When we last saw Onyx Ashanti, he was speaking of a grand vision to remake himself into a music-performing Tron. Now, the elements of that vision are coming together, with a crowd-sourced funding campaign that ends today, Friday. Update: Apparently after seeing this story, IndieGogo extended the funding deadline for five days, with the new deadline Thursday, December 1.

I knew Onyx back when he was playing more conventional wind controllers. Now, that fingering arrangement is freed from the virtual wind instrument, handheld and movable through space. Because of the plans to open source everything he’s making, you might yourself pick up that hand controller – or, if you’re like Onyx, go full-tilt with physical training to make your body do new things and a carbon fire, full-body prosthetic transformation.

Onyx has been at auditions for the main TED (the big one, not TEDx), experimenting with a beatbox configuration, and honing alien-like futuristic human reinvention with the help of artist Christopher Logan, aka Loganic. Loganic makes the art, then prosthetic engineer Uli Maier – with doses of carbon fiber – translates those notions into physical form. And the whole thing is mobile; Onyx draws on his busking background to take this thing wherever he goes.

Initially built as an open/proprietary hybrid, the new system is increasingly open source from the ground up, from customized Linux-based software to Pure Data (Pd) patches to open source designs for the molds. The wearable system can be 3D printed. Plans for the system also were featured in Make Magazine.

It’s actually quite a lot to digest, but Onyx has been posting videos, the most recent and illustrative of which I’ve included here. And because there’s a lot to do physically, from personal training to buying clay to engineering the prosthetics, Onyx is relying on crowd-sourced funding. In place of Kickstarter, which has specific requirements for minimum funding and other restrictions and requires US-based banking, he’s opted for IndieGogo.

If you invest just a few dollars, you at least get music; with successively larger donations, Onyx throws in his software, custom artwork and posters, t-shirts, or starting at US$500, the custom hardware itself for your use.

The IndieGogo campaign ends Thursday, December 1:
IndieGogo: Beatjazz System

– but we’ll be in touch with Onyx on an ongoing basis, so let me know if you have questions for him or want to watch this continue to evolve.

Videos showing the making of the elements of the system:

Above: New visualizations in 3D have vastly expanded the now-Pure-Data-based audio system with heads-up displays worthy of the spacesuit. Below: Some of the beautiful concept artwork produced for the project.

IndieGogo Campaign

Previously: Onyx Wants to Make Himself Into Helmeted, Wearable-Music-Tech Tron, With Your Help

Well, it’s official – the fact that you can beatbox with Google Translate has gone completely viral. I’ve even heard it crossing over into mainstream media (like the BBC mainstream). This also says to me that the Web could be fertile ground for creating musical toys that distract people from work. (Hmmm… okay, that may not be the best argument for getting your employer to upgrade their rusty old “vintage” MSIE to a new, HTML5-savvy browser.)

The best evolution of this yet: YouTuber chulini sets the Translate German beatboxing to a mash-up of Internet memes, hip-hop infused. It takes a nation of millions to make us a meme. (Apologies, Public Enemy.) See top.

Here’s what I want to know: has anyone been able to determine who originally came up with the textual incantation for this pattern? And if you could have a Google Translate beatboxer-rapper, what would you want it to do?

Oh, and at the next concert, will someone ask us to stick a fish in our ear? Douglas Adams would surely have loved this.

Google Translate’s pronunciations may or may not impress you, but the thing’s got some beatboxing skills. Reddit user harrichr notes a fun result:

1) Go to Google Translate
2) Set the translator to translate German to German
3) Copy + paste the following into the translate box: pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch
4) Click “listen”
5) Be amazed

Does it count as beatboxing if the voice is non-human? (Okay, okay, yeah, you could do this on your own with just about anything by slicing off the plosives on words. But if you’re procrastinating on this Monday workday, it’ll seem utterly amazing. And don’t be surprised if Google takes over beatboxing, just like everything else. Thanks, vade!)

More variants: check out comments.

via DaveSegue.

Edit: Who makes embed videos auto play? That’s just obnoxious. Changed to Youtube

[tags]videos, beatboxing, oddities, beats[/tags]

It’s not Ableton Live by any stretch of the imagination, but Verizon has commissioned an interactive app built in Adobe Flash that lets you remix the sound of some top beatboxers. Featuring samples from Antoinette “Butterscotch” Clinton (international female beatbox champion), Masai Electro, max b, rahzel (also a member of The Roots), and click, the app gives you a basic MPC-style interface and sequence timeline on which you can create and share mixes. Watching the video clips at top is sort of fun as you play, and this does demonstrate that all kinds of creative musical apps could be built in Flash (and made more sophisticated than this one, if you like):

Verizon Beatbox Mixer

… now, if there were just some samples from former Verizon spokesperson James Earl Jones, this would be really cool. You can read through clunky marketing prose about how these artists are using the “online community space” (I’m guessing you already know what the Internet is good for if you’re here); instead, skip straight to mixing your own stuff and check out these very talented beatboxers. There’s a live performance planned this week in New York as part of the Digital Life expo.

The best link here is max b’s own beatbox tutorial site, including video tutorials to take on your PSP or iPod:

beatbox.tv

At first, I thought this might be faked, but it does appear to be the real thing, and having known a few parrots, these birds will do far stranger things vocally. Via Signal to Noise, via GoogTube.

If human beatboxers are more your speed, the supremely talented Kid Beyond will be in Austin, Texas, this time doing a full-on gig rather than the shorter tech demo for Ableton he did at NAMM in January. Beatboxing parrots are a novelty; Kid Beyond makes beatboxing a serious instrument; he’s a real vocalist, and an utterly awesome musician. I got a chance to interview Kid Beyond this summer and should have that interview for you soon. In the meantime, a video from VH1 plus gig details:

Here’s Kid Beyond proving that he’s far cooler than Sebastian Bach, as if you didn’t already know that. (These kids and their reality TV …) Via the CDM forums from some time ago.

And via the Ableton email list, here’s the gig in Austin. Wish I could be there, but I’ll be in Chicago and not at NAMM. July 15 should be a big date, as Ableton says they’ll be announcing something at NAMM. I’ll leave you to figure out what that is. Gig details:

Pop-electronica singer/beatboxer Kid Beyond will bring his stunning
vocal skills to Austin on July 15. The show falls right in the middle
of 2006 Summer NAMM; attendees are encouraged to join the fun and see
the show.

A beatboxer for more than twenty years, Kid Beyond is a legend in the beatbox world 14and his recent “live-looping” work is gaining him impressive national attention. Looping and multitracking his voice on stage to create his own live backing tracks, Kid Beyond layers his transcendent singing voice over his own beatboxing and vocal instrumentation. The result is a riveting brew of pop-electronica that has drawn comparisons to Gorillaz, Moby, Fatboy Slim, Thievery Corporation and M.I.A. Ed: I don’t think he sounds anything like these largely unrelated artists, but he does sound great, so let’s leave it at that! -PK

Kid Beyond, with DJ Chicken George, Cherubic & Whatamelon
Saturday, July 15, 2006
La Zona Rosa: 612 W. 4th Street, Austin, TX
Showtime: Doors 8 PM, Show 9 PM; tickets USD 10 cash
http://www.lazonarosa.com/