THE ZRO HOUR: Interview with THE BEAT KANGZ and Preview of THE BEAT THANG Sampling Drum Machine from EDAYE on Vimeo.
"When beatboxer Chesney Snow told me about a drum machine he was working on (Chesney provided human beat box sounds for the drum machine) with Tennessee production crew THE BEAT KANGZ, I combed the net for more info as I picked their brain. I had posted a couple of articles on THE BEAT THANG- synthesizer, sampler, sequencer- and connected with their publicist for the interview above. It was suggested that we do it through Skype, which was a great idea. It was my first time using Skype and though I had a bit of technical difficulties during set up, I was able to record our great conversation about THE BEAT THANG, the desktop version THE BEAT THANG VIRTUAL and the iphone app THE PLAYA THANG!"
Update: finally had the time to watch this a bit more. It's a great interview.
You might remember the Zoom Streat Box they mention from this previous post back in 2006.
It's a trip to see these guys got from there to here. I can't help but see them as underdogs in a corporate synth world. Just before 12:00 the interviewer mentions the ability to trigger vids with the pads. Made me think of this vid with the monome doing just that.
Update: iPhone app at around 21 minutes in.
You can find videos of the virtual version here. Apparently you get the software free with the hardware or if you buy the software for $149 , you get that as a credit on the hardware. http://www.beatkangz.com/