At the 2020 NAMM Show, we talked with Ethan Jin, who gave us a quick demo of the new Rhythmo Beatbox, a DIY cardboard box drum machine.
The Rhythmo Beatbox is a DIY kit that you assemble yourself – sort of like an IKEA drum machine. It costs about $140 and takes about an hour to put together.
If you want to house the Beatbox with a custom case, Rhythmo has templates available for the panel for for 3D printing.
The Beatbox is fully MIDI mappable, meaning that it will work with most of the DAW software on the market. The hardware also has a few built-in MIDI settings for popular DAWs on the market, for better workflow.
Here’s a demo of the Beatbox in action:
Pricing and Availability
Production of the Rhythmo Beatbox is being crowdfunded; it’s available to backers for about $140.
Wait…what…? theres speakers on the box but it doesnt generate any sound is that right? the sound comes from the iphone or ipad app?
OK, so it’s a launchpad with speakers in a cardboard box for $140? No thanks. This just looks like another one of these smoke and mirrors marketing schemes that try to make a midi controller look like more than what it is.
Yeah….no thanks.
I was in the kickstarter and it was pretty clear that you were getting a DIY Midi Controller: Cardboard box with arcade buttons. The app was added later and a metal chasis was also offered as an upgrade option. I don’t believe they’ve misrepresented their product on the kickstarter. BUT, from watching this video, I can see how people are confused by the video. Video confusing on what you are paying for / a bit too jumbled. Not a coherent message. It’s not for everyone. Personally, I’m excited and can’t wait to get my hands on it.
“Like an Ikea Drum Machine” misrepresents what it is. And that is in the title of this post. A midi controller is not a drum machine. At all. A drum machine stores on-board samples. A drum machine also sequences those samples. It doesn’t look like this sequences anything either. I don’t care if the marketing is done by synthtophia, or the vender. In this case it’s just a way for synthtophia to get more clicks. I’m just saying that it’s a trend to have posts or promotional material that pretends a midi controller does more than it does, e.g. has sounds in it, or has sequencing capabilities. And it’s dumb.
That demo vid shows a little more flex under the buttons than it showed at the NAMM demo. But that’s probably an easy fix. You can certainly reinforce that button area.
I have no problem with the product, concept, etc. We’ve seen a couple of these kinds of things. The built-in speakers is a big plus.
For my production dollars, I’d rather have a wired, powered speaker, and a little keyboard with velocity keys than arcade buttons with no velocity.
For a starter rig, this has the DIY thing going for it, which has a good educational factor.
This thing is an enigma…saw a few videos and was like WTF. I guess there’s a target for 11 year old to build it with parents and get experience w/ sounds and engineering. They raised $350k on crowdfunding so the jokes on me! Cardboard box for an enclosure is a joke & transducers without an enclosure or at least a rigid baffle are a complete joke.
Double “NO”: One for the cardboard (it will land in a trash can in maximum two weeks), two for the price.
$140??? Is this a joke?
There’s a sucker born every minute.
It’s a cardboard box with some switches on it.
Hurry up! We are late for the gig and don’t forget to bring your Beatbox. Sorry I can’t go because it’s raining outside.