Air FX?

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

A friend gave me an Alesis Air FX a while back, and it pretty much quit working immediatly. It has like 100 different effects that are all controlled by waving your hand over the top of the effects box. It seems that they have discontinued this thing for some reason, and I can't find it anywhere... not even ebay. Does anyone know where I can find one of these or something like it? I am wanting to use it for vocals. The vp550 vocal keyboard has something like this attatched to it, but I don't want to spend $1400 just for that feature.

egw · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject:

The AirFX and AirSynth are both out of production for quite a while now, hard to find and generally command outrageous prices on ebay. But you can still get an Alesis Photon X25 and use the XYZ controller to send midi to your favorite synth or FX device. Much better in my opinion, since you can't program the AirFX or AirSynth.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

But can you hook a mic into it?

Danno Gee Ray · Joined: Sep 25, 2005 Posts: 1351 Location: Telford, PA USA

The Air FX has stereo RCA Line inputs and outputs.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

I know that. I was asking the guy above if the thing he mentioned has some way of hooking a mic into it.

blue hell · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject:

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

TFSM

blue hell · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject:

Or Invisible Pink Unicorn? OMG there's a lot guys above Wink

seraph · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:50 am Post subject:

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Have you ever routed vocals into it?

seraph · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 2:28 am Post subject:

egw · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 5:28 am Post subject:

The photon X25 is a midi controller. It has the "hand waving" part you asked about. You can use it to control an effects unit, but you would plug the mic into the effects unit directly.

Another option for manipulation of vocals would be the Kaoss pads.

Danno Gee Ray · Joined: Sep 25, 2005 Posts: 1351 Location: Telford, PA USA

Well, I have two of the Air-FX units. One of the Air-Synth units. No I haven't tried running vocals thru any of them yet, but must admit it had crossed my mind. Was thinking of using a cheap Radio Shack mike mixer as the feed point just to see what kind of mid-FI mangling could be done. One of my many ideas for these things.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

I just wish I could find one for sale. It sucks that the one that was given to me crapped out before I was really able to use it. Basicly... the volume of it gave out to the point where you had to literaly crank the volume all the way up on something to get it to produce any sort of sound, and even then... it's still quiet.

Mohoyoho · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:03 pm Post subject:

Here's one for sale:
http://www.novamusik.com/search.aspx?type=Manufacturer&keyword=43&mid=43

They claim it ships in 3-5 days. Perhaps it's an old listing they forgot to update, but I've had good service from Nova.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

I emailed the site, and I haven't gotten a responce. If they have one in stock, I will probably buy it.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Oh snap (ha).... I just got a very kick ass deal. I found a place in another state that has this unit in their store. What happened is that they ordered something and opened it and it was the wrong thing, it was an Air FX. They figured someone would want it someday, so they kept it. Thing is, it's a display unit (although they never set it up). It not only has an Air FX, but it also has a Air Synth and a cd player. All the power supplies are hooked into some type of headphone preamp type deal and it's all in some sort of case... I think he said it was metal or something. He says this stuff has never been used, and he hooked it up to make sure it works. He said the only thing wrong with it is that the cd player's display doesn't show anything which is fine because it's not like I care about the cd player nor do I need one.

And he is selling me this thing for the price of one Air FX.

He said it looks like it is an easy thing to take apart if I want to take the FX units out and use them seperately without the display setup. I guess it depends on how cool it looks and if it's setup in a way that I like for live stage use.

Sweet.

seraph · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject:

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

I hope that it doesn't have any sort of limitations due to being a display model

Danno Gee Ray · Joined: Sep 25, 2005 Posts: 1351 Location: Telford, PA USA

Congratulations Derek! Great find. The AIR-Synth unit is also quite cool, though not as much as the AIR-FX. I think you'll have fun with both of them, and all for the price of one unit. N I C E.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Thanks. I had a scare when my account was charged but I never recieved a reciept in my email. I called them today and I guess the guy wrote my email address down, so it's all cool.

Something I didn't mention is that they didn't charge tax or shipping! Not only that, but they shipped it 2-day over UPS and so it is schedualed to show up tommarow. Can't wait.

I just hope it isn't hard to take out of the display unit if I don't want to use that. What exactly is an Air Synth? I looked it up and do I understand correctly that it is just an upgraded version of the Air FX?

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject:

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Sounds cool.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Ok, I just got the thing in the mail.

Looks pretty cool. Both units are on top of a black rectangle box type thing made of metal, and they are both poining inwards at an angle. It looks cool and all, but I decided to take the display unit apart so that I can use the FX units seperately.

I am coming across some problems though and I was hoping someone here could help me. I have a temporary 16 channel mixer by PHONIC called the Sonic Station 16. It has RCA ins and outs on the back and I hooked that up through the Air FX. I am not getting anything from it though. I am sure it works and that I am just not doing something right. Some buttons I need to press or nobs I need to turn or something. I messed with everything on the mixer that mentions those RCA jacks and I can't get any sound from the Air FX. I hooked up a mic and sang through it to try to send sound to the Air FX so that it has something to affect, but nothing is happening.

So here is the mixer...

http://www.phonic.com/en/mixers/nonpowered-mixers/sonic-station-16.html

You can get a very detailed and closeup look of the face of the mixer as well as the back of it so hopefully someone can look at this and help me out.

It might be easier if we did this over an IM program.

AbjectEvolution · Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 137 Location: US

Hmm... I think one of the problems might be that the RCA ins are actualy some sort of "trim" controll. I think I have some RCA to 1/4" adaptors somewhere...