a beat within 10 minutes.

Doesn’t get any easier than that.

2009 Summer NAMM Show: Beat Kangz Electronics has announced a shipping date for the much-hyped Beat Thang, an MPC-like, Hip-Hip production center. The Beat Thang is expected to ship in October 2009, with a list price of $1,299 and retail of $999.

The Beat Kangz are also putting the finishing touches on The Playa Thang, an iPhone app and a software version of the Beat Thang. By July 17, The Beat Thang Virtual software system, $149.00, will be available for purchase on the company’s website.

Features:

• Sampling
• 3.5 inch video grade color LCD
• On-board rechargeable NiCad battery.
• Over 3000 Blazin’ Brand new sounds designed by The Beat Kangz
• 16 Track MIDI sequencer (sequence external instruments)
• 500 production ready Platinum beats and loops created by The Beat Kangz
• Sleek design and styling with customizable “Paintz” and “Grillz”
• Convenient, light-weight portable design with internal rechargable battery
• USB In & Out
• Pitch and Mod Wheels
• On Board FX including Reverb, Delay, Automated Filters and tons of Crazy “Freak FX” including “Chopped and Screwed”!!!!
• On Board “Mo Bang” Mastering with EQ and Limiting
• 256 MB Ram standard
• 2 High Speed SD Card Slots (16 Gigabytes/ card)
• Export Beats to a Mac or PC (supports AIFF and WAV format)
• Intuitive user interface.

via FutureMusic

Their site appears to be dead:

Here’s the text that used to be on the home page:

THE BEAT THANG is a powerful, portable music production station. Loaded with functionality, flexibility and futuristic funkiness, THE BEAT THANG boasts a unique combination of features, quality and style that are unsurpassed by any product in the music technology universe. Its simple, user-friendly interface and extensive features bring the fun back to beat making. For more info please visit our Products page.

Beat Kangz Electronics (BKE) is a Nashville-based musical electronics company managed and operated by a diverse group of innovative, talented and passionate professionals.

BKE was founded by The Beat Kangz, a collective of award-winning artists, producers, promoters and DJs, who understand both the technology and the needs of the urban and dance music community.

Anyone know the fate of The Beat Kangz and The Beat Thang?

The Beat Kangz overview of their new beat box/workstation, the Beat Thang.

This may be the best presentation out of the 2009 NAMM Show.

Best quote: “SD cards. What? How many of them? What? I think there’s two of them. What? 16. What? Gigabytes per card.”

Let me know what you think of the Beat Kangz Beat Thang in the comments!

An introduction to the Beat Kangz Beat Thang:

Yeah it’s real…. It’s gonna make Real hits too….. Here it is for tha world to see…… The 100% original Beat Thang.

Note: It appears that this video has been yanked for its craptacularness. See comments below.

Note 2: It looks like they reposted it! I updated the embed above.

2009 NAMM Show: Beat Kangz is introducing a new sampling workstation that looks like it could be the sexiest beat box ever – The Beat Thang. 

The Bourne-o-vision video above is pretty bad, but even with the bad video, the interface looks like it will be pretty spectacular. If Beat Kangz can deliver, this could heat up things up in the world of drum machines/MPCs.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Features:

• Sampling with onboard waveform editing
• Over 3000 new sounds designed by The Beat Kangz
• 16 Track MIDI sequencer 
• 500 production ready Platinum beats and loops created by The Beat Kangz
• Sleek design and styling with customizable “Paintz” and “Grillz”
• Convenient, light-weight portable design with internal rechargable battery
• USB In & Out 
• Pitch and Mod Wheels
• On Board FX including Reverb, Delay, Automated Filters and tons of Crazy “Freak FX” including “Chopped and Screwed”!!!!
• On Board “Mo Bang” Mastering with EQ and Limiting
• 256 MB Ram standard
• 2 High Speed SD Card Slots
• Export Beats to a Mac or PC 
• Easy to USE
• And – “More top Secret Features and Surprises that we dont want our sleezy, thieving corporate competitors to know…. but we’ll tell ya soon!”

Specifications:

• 2 Headphone Jacks
•  Carry audio output via USB. USB Connects to any Hard drive, USB keys can also be read and write to
• Read directly off of the SD cards. 2 Slots capbable of 16GB’s each
• 256 MB Ram Stock
•  512 Flash for user content on board. Higher if its a custom order
•  Stereo Mic Line input with Phantom Power
• Sampling, and Resampling of outputs
• Tempo sync Delay, Mastering, Reverb, Filters and tons of other weird FX
• Plans to open FX section to 3rd party developers . Can you say VST (Ed. Very interesting…..)
• Custom Paint. Any Color LED’s, Custom Grillz
• Each pad can have 16 layers with independent pitch, cut off res, pan, velocity, vol and a single pad can be spread across a whole keyboard with Loop points so you can sample synths strings or anything and turn it into multi layered patches.
• PC Drum Kit builder with Drag and Drop capabilities

 
Sequencer Information
 

• 96 PPQ
• 1000 Sequences
• 500 Songs
• Individual Bar Length which can be changed in real time even while recording. (Ed. Excellent!!)
• Quantize and Swing can be changed in real-time.
• All your Songs, Sequences, Beats, Kits, Patches, Samples and settings that are on your SD cards are always there and show up just like the presets.
• 13 Pads with Velocity
• 8 Pad banks per track 
• 16 Tracks 
• Pad and Track mute and Solo 
• Mixer with level control FX send, Pan, Pitch Automation, Filter and EQ Automation per Track including (Low Pass, Band Pass, Hi pass, Low Shelf, High Shelf and Notch, Automated Q control to)
• Dynamic Kit and Patch creator which is easy and to use. Samples can all have categories (Kicks, Snares Hats etc) App for converting your own samples into the categories and the ability to create your own.
• 16 Layers per PAD with velocity, pan, pitch ,cut off, res and volume control
• Can create multilayerd patches that span a keyboard from one pad or multiple. Each bank can have a different patch (keys and bass or drums and synth )