Video: $US25 Stylophone Beatbox Makes Even Nerds Look Cool

Want to live-out your nerdiest Kraftwerk or hip-hop fantasies? As this video shows, too much time on your hands and the Stylophone Beatbox is all it takes. Its 13 metal pads trigger samples from UK beatbox champ, MC Zani.

You tap out sounds with a stylus, and a loop mode lets you build and layer loops using the included percussion, human beatbox and bass samples. There are also record and scratch modes, plus an MP3 input feature.

The Beatbox started shipping late last month, and follows last year’s return of the 1970s Stylophone mini-synthesiser (in physical and iPhone app form). For the uninitiated, the original Dubreq Stylphone was used by Kraftwerk on Pocket Calculator, and has also been used to kitchy effect by everyone from David Bowie to Marilyn Manson to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Oh, and I don’t know what’s up with the guy in the video below, but he’s too super excited not to share. [100milligrams]