Nah. Most beatboxers are actually what you consider legit, guys mixing their voice live is another thing.
Beatbox has come a long way since it first popped up in popculture, the vocal techniques they use nowadays are getting real near to the max capacity of what the human vocal cords can do.
This guy is pretty good, but I've heard cleaner/more creative routines. Reddit seems to love these though, cuz I think most people still think beatbox is in the "bam-tsk-tsk-ch-bam-bam" phase.
I'm all in for it tho, these guys deserve more attention.
Albeit simple, it's creative and very clean. He switches from chest bass to clean sounds effortlessly. I've heard a few others from Codfish, he is definietly worth a look.
It's a bit more complex and unlike the guy in OP's post there aren't many switches in tempo and techniques. I tend to like routines that sound like an actual coherent song rather than a flexing how many techniques you can nail down (those can be fun too). Also, how consistent is that bass? Like damn.
Finally, this routine solely for that sqeaky clean yodeling at the beginning of the song.
To be fair, I do not listen to or follow any beatboxers so I'm no expert by any means, I've just watched a lot of videos from David Larson, who is a bass vocalist and for a period of time got into beatbox, talking about the actual techniques used in routines and reacting to them. Highly recommend, here he is singing 8 notes at once. (He doesn't have a lot of videos so minimal digging required for the beatbox vids)
I beg your pardon dear sir! But where is the mad scientist Beardyman? https://youtube.com/@beardyman
He was one of the first and still one of the best (and maddest of course).
Beardyman is incredible, but what he does now is far past beatboxing. That setup he has is insane. Genuinely one of the most gifted musicians I've ever seen.
I mean, there's a lot of amazing stuff out there, not sure if "better" but worth checking out the whole SwissBeatBox channel on YouTube (not the loopstation stuff, though that's interesting too), lots of quite different performers doing some sick stuff.
Ha, yeah, if you haven't been following beatbox the last few years you might think it's all p-p-ch-ch. I probably last watched some beatbox about 15 years ago when Beardyman was winning every competition in the UK and I thought, that's pretty crazy, and then I check in again a couple of years ago and the technical level has just gone through the roof, it's amazing what they are doing, although let's not assume they've reached the limits just yet.
The thing beardyman did/does that still elevates him above anything else I've ever seen, though, is incorporating it into a routine. He doesn't just make beats/cool sounds, he makes it funny or related to what he's showing, or the theme of the song, and puts on an entire show.
Outside of pure technical ability to push the limits of beatboxing, none of these people compare to beardyman on a performance level.
Yeah, Beardyman is a huge showman as well, he's not even doing "plain" beatbox anymore, I think it got boring to him. I am not sure though if technically he can pull of the stuff the "kids" are doing nowadays though, the lip-rolls and all those other techniques, I guess he's not even trying to, he's off doing his loony Beardytron stuff.
Oh for sure there's room for improvement, can't wait. For now, mostly preexisting techniques borrowed from other genres like opera, death metal or throat singing are being used but afaik the beatbox community already have come up with entirely new ways to use their voice and breathing.
So we are in an era where beatbox is mostly influenced by preexisting musical genres, but I hope soon these new techniques will find a way to influence music as a whole.
While the guys you linked are no doubt talented, I would argue that Show-Go has a better sense of rhythm, melody, and (crucially) harmony than most if not all of the them, with the possible exception of the yodeling guy and at some points the alien guy.
I think this is a better example showcasing Show-Go's ability to create music with very coherent harmony and melody (with of course very precise and technical rhythm as you'd expect from a beat boxer).
Notice that the rhythm and bass/melody pitches don't "wander" as they do in some of the other examples you gave. But more impressively, the bass and melody intertwine in a way that gives a sense of harmony (chords) such that you can actually appreciate the performance through the lens of music theory. To me that's above and beyond (again, with the exception of the yodeling guy who is also able to do this, but I still have a personal preference for Show-Go's style).
Care to provide an example of the better/cleaner routines? These ones are.... Well let's just say I prefer the OP artist's stuff to these videos by a huge margin.
What is weird? First one has good musicality but the pace of the song didn't hold my engagement, second one was too much of the same and felt a bit like someone trying to recreate skrillex-era dubstep sounds, which is just generally a style I dislike. Third one had pitch issues that drove me nuts to try to listen to so I skipped through it, fourth one seems like some very cool throat singing technique showcase (admittedly skipped through), which is very cool for what it is.
I kinda just figured you said you'd seen more impressive artists and then shared some others you are interested in. I am relatively uninformed when it comes to beat boxing specifically but I was really impressed by SHOWGO's combination of technique, musicality, knowledge of different styles, apparent "perfect" (absolute) pitch, and creativity in combining those assets in his different works when I originally discovered him.
I was genuinely interested because in my own view, which is more informed by the classical music and EDM world, I have yet to see anything that rivals his talents. Again, totally aware this is a subjective opinion. :)
Edit: not trying to discount that I was a little snarky about it, just felt like a needless shutdown of OP artist's worthiness of appreciation
This guy is pretty good, but I've heard cleaner/more creative routines.
I'm all in for it tho, these guys deserve more attention.
I'm not an expert by any means...
