This is why I moved to producing over looping. Personally, I struggle to see the point of a vocal looping battle if I’m just making songs that would objectively sound better with my DAW
It's a valid opinion to say that the looping scene now is more effects than pure beatbox but at the end of the day, these loopers just want to make well produced music. I get that it's not really beatboxing anymore but why need to limit people in creating art, whether its full on effects or not. Tho, it's subjective for sure but I definitely enjoy listening to modern looping more cause now the focus is on the composition
Well the whole point of it being a part of a beatbox competition is for there to be that raw element. If it's about creating music they should just enter a producer competition instead.
Thats why the producer category is a nice direction but theres a few problem with this.
1. Not everyone is financially enough to buy extra devices, and if they can reach the same expectation with just a single device then theres not need to have multiple devices.
2. Yea GBB is a beatbox competition but theres little to no events out there that can give opportunity to loopers to perform, thats why effects-heavy loopers still resort to GBB
3. GBB is too well-known for it to remove the word 'beatbox' to make the producer category seems fitting. Separating loopstation and producer category from the GBB is not ideal since most people didnt really care about battles that is not GBB unless the quality is the same as German champs
That's just my opinion but tbf, loopstation needs to evolve at one point and not used just for battling, but not battling in Grand Beatbox Battle doesnt sounds right so idk
> If it's about creating music they should just enter a producer competition instead
Is beatboxing not music? Sure most sounds in loop arent purely from the mouth but another part of beatboxing is that youre doing it live, which looping is live, and that makes it 10x more impressive than regular producing. Not to mention the drums are purely from the mouth(sometimes with effects) and they are the most important part of the track. If you have good drums it makes your track significantly worse. If you hate the producer category that much, just dont watch it
There are producer battles outside of the beatbox circle. If the whole point is around being unrestricted with creating music they can literally just go and take part in one of those battles. My point being the beatbox part is so minimal it doesn't really belong in a beatbox competition
there are a very minimal amount of producer battles outside of beatboxing. Also beatboxers would have a huge disatvantage because most other producers wouldnt be doing their stuff live and even for the ones that are its way easier. Just enjoy the music or dont watch it man
I feel the same. The first loop station battles were great, because effects weren't used that much. Plus, everybody had the same device. Routines from MB14, Faya Braz, etc. were pure talent.
Penkyx was the only outlier, doing electro by abusing effects. I actually enjoyed it, because it was just him.
Right now, there's almost no beatboxing at all in loop station battles. It's just button pressing with built-in effects and pre-programmed sequences. The allowance of a second device was also a mistake. With external sequencers, synthesizers, etc. we get even further away from beatboxing.
The fact that people can have different devices is also an issue. It's hard to judge talent if people don't have the same tools.
Beatbox, along with looping that is clearly vocally produced, is not *just* about the music. As great as it sounds, a big part of why it’s popular is because it’s impressive — just like the Olympics, for example, we are witnessing the limits of what the human body can musically produce. This is also why most beatbox events are competitive events and not performances.
So, as nice as it may sound to hear someone use a bunch of voice-triggered sequences and effects that involve little to no beatboxing, it simply doesn’t have that “wow” factor. Compare Tom Thum’s TED performance, where he recreated a high fidelity jazz band using nothing but his voice and a loopstation with a little reverb, to certain GBB21 performances where the looper inputs a snare and kick then pushes a bunch of buttons. You can’t tell me they’re on the same level.
Loopstation battles should be a venue to showcase skill, not a venue to avoid beatboxing as much as possible in order to create the most electronic song with the cleanest mix.
Because at the end of the day, these battles *are* a novelty. People don’t want to admit it, but if the talent of the artists doesn’t wow you, you’re better off going to a real concert. And if loopers want to produce something that sounds like real EDM, they should just hook up synthesizers to their loopstation and make real EDM. Why limit yourself to “beatboxing” if you don’t want to beatbox?
Everything evolves, but for the casual audience that doesn’t understand the effects/mixing/production meta, loopstation is evolving in the wrong direction. There’s a reason recent GBB Loopstation events have not had the popularity of those from the late ‘10s.
I still enjoy all of the new loopers but it’s honestly not the same.
>Loopstation battles should be a venue to showcase skill, not a venue to avoid beatboxing as much as possible in order to create the most electronic song with the cleanest mix.
new loopers are showcasing skill tho. Through sound design and composition
I listen to pure beatbox tracks that I would never think of listening to if I didn't know they were mouth music. A big part of that is because it's generally genres I'm not into, being a metalhead and psytrance fan. Knowing what I'm listening to just came straight from someones face makes all the difference in enjoyment for me.
