RouteNote Blog

Image credit: Stylophone

We got our hands on the surprisingly fun Stylophone Beat, a beatmaker made for jamming in the style of its retro keyboard predecessor.

In the world of quirky music gadgets, the Stylophone Beat stands out as a unique and engaging creation. This one-of-a-kind beat-jammer, from the company who resurrected the iconic Stylophone, takes the familiar and makes it fresh.

With its metal pads and circuit system controlled by a stylus, the Stylophone Beat mimics the design of its predecessor, while offering a distinct and innovative sonic experience. We got our hands on this intriguing device to explore its potential and see how it compares to its illustrious ancestor.

A delightfully intuitive interface

The features the classic Stylophone aesthetic of black plastic and silver metal playing surfaces. It’s designed in such a straightforward manner that you can pick it up and start grooving straight away. It may take a while to figure out all of its knacks, but making noise is immediate

There is a surprising level of creativity to be had with such a simple machine. We have two primary settings – Drums and Bass. The drums offer a wide range of options across the 12 pads, from kick and snare sounds to more obscure hits like a record scratch effect. The bass is surprisingly expressive, with which you can glide between the notes and move up and down octaves for a wider range.

Using a stylus, you tap in your sounds like a conductor-cum-accountant. Anyone who’s tiringly tapped imaginary beats and melodies out with their stationary in the early afternoon at their desk will find themselves quickly adept at the process of tapping in drum hits and bass notes. The stylus is fitted with a metal nib which works to complete the circuits by conducting on the metal pads you tap – neat, huh?

The battery-powered pocket drum machine is slightly too large for actual pocketing despite its name. It is compact though, and with that comes a charming simplicity in your approach to the music you can make with the Stylophone Beat.

Surprisingly versatile sound palette

Despite its compact size and limited controls, the Stylophone Beat packs a surprisingly versatile sound palette. It comes equipped with four sound packs, each offering a range of drum and bass sounds that cover a variety of genres. These can be played out of an in-built speaker or through headphones via an output jack.

Your 4 settings to explore cover ROK, TECHNO, HIPHOP, and BEATBOX. The sounds are well-crafted and offer a decent amount of customization, allowing you to shape your beats and basslines to your liking. Some are more distinct than the others but they all allow you to play with some really different vibes.

The ROK setting for example creates a more realistic sounding drum kit, with proper cymbal crashes. The HIPHOP setting then allows you to escape the traditional with some funky sound effects like the pseudo record scratch and brass hit.

Flicking between each sound pack and combining different combinations of drum and bass sounds will inspire a different approach each time.

The Stylophone Beat’s creative expression (and limitations)

Truly a box made for jamming, the Stylophone Beat allows you to record with a 2-bar loop. This means that you can record a beat and jam out with the bass on top, building on it gradually with each loop. The tempo dial goes all the way up (and down) for a wild range of potential atmosphere.

The Beat quantizes to quarter notes, which is great for keeping the loops smooth. However, it does feel a little limited considering you only have two bars to play in. You can still pack a whole lot of creativity into your loops, but it could benefit from a four bar loop which would allow more flexibility in jamming and experimentation.

Now, in answer to that limitation are the final two settings on the Stylophone Beat: Transpose and Pattern.

The transpose setting works perfectly well but when using it I couldn’t help but wonder, why? The Beat works as a fun looping jam-box, and I never really felt that jam was enhanced by pitching the melody I was looping around. I suppose you could get creative, pitching it on certain notes. It seemed more trouble than it’s worth with what is essentially a fun piece of jamming kit.

Then there’s the other defined setting, Patterns. These allow you to save up to four patterns which you can tap between, to build up an arrangement of sorts. However, this feature is not straightforward and to be honest, I couldn’t get it to work in a satisfying manner.

As before, for me it simply detracted from what made the Beat great: Simple fun. I didn’t pick it up and think, if only I could arrange this into a composition with bridges and verses.

A 2-bar loop sufficed for me to play around with, but the settings are there to do a bit more with for those who want to. The simpler solution of a choice between 2 or 4 bars of looping would make for much cleaner expression and musical fun, in my opinion.

A fun, creative musical companion on the go

The Stylophone Beat excels at fostering creativity and improvisation. Its intuitive interface and limited controls encourage experimentation and spontaneous jamming. Although the Stylophone Beat offers the option for more complex arrangements, it truly shines as a tool for experimentation and single-loop fun.

For the low price point of only €34.95 you get a bundle of fun and an impressive amount of versatility. Whilst there is the potential to offer more, at this price you can’t be disappointed by its limitations.

You can’t expect the Stylophone Beat to step in as the fourth member of your band, but you can expect to bop your head to some of your fire improvised jams.

Grab yourself one in time for Christmas from Amazon by clicking the button below.