When it comes to looking for toys and games for children and teenagers there is plenty of choice available, the hardest part is trying to decide what would be an excellent gift for your children, not just one that they love and enjoy but one that actually gets a lot of use. I think we may have the ideal toy / game / tech item that will really appeal to music and dance loving children and teenagers (in our house it has gone done equally as well with the 10 year old as with the 13 year old). What is this item that kids will love? It is a hand-held motion controlled music maker called RUKUSfx, and it is lots of fun!
That leads to the question, what is the RUKUSfx? RUKUSfx is a lightweight hand-held motion-controlled music mixer. Users can create and mix music in four simple moves – PUNCH, SWIPE, TWIST, and FLICK! Creators can loop, mix, and remix customised music tracks with a move of their hand, record their performances and even record their own voices to become a superstar DJ! Millions of mixes in the palm of your hand.
What’s in the box:
- RUKUSfx hand-held music mixer with built-in speaker, headphone jack and USB-C port
- 3x AAA Batteries
The RUKUSfx is preloaded with 120 mixable music tracks and 80 sounds effects. It also has a built-in microphone so that you can record your own voice and sounds, and you can also upload your own music and sounds to use as well as downloading your creations to share with your friends.
The RUKUSfx is a hand-held device that is about 5” tall. To use it is very simple. After installing the 3x AAA batteries, which you will be happy to know are supplied, you switch it on with the mode selector switch on the side and PUNCH, SWIPE, TWIST, and FLICK with the sound of the music to create your own unique musical performances.
On the side of the device is the mode switch for on/off, music only and sound effects only. If switched on but not in use it will go into sleep mode to save power. It has a USB-C port for transferring data – uploading music and downloading your own mixes and performance but it does not charge via USB. It also has a headphone jack so that you can plug in standard wired headphones, which may please some parents!
When first using the RUKUSfx device, there will be some practice required. When first using it will probably take a few tries to get the movements perfect and working properly – your moves have to be deliberate or your required action won’t work, but this also allows you to dance around to the music without triggering the RUKUSfx until you make a deliberate defined action.
Once up and running and practiced with the movements you can then play a music track or sound effects and with the four simple hand movements mix, remix and create your own musical performances.
The fun doesn’t stop there. You can also record your performances for download to your computer, add your own voice over the tracks and light up the room with the colour changing LEDs (they change colour with the four movements).
Overall, the children have had so much fun with the RUKUSfx. For something that looks very unassuming when taking it out of the box it has plenty of musical features that provide hours of creative fun and is so easy to use.
The device comes with preloaded with 120 mixable music tracks and 80 sounds effects so your can start mixing your own tracks straight out of the box. The 3 LEDs on the front of the device change colour as you make your moves, giving a fantastic light show to your creations and performances.
The movement of the device and how you move create the remixed music and sound effects – PUNCH, SWIPE, TWIST, and FLICK! The only limit is your creativity. Each move lights up the LEDs in a different colour so you always know which movement you are using.
The RUKUSfx is very responsive to movement, reacting straightaway with no lag or delay that we could notice. Changing volume is easy, you just hold down the bottom button as swipe left or right to decrease/increase the volume. There are 5 volume levels to choose from.
Movement of the RUKUSfx allows you to mix/remix using the music tracks, but it also features 5 easily accessible finger and thumbs buttons to give you move control and functionality.
The Thumb button on top of the device allows you to select tracks 5 to 8 of each song in the sound effects pack.
The four finger buttons allow you to record your song or sound effects performances, record external sounds like your voice using the built-in microphone located on the top of the device, cycle forward through sound effects / music options and back through sound effects / music options.
If you hold down the Thumb button and then perform the moves different tracks are introduced.
Performances can be saved to the RUKUSfx device and downloaded to save and share. You plug the RUKUSfx into a PC/MAC or laptop using a USB-C cable, the device will open on the screen and display a list of folders – recorded performances will be in the Perform folder, voice and microphone recordings will be in the Record folder – you can copy these off in the same way you would files from other device. You can also upload files, music and sound effects, in the same way.
We think this is an excellent fun device to inspire creativity mixing and remixing music tracks, whilst also allowing silliness of fun and amusing sound effects and all with simple hand movements. It is so easy to use.
Whilst we think that this is an excellent little device that is plenty of fun, if we had to suggest improvements we think that it would benefit from a rechargeable battery and Bluetooth connectivity for wireless earbuds/headphones as when using wired headphones the cable can sometimes get in the way (although the RUKUSfx website does explain why it doesn’t have Bluetooth for a wireless connection – Bluetooth has an inherent delay that would cause issues in the sound quality when playing with RUKUSfx. You don’t normally notice this delay when just listening to music, but you would notice your timing being affected while performing a song).
The RUKUSfx would make an excellent creative and fun birthday or Christmas gift, inspiring imaginative and fun play. Get ready to rock straight out of the box with a simple PUNCH, SWIPE, TWIST, and FLICK and become a DJ maestro!
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £50
For more information, visit rukusfx.com. Available to buy from Amazon here.