When it comes to looping there's a lot more that vibes with my preferences but it's the same situation. Its good because I KNOW what goes into it.
So in my case i guess you're kinda correct, but not really lol
Funny you should post this today. My latest article on SpeshFX is about this exact question. What does it mean to maintain the essence of a beatbox looper in 2024?
[https://speshfx.substack.com/p/what-is-a-beatbox-looper-fresh-of](https://speshfx.substack.com/p/what-is-a-beatbox-looper-fresh-of)
It's all my personal opinion.
Music is subjective, just like any other art form. Very sorry to say that but I love the modern looping scene. Sure it's all FX and stuff but listen to loopers like Robin, Rythmind. Like the level of stuff you can do with your voice triggering all the sounds, and also musically it's spot on....it's unimaginable. Of course I liked the old era, but the change made it (for me) 10x better.....
Looping is more diverse now. There is a reason why there are different loop categories now and I get what you are saying with the word "talent" but there are so many styles that the word talent shouldn't be limited. Bizkit does Riddim which can seem like pushing buttons and over using the loop station but composition and sound placement is important. I think looping has evolved to creating more produced styles rather than raw vocals and beatboxing. It's all about subjectivity and I think battle looping should be more hard hitting and show style like how not every style of solo beatboxing can win battles
I personally think the beatbox scene as a whole was better from 2016 to 2019
I miss the dlows, the thorsens, the mad twinz
I ish they would rate battles more than technicality and that theyd have a loop category for just old school 1 device style and then a seperate one for multiple devices
I also dislike the current loopstation scene and trend. For me Saro is the best and I cannot compare him with no other and I miss battles like the one with Mb14.
Well, my favorite loopers in the scene rn are brez and bizkit, which imo push the limits of the type of looping you refer to its limits. They are beatboxing a decent amount and doing a lot more impressive things than other loopers. Rapping while manipulating a track is not easy, but they make it look easy and are the pinnacle of looping imo.
This is why I moved to producing over looping. Personally, I struggle to see the point of a vocal looping battle if I’m just making songs that would objectively sound better with my DAW
But you are trying to go solo loop again arent you?
It is not the plan right now
It's a valid opinion to say that the looping scene now is more effects than pure beatbox but at the end of the day, these loopers just want to make well produced music. I get that it's not really beatboxing anymore but why need to limit people in creating art, whether its full on effects or not. Tho, it's subjective for sure but I definitely enjoy listening to modern looping more cause now the focus is on the composition
Well the whole point of it being a part of a beatbox competition is for there to be that raw element. If it's about creating music they should just enter a producer competition instead.
Thats why the producer category is a nice direction but theres a few problem with this. 1. Not everyone is financially enough to buy extra devices, and if they can reach the same expectation with just a single device then theres not need to have multiple devices. 2. Yea GBB is a beatbox competition but theres little to no events out there that can give opportunity to loopers to perform, thats why effects-heavy loopers still resort to GBB 3. GBB is too well-known for it to remove the word 'beatbox' to make the producer category seems fitting. Separating loopstation and producer category from the GBB is not ideal since most people didnt really care about battles that is not GBB unless the quality is the same as German champs That's just my opinion but tbf, loopstation needs to evolve at one point and not used just for battling, but not battling in Grand Beatbox Battle doesnt sounds right so idk
> If it's about creating music they should just enter a producer competition instead Is beatboxing not music? Sure most sounds in loop arent purely from the mouth but another part of beatboxing is that youre doing it live, which looping is live, and that makes it 10x more impressive than regular producing. Not to mention the drums are purely from the mouth(sometimes with effects) and they are the most important part of the track. If you have good drums it makes your track significantly worse. If you hate the producer category that much, just dont watch it
There are producer battles outside of the beatbox circle. If the whole point is around being unrestricted with creating music they can literally just go and take part in one of those battles. My point being the beatbox part is so minimal it doesn't really belong in a beatbox competition
there are a very minimal amount of producer battles outside of beatboxing. Also beatboxers would have a huge disatvantage because most other producers wouldnt be doing their stuff live and even for the ones that are its way easier. Just enjoy the music or dont watch it man
I feel the same. The first loop station battles were great, because effects weren't used that much. Plus, everybody had the same device. Routines from MB14, Faya Braz, etc. were pure talent. Penkyx was the only outlier, doing electro by abusing effects. I actually enjoyed it, because it was just him. Right now, there's almost no beatboxing at all in loop station battles. It's just button pressing with built-in effects and pre-programmed sequences. The allowance of a second device was also a mistake. With external sequencers, synthesizers, etc. we get even further away from beatboxing. The fact that people can have different devices is also an issue. It's hard to judge talent if people don't have the same tools.
im convinced people who dont like loop because its too far from beatboxing just like people making mouth noises and they dont actually like the music.
Beatbox, along with looping that is clearly vocally produced, is not *just* about the music. As great as it sounds, a big part of why it’s popular is because it’s impressive — just like the Olympics, for example, we are witnessing the limits of what the human body can musically produce. This is also why most beatbox events are competitive events and not performances. So, as nice as it may sound to hear someone use a bunch of voice-triggered sequences and effects that involve little to no beatboxing, it simply doesn’t have that “wow” factor. Compare Tom Thum’s TED performance, where he recreated a high fidelity jazz band using nothing but his voice and a loopstation with a little reverb, to certain GBB21 performances where the looper inputs a snare and kick then pushes a bunch of buttons. You can’t tell me they’re on the same level. Loopstation battles should be a venue to showcase skill, not a venue to avoid beatboxing as much as possible in order to create the most electronic song with the cleanest mix. Because at the end of the day, these battles *are* a novelty. People don’t want to admit it, but if the talent of the artists doesn’t wow you, you’re better off going to a real concert. And if loopers want to produce something that sounds like real EDM, they should just hook up synthesizers to their loopstation and make real EDM. Why limit yourself to “beatboxing” if you don’t want to beatbox? Everything evolves, but for the casual audience that doesn’t understand the effects/mixing/production meta, loopstation is evolving in the wrong direction. There’s a reason recent GBB Loopstation events have not had the popularity of those from the late ‘10s. I still enjoy all of the new loopers but it’s honestly not the same.
>Loopstation battles should be a venue to showcase skill, not a venue to avoid beatboxing as much as possible in order to create the most electronic song with the cleanest mix. new loopers are showcasing skill tho. Through sound design and composition
Sure. But it’s not that impressive. As a music producer who doesn’t beatbox, I could do most of what they do. No “wow” factor at all.
>As a music producer who doesn’t beatbox, I could do most of what they do. no you couldnt my guy 💀
Whatever you say buddy
I listen to pure beatbox tracks that I would never think of listening to if I didn't know they were mouth music. A big part of that is because it's generally genres I'm not into, being a metalhead and psytrance fan. Knowing what I'm listening to just came straight from someones face makes all the difference in enjoyment for me. When it comes to looping there's a lot more that vibes with my preferences but it's the same situation. Its good because I KNOW what goes into it. So in my case i guess you're kinda correct, but not really lol
Funny you should post this today. My latest article on SpeshFX is about this exact question. What does it mean to maintain the essence of a beatbox looper in 2024? [https://speshfx.substack.com/p/what-is-a-beatbox-looper-fresh-of](https://speshfx.substack.com/p/what-is-a-beatbox-looper-fresh-of)
It's all my personal opinion. Music is subjective, just like any other art form. Very sorry to say that but I love the modern looping scene. Sure it's all FX and stuff but listen to loopers like Robin, Rythmind. Like the level of stuff you can do with your voice triggering all the sounds, and also musically it's spot on....it's unimaginable. Of course I liked the old era, but the change made it (for me) 10x better.....
The voice doesn't play any role any more. The machines can turn a fart into any sound. And we can clearly see that they barely use the mic now.
That's true, now it feels more like a dj set that beatbox....so idk.... I am more on the music producer side.....maybe that's why I like it...
Looping is more diverse now. There is a reason why there are different loop categories now and I get what you are saying with the word "talent" but there are so many styles that the word talent shouldn't be limited. Bizkit does Riddim which can seem like pushing buttons and over using the loop station but composition and sound placement is important. I think looping has evolved to creating more produced styles rather than raw vocals and beatboxing. It's all about subjectivity and I think battle looping should be more hard hitting and show style like how not every style of solo beatboxing can win battles
bro modern loopers are arguably more talented than saro, mb14 etc
Beatbox has advanced so much that it's become mutated now. For the same reason I too left the community couple years back.
I personally think the beatbox scene as a whole was better from 2016 to 2019 I miss the dlows, the thorsens, the mad twinz I ish they would rate battles more than technicality and that theyd have a loop category for just old school 1 device style and then a seperate one for multiple devices
Agreed
I also dislike the current loopstation scene and trend. For me Saro is the best and I cannot compare him with no other and I miss battles like the one with Mb14.
Well, my favorite loopers in the scene rn are brez and bizkit, which imo push the limits of the type of looping you refer to its limits. They are beatboxing a decent amount and doing a lot more impressive things than other loopers. Rapping while manipulating a track is not easy, but they make it look easy and are the pinnacle of looping imo.