I've seen one of these before and was mesmorised by its function, finally I saw one by fluke in smack generator on Saturday for £99.
Basically you plug your sounds (CD player, guitar, keyboard) in one end and take the other end out to an amp, like you would if you were using a guitar pedal, it has 49 effects, which are selected by the dial in the bottom left hand corner and to change the sound you simply hold your hand above the black orb and move it about!
Each effect can be manipulated in three ways, moving your hand up and down, left and right and further away/closer to the orb (X,Y,Z axis), there's a very cool pitch modifier which, when you bring your hand down from above, it seems to slow the track down, there's also a scratch sound which makes your CD's sound like vinal, and when you reach out with the hand a few centimetres above it, it'll stop the track, etc.

I'm telling you this so that if you ever see one, you can buy it too.

Anyone else got any cool signal/effects processors?

http://www.alesis.com/products/airfx/about.html

It sounds interesting but I don't think it could be used in any live scenario - looks nice though. What are you going to use if for?

I think it could be used live... run a guitar through it, and let the singer (or some other band member with a free hand) control the sound - gimmicky, but potentially cool.

Well in my band (Stylus), the singer goes near any of my guitar effects, I kick him in the head. I think that's fair. :D

I don't blame you. It's hard enough finding the sound you want never mind letting some pissed bloke change it.

I'd just be worried it wouldn't be gig-proof.

Couldn´t you just move your naked foot over it ? That would look well Hillage.

I've imagined this live, just as the band is playing it's repetitious last chord set, I'd use the pitch effect which would make it sound like somebody just turned a record player off at the mains and the song slowed in speed and pitch. That'd raise a few eyebrows.

Other than that, I've got an old 70's synth that does similar things to the sound, but there's too many knobs and dials, I thought I'd use the Air FX for inputting drum loops that I want to flange and piss about with.

To be honest, it's more of a pissed up, "hey guys, check this out, I'm going to annoy your tits off by fucking about with the tunes for half an hour" kind of toy.

Oh aye, and I reckon it'd add a bit of dimension to my synthesied organ sounds.

I want one of the toys from this site.

http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk

"the art of inflicting sonic buggery on the carcass of a helpless musical toy"

Quality, I like their style. If only I was that clever with a soldering iron.

Some of the sounds on that site sounded very menacing when I put them thought the air fx!

i just want a tripe

http://www.monkeycake.com/img/misc/tripe.jpg