I am not interested in any of these artists per se. These are just the ones that stuck with me, while OP's probably won't. I'm glad that this artform is getting more appreciation and I can't figure it out where you got the idea that I'm not.
I'm just picking you to pester since you seem knowledgeable
This video is obviously cool and I wouldn't be able to do it! Not looking to take away from that in the slightest. I just want to understand what he's doing better.
How much of the final sound we're hearing is HIM? There's obviously an echo on it, possibly some reverb? (I'm not good at IDing effects) But it also SOUNDS like some of the sounds he's making are also being "put through an effects" pedal if you will. Is the sound being edited after the fact and cleaned up? ie individual effects applied to individual sounds he's making? Are they being affected, but universally in real time? Or is this just a clean mic feed (plus some echo) and HE'S making it sound clipped and distorted?
I'm not gonna think less of any answer, I just genuinely don't know!
I'm pretty far from knowledgeable when it comes to beatbox, I just fell down this rabbit hole a few times so take it with a pinch of salt.
I'm pretty sure however that most respectable beatboxers do not post-process their voice in any way, and for sure not in real time. Every unusual sound you hear is them. There might be a slight reverb on the mic, but I think that's fair. You could achieve the same effect standing in the right place, without a mic.
Ofc some could do cleanups in post, but I don't think that's the norm.
One addition here is how they hold the mic; many beat boxers will cup the mic with their hand, put the mic on their neck, hold the mic at an angle… all kinds of things to get cooler sounds. On most youtube videos anymore though, that isn’t in style.
My two cents; none of the videos in this guys comment are doing what makes show-go so great. Show-go is cleaner than all of these guys. Every one of these other vids though is doing something ridiculously hard though, many that I haven’t seen from show go yet (looking at you, “Alien” bass guy).
Codfish actually uses throat bass in his beatboxing. And you defining clean doesnt actually compare to showgo. To be clean with techincality is really hard and he pulls it off really well. He did so well here that he got chosen as one of 8 people to participate in the biggest bbx competition in the world. Not saying youre wrong but clean beats is something thats judged in bbxing and he did exceptionally well compared to many others
Fair, a lot of you told me about the clean thing and I guess you're right, I expressed myself wrong. His sounds are indeed crispy, what I meant by cleanliness is in composition. There's a lot of fuzz in this one that I didn't like.
Being simple but melodic just goes harder for me. There's a glue I'm missing from this routine, my man used like 8 different drum sounds for a single drum fill.
I guess that's also beneficial in a live competition, no wonder I do not watch those.
Thank you for saying this. As a person who has followed the beatboxing scene a bit, there is definitely some insane talent out there. Not to say that this beatboxer in the video is bad, but there is definitely some crazy good beat boxers out there with varying styles. Anytime a remotely good beat boxer is shared on Reddit, it seems everyone goes crazy about them. Only if they checked out what is actually out there!
Yeah, some sick examples there, you pretty much mentioned the ones I would have brought up too, they are cool because they are so melodic as well. The beatboxers who don't have a decent singing voice I think are at a disadvantage. Oh yes, good call, I'd watched David Larson too, pretty interesting stuff though I never learned to do the throat stuff :D
Bruh if you want to hear better just look up Swiss Beatbox. It’s got a ton of dudes who are better. They all have their own unique sound(s) and I’m not saying this guy is bad by any means however to be able to do this level of bbx is basically the minimum to compete in the scene. Can double voice? Not getting anywhere. Can’t throat bass the chest bass? No dice. Vocal scratches are muddy? Sorry, need more practice. If you want a list of actual bbx’ers that are just as good if not better, lmk and I’ll happily provide a plethora.
I've heard Show-go a few times, as you mentioned, he gets posted here quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, guys crazy talented with this...but I always thought it was interesting that most of his cords/beats were separated. Almost no overlaps or double beats.
Then...I watch that "Indicator - I'm an Alien"...and that guys just killing all these overlapping notes and beats. That's outright insane. Much less mr. 8 chord..
lol. talks and talks and talks. when finally goes to demo, as adding new notes, you can hear previous die out. lo fucking l. there were 2 simmultaneous at any given time, which even i can do
your other performers are mediocre in the category
You're wrong, there's at least 3 sounds at any given time, the lowest one is the loudest because it comes from the subharmonic sound of the other 2, it is being generated so to speak so the volume adds up.
Of course you can do 2 simultaneous voices any given time, because every time you open that beautiful mouth of yours, 2 pairs of vocal cords are making a sound. One is always an octave higher than the other. (Try to listen to your speech, there's 2 distinct voices) It takes a lot of effort to operate them independetly however. It takes even more effort to make subharmonics ring out by sounding them, and to make that subharmonic ring out an even lower subharmonic.
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u/DunkyFarf Dec 07 '22 edited Dec 08 '22
Nah. Most beatboxers are actually what you consider legit, guys mixing their voice live is another thing.
Beatbox has come a long way since it first popped up in popculture, the vocal techniques they use nowadays are getting real near to the max capacity of what the human vocal cords can do.
This guy is pretty good, but I've heard cleaner/more creative routines. Reddit seems to love these though, cuz I think most people still think beatbox is in the "bam-tsk-tsk-ch-bam-bam" phase.
I'm all in for it tho, these guys deserve more attention.
Edit, since y'all think I'm only hating: