Have you ever wanted to try out the ReacTable? Just look at it:

Don’t tell me you wouldn’t love to play around with those blocks, at least for 5 minutes. Granted, the performance isn’t all that technically impressive: beyond launching a few loops and tweaking a few parameters, I’d be hard pressed to find anything even remotely resembling virtuosity or musical performance skill in there. But hot fuzzy whiskers, is it spectacular! The visual aspect of literally dropping the beat, then holding up a block as if saying “You see this? You seein’ this? This is the BASS! This is the BASS and I’m about to drop this mother straight onto this magical surface thingy here!”, not to mention the deep blue animated surface itself, pulsing and electrified, it’s way beyond spectacular, it’s mesmerizing. No wonder the crowd goes bonkers every time the guy raises a block in the air. I want that madness for my shows, too!

So what are we waiting for, let’s buy the thing! Oh wait, the cheapest ReacTable (and no, we’re not taking the iPad app into consideration) is 6000 Euros, shipping and 600 Euro carry bags not included. I’d, like, have to sell my apartment, buy a van, and live in it for the winter, hugging my ReacTable at night thinking it’ll keep me warm.

Except no one needs to do that. You don’t need  to put together 7k in cash to turn objects into tangible loops and parameters. You can do all of this for way cheaper. There are a bunch of similar products out there, and if you don’t like those, you can always build your own. Products like:

1. Percussa AudioCubes

Clocking in at 800$ for 4 AudioCubes, these little fellas don’t need a special surface to be placed on, send out different messages based on how they’re placed in relation to one another, have proximity sensors (so you can actually play them if you map them right) and are apparently way better at providing a light show. The 2.0 version of the AudioCubes is wireless, as well, so you can use them to do pretty much everything in that first video, for about a tenth of the price.

Not a fan of off the shelf products? Then how about…

2. Building your own ReacTable

This guy apparently did. And with Max4Live and LEGO, nonetheless. How awesome is that! The patch isn’t available for download anywhere at the moment, but give me a week…

Meanwhile, come to think about it, everybody has shiny light surfaces nowadays. It’s not that difficult to get an iPad and have it control a light show or display pretty eye candy. But you know what’s better? Augmented reality. That’s better:

3. OrigaMIDI

This one’s absolutely brilliant. Play loops, change effects, reassign parameters, and all you need is a laptop, a webcam and a printer. Project OrigaMIDI’s webcam output through a projector and you’ve got yourself a light show. Sweet. There are no more words.