It’s big. It’s beautiful. It’s … not at all practical as a mobile controller. It’s the Abletonator: Ableton Live on a PC with custom controller and casing, transformed into an arcade game cabinet form-factor. Why? Because. (Thanks to comments by Gavin for the tip!) So, if you liked the Ambassador Live controller with arcade buttons, but wanted a full cabinet so it’s impossible to lift, you’ll love this.

The creator is Jr Savage, who evidently created this in 2006. Install MAME on this, and you’ve got an all-Live, all-vintage-gaming dream machine. Specs:

• Custom-built plywood cabinet
• PC running Windows XP, Ableton Live 6 (hmmm… may want to upgrade the cabinet), with a 8×8 audio card
• 19″ LCD monitor
• Custom control surface: 8 channels, joystick navigation (of course!), touchpad and mouse
• 2-octave keyboard

You actually can get Jr Savage to make one of these bad boys for you, for about GBP2500.

“Coin-op electro shock.” I love it.

Abletonator project page

Off-topic, but fun if you like arcade cabinets: our friends at Retro Thing show off a Doctor Who Tardis DIY project, and a video of building their own cabinet if you want to try this yourself.

And don’t miss one of my Favorite Things Ever, Gav’s own audiovisual arcade table, a kind of VJ Hero you can play with your mates and set beers on, to boot:

VJing, The Game: The AV Arcade Table, Powered by VJAMM [Create Digital Motion]