In the what will they come up with next category ThinkGeek the Electronic Drum Machine t-shirt from their full line of musical shirts, not just a single t-shirt but several musical shirts you can perform in and play with.
Ease of Use, Performance: 12/25
Look & Feel: 14/25
Features 16/25
How much I enjoy 8/25
Total: 50/100
ThinkGeek is a shopping website with all things geek and I do mean all things totally geek from Star Trek salt shakers to this wearable DJ quality Drum Machine t-shirt. The site is chock full of fun and neat gift ideas and has several lines of popular films and trending themes, zombies comes to mind, including a line of wearable shirts that play music.
I received the Electronic Drum Machine Shirt and while the drum machine may not be DJ quality it does work fairly well, the shirt is also comfortable and the drum machine does come off to wash the shirt. The shirt is a regular black t-shirt with drum machine controls screen printed above and below a Velcro patch in the center of the shirt that is about 7 by 3 inches to accommodate the drum pad.
The drum pad connects to the control box that hangs on your belt or a pouch in the shirt through a ribbon cable and passes through a slot on the front of the shirt. The drum pad and control box come apart easily so the shirt is washable and also has a small pouch you can put the control box in if you don’t want to wear it on your belt.
The drum pad is a plastic pad with touch buttons inside with seven touch squares and a kit button that switches the drum types from regular rock drums to more electric types. There is Rock Drums, Retroo 808, Discotek, Techno Punk Classic Jazz, Bass Invaderz, Chiptune, Zapf Dingbeats and Scratchy types to choose from using the Kit button to switch from one to the next.
The control box has the on off switch, a loop button and a volume knob along with a 3.5mm output connection and a power indicator. The control box and drum pad use four AAA batteries that go into the battery compartment on the rear of the control box and the control box has a spring loaded clip for belt wear.
You also have a loop button that records your tune and you can play it back or play along to recorded song using the loop button. You can even record onto a loop using the button that works pretty well for a novelty shirt that I would not really consider other than as a gift for that special geek you know.
The buttons on the drum pad need a firm tap to get them to register and this is the main problem I have with the Drum Machine shirt and its DJ quality. The pads are just not sensitive or repeatable to get a good response from and a decent quality recording so the claim of DJ quality is a bit far-fetched.
I could easily handle this as being a fun to wear and play at school or at a party but DJ quality and having the video on their website of a couple of musicians playing this is more funny than serious. The quality is alright but often, about every three to five taps the drum machine would either register a double tap or not register anything so the recording sounds have missing beats or doubles where I didn’t want one.
I recorded several attempts at music, or at least what I could do with the shirt and could not get anything nearly as interesting as the videos of the musicians. This is a fun novelty shirt to wear to parties or to geek gatherings but nothing like a serious DJ quality drum machine.
Ratings of these shirts on the internet from purchasers are a mixed bag so quality is also mixed when it comes to other buyers, complaints of the same types I have are also repeated. The Drum Machine Shirt is a fun gift and would make any geek the hit of the party as long as they have a sense of rhythm and could roll out a tune.
This is not a DJ quality shirt but I guess the two warnings on the package spell out the theme of this product:
Warning All Electrical components should be removed from the Electronic Drum Machine Shirt before washing.
Warning All persons should be removed from shirt before placing it in the washing machine.
Think Geek Website