DJ Qbert

DJ QBert is one of the pioneers of break records, and lately, his Thud Rumble company has been releasing digital versions of some of his classics.

On this episode of Fresh Press, Battle Ave’s Antriks and DJ Excess connect at the DJ Expo in Atlantic City to put two of Thud Rumble’s latest releases to the test: QBert’s “All-Star Dirtstyle Battle Rebels” and DJ Happee’s “2nd Hand Smoke Breaks: Extended Edition.”

Watch above and check out all of Thud Rumble’s digital records here.

Related: Antriks Reviews DJ Packo’s Scratch Record, ‘Tax Breaks’

DJ QBert shared some advice on DJing in a recent interview with hip-hop website, 247HH.

The legendary turntablist discussed letting loose on stage, practicing, eating healthy, and being spiritual. He said his biggest lesson in life was losing the DMC World Championship.

“It taught me how to be humble. From my experience of not practicing, I gotta practice a lot now. Because if you don’t practice, you know, everything falls apart. I have to stay humble and keep being a student. So I practice even more nowadays.”

In 2016, QBert reunited with his influential Invisibl Skratch Piklz crew and dropped their first album in over 20 years. The group, which consists of QBert, D-Styles, and Shortkut, recently performed at the Boiler Room in Oakland.

Watch the video above.

Related: Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Cut Chemist, and J. Espinosa Perform on the Boiler Room

Thud Rumble showcased two prototypes of its Intel-powered DJ mixer on Tuesday, reports Engadget. The presentation, which took place at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, was given by Thud Rumble’s co-founder, DJ QBert, and Montreal’s DJ Killa-Jewel.

The devices are the latest prototypes of Thud Rumble’s laptop-free mixer, the “Invader,” which was first announced in May 2015. The company has since showcased prototypes in an video by Intel and at the Maker Faire.

According to Engadget, the prototypes that Thud Rumble showed off at the IDF were equipped with a touchscreen display running Windows 10 and Traktor. However, Engadget says the mixers can use any DJ software that’s compatible with Microsoft’s operating system.

Buyers will be able to customize the Invader with “laser-etching options, various colors and a choice of rubber or old-school arcade buttons.” Thud Rumble’s co-founder Ritche “Yogafrog” Desuasido told Engadget: “We’re doing the Tesla business model.”

So what’s next for the Invader? Engadget writes:

“The next step after IDF will be to finalize the printed circuit board (PCB) designs. Native Instruments, which makes Traktor devices, is working with Thud Rumble to create an audio interface. The final Invader mixer will have the usual audio ports, including the ability to switch to phono so DJs can scratch actual vinyl. It’ll have USB 3 ports and an HDMI socket so DJs can use applications like Serato Video to output moving images. As you might expect, given that the device was shown off at Intel’s developer conference, it runs on Intel i5 and i7 processors. It’s competitively priced at $1,699 (the Pioneer DJ DJM-S9 mixer for Serato costs the same without a built-in computer) and will ship at the end of the year.”

All photos by Roberto Baldwin/AOL

Related: Intel Releases Video About Thud Rumble Collaboration