Title: Cambox
Cost: .99
Platform: iOS
The cam is for video, the box is for beat.’ With Cambox you can create, record, and share video beatbox creations.’ Capture a sound in each of eight boxes to create your “kit”. Once you have sounds you can play them like drums. Tap them in any order to create a steady rhythm or something else entirely.
A friend showed me this, and I immediately thought of how much fun it could be with a group of teens. Unfortunately, the writing of this post didn’t coincide with me seeing any teens, so I had to make do with the things in my kitchen.
I like that you can use the front or rear facing camera to capture video. This allows for more options, from people to inanimate objects, from one person beatboxing solo, to a whole group passing around an iPhone and each recording a sound.
Once you capture the sounds for your kit, you can play around to practice, then record something to share. Cambox encourages socializing and sharing. It is easily compatible with Facebook and YouTube, to which you can upload directly, or Twitter, Tumblr, Email and more, which you can use to share a link once you’ve uploaded a video to YouTube. In addition to saving and sharing your videos, you can also save and share kits. I see this an invitation to remix other people’s creations. Two drummers don’t play a drum kit in exactly the same manner, so neither should two Camboxers play a kit the exact same way.
The major criticism of this app in reviews on iTunes is that the record feature is a little tricky to time because you hold down the box, rather than simply tapping it. I think practicing and experimenting with turning off the sound detection feature in settings might help with this a little bit, but precision is not Cambox’s strong suit. It is geared more toward messing around and experimenting.
Here’s what I came up with in my kitchen after only a few minutes of playing with Cambox:
Imagine what a group of creative teens could come up with! A Cambox jam session would make a great program for Teen Tech Week, or a quick unstructured activity for just hanging around.
For more YALSA App of the Week posts, visit the App of the Week Archive.
