01 · BeastBox™ · Debuting AT Minnedemo42 · Oct 1, 2026

Let the drums out.

Beatbox into a microphone. BeastBox hears each kick, snare and hi‑hat and plays a real drum kit, live, on your own computer.

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LIVE · ON YOUR COMPUTER · KICK · SNARE · HI-HAT · Windows · macOS

SCAN TO FOLLOW ALONGGETBEASTBOX.COM

The BeastBox mark: a square box outline. A wavy line enters through a gap in its floor and climbs inside, and six orange bars stack upward and break out through a gap in its roof.
FIG. 1 — MARK III In through the floor · out through the roof

02 · SEE IT

See it

The first beat boxes were drum machines. Beatboxing meant sounding like one. The mouth copied the machine. Now the machine follows the mouth.

The BeastBox desktop app, a dark window, with the status Running. Along the top: the loaded kit, Minneapolis Sound II, a Stop button, and the microphone and output menus. Next, a chart of the input level over the last eight seconds, with each hit marked in the colour of its sound, and a sensitivity slider. Then three strips, for kick, snare and hi-hat, each with its sample's waveform, a level fader and an effects list. On the right, a Master panel holds the effects for the whole kit.
FIG. 2 — THE INSTRUMENT The desktop app, running · each hit marked along the top · a strip for each sound below

03 · GET IT

Get it

Debuting at Minnedemo42, Ordway Center, Saint Paul, Oct 1, 2026.

Hear when it's ready

Noted. You'll get a message when BeastBox is ready. In the meantime, section 04 below shows how it works.

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One purpose only: telling you when BeastBox is ready.

Abstract Monkey keeps your address on Cloudflare, uses it only to tell you about BeastBox, and never sells it.

PLATFORMS

Windows · macOS

Both are fully supported.

PRICE

Price to be announced

System requirements

  • A desktop or laptop running Windows or macOS.

  • A microphone or an audio interface.

  • Before you start, set the input of your microphone or audio interface to 44.1 kHz in your system's sound settings. BeastBox won't start until it is.

TO BE CONFIRMED

  • When the Windows and macOS builds are available
  • Minimum Windows version
  • Minimum macOS version

Who made this

Sean Hobin, in Minneapolis, on nights and weekends since November 2021. Self-funded. Presented at Minnebar 20 (May 2026), and debuting at Minnedemo42.

Sean Hobin, head and shoulders: short brown hair, a slight smile and a blue and green plaid shirt.
FIG. 3 — SEAN HOBIN

04 · HOW IT WORKS

How it works

Three stages, one box. Sound goes in through one wall and comes out through the other, changed.

How it works: three phases drawn on the BeastBox mark01 · VOICE IN02 · TRANSFORM03 · SET FREE
FIG. 4 — THREE STAGES The hit arrives · the box decides · the drum gets out

Three-stage diagram built from the BeastBox mark. 01 Voice in: a wavy line pierces the floor of the box. 02 Transform: the line climbs and turns inside. 03 Set free: six orange bars stack up and break out through the roof, and the tallest bars stand fully outside the box.

  1. 01 · VOICE IN

    The hit arrives.

    You make a sound into the microphone. BeastBox is listening for one thing: the moment a hit begins. When it finds one, it catches the sound and passes it on.

    Engineering detail

    Hit detection: we researched the leading approaches to low-latency onset detection and built a pipeline to score them against a set of gold-standard recordings. We took the strongest candidate, then modified it until it performed best on beatboxing.

  2. 02 · TRANSFORM

    The box decides.

    A model trained on beatboxed kicks, snares and hi-hats listens to the hit and picks one of the three. It is not listening for a fourth.

    Engineering detail

    Classification: purpose-built for exactly this job. Three sounds, answered fast, with no server to ask.

  3. 03 · SET FREE

    The drum gets out.

    The answer fires the matching drum from the kit you have loaded. On the way out it picks up that sound's level, pan and effects, then reaches your speakers or headphones.

    Engineering detail

    Output: the matching drum plays from the sampler built into BeastBox. No other app or plugin is involved.

05 · ALL ON YOUR MACHINE

All on your machine

No server and no internet connection. Every step, from your microphone to your speakers, runs on your own computer.

The live path, all inside your computerYOUR COMPUTERSOUNDDECISIONHEARCATCHES THE HITDECIDEKICK, SNAREOR HI-HATPLAYPLAYS THE DRUMSPEAKERSTHE DRUM, OUTMICROPHONEYOUR VOICE, IN
FIG. 5 — THE LIVE PATH Everything inside one box · nothing leaves it

Diagram of the live path inside a box that stands for your computer. Your voice enters from the microphone through the floor of the box. Inside, three steps follow one another: hear the hit, decide whether it is a kick, snare or hi-hat, and play the drum. The sound leaves through the roof of the box to your speakers. Nothing else goes in or out.

  • Your voice stays put.

    It goes in at the microphone and comes out as drums. It is never sent anywhere else.

  • It plays anywhere.

    Playing needs no connection, so it works wherever your computer does.

  • Three sounds, nothing else.

    It only has to tell a kick, a snare and a hi‑hat apart, not pick from dozens.

06 · WHAT'S IN THE BOX

What's in the box

Three kits, an effects rack, and exactly three sounds to play them with.

  • KIT A · HIP HOP

    Illustration of a kick drum, its front head a flat orange disc, with dimension lines around it.

    Weight in the kick, body in the snare, room between them.

    FIG. 6A

  • KIT B · DRUM & BASS

    Illustration of a snare drum and a hi-hat on its stand. The centre of the snare head is orange, orange streaks trail from the cymbals, and dimension lines sit around them.

    Tight, bright and quick. Built for tempos your mouth will have opinions about.

    FIG. 6B

  • KIT C · MINNEAPOLIS SOUND HOMAGE

    Illustration of a drum machine with orange side panels, rows of knobs and sliders, and a grid of square pads, three of them orange, with dimension lines around it.

    A nod to the drum-machine funk that came out of Minneapolis in the 1980s, made in the same city some forty years later.

    FIG. 6C

Effects rack

Every sound has its own effects chain. The whole kit gets one more on top, then a limiter that keeps the output out of the red. Level and pan are set per sound, and choke is one switch for the whole kit.

Switch kits mid-set with Page Up and Page Down.

Supported sounds

Kick, snare, hi-hat. Three, precisely.

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