VJing, The Game: The AV Arcade Table, Powered by VJAMM

arcade Guitar Hero? We want VJ Hero. And the AV Arcade Table, now part of the Boredbrands Digital Funfair, is exactly what you’d want it to be like.

It’s got the hardware — a DIY, cocktail-style arcade table, just the like the one you spent playing Ms. Pac-Man on, slightly drunk.

It’s got the software — a Windows PC running VJAMM.

And it’s got the content — Guitar Hero and Rock Band have rock classics, so this has some classic clips from VJs.

Official description:

The AV Arcade Table is a simple hybrid, a table top arcade cabinet that has been converted to run Vjamm, the best Audio Visual VJ Software by miles! Using the joystick and buttons 2 people can trigger audio visual samples and create beautiful collaborative audio visual collage/ a chaotic mess** (delete as appropriate!).

The Table was originally created for Cybersonica 2007 and was featured as part of “Soundwaves” at Kinetica Museum

Thanks to Eclectic Method, Exceeda, Hexstatic and Vjamm All Stars for supplying content.

AV Arcade Table @ Boredbrands Digital Funfair

Incidentally, reasons to give some props to VJAMM, even in this overcrowded world of VJ apps, and even though everyone went out and bought MacBook Pros last week, it seems:

  • Coldcut uses VJAMM. I mean, celebrity matters little to us here, but they do use it well, and that counts.
  • The Novation SL line of keyboards supports Automap in VJAMM. (It’s England, so I’m guessing that idea got worked out over a pint — which is certainly the way I like to make deals.)
  • They have this cheery slogan on their website: “VJamm3 is the world’s leading audiovisual instrument, the ultimate tool for sound and image mixing, the true 21st century artform, the new hip-hop.”
  • This table

Thanks to Gav for the tip — great work, mate! And to all readers of CDM: go for the shameless plugs. There’s no shame in it. We love to see the cool stuff you’re doing.

After Effects Freeframe Host Beta: It’s Free, It’s Plugins

By Jaymis

Freeframe, that great open-source video effects plugin system for your favourite VJ app or NLE (and championed by developers from VJamm and Resolume) now comes in a new flavour: After Effects!

BigFug (an active FreeFrame plugin developer) has released a beta of the After Effects Freeframe Host. It’s, well, free while in beta. The full version will cost money, however this money will let you run loads of free and commercial plugins. I’m not sure how this implementation differs from Pete Warden’s AFX Freeframe Host, as I don’t have it installed at the moment. But I shall do some testing and see how they stack up.

If you want to do some Freeframe testing of your own, here are some notable gratis ones to get you started:

VisualVinyl
BigFug’s Freeframe Plugins for Windows Freeframe Hoses
Syzygy StripShow

For an example of the incredibly expensive ones commercial plugins available, check out VJFX FreeFrame Pack v2.0. 50ish plugins for 75 euro, those capitalist pigs!

via GeneralSpecialist