It’s still October – but it’s not too early to declare the worst trend of 2009: sexy 3D renderings in ads for virtual instruments.

Here are a few of the most annoyingly sexy 3d renderings for virtual instruments that we’ve seen in the last year.

HG Sounds’ Black Magic Loop Generator, above, looks awesomely hands-on.

Look at all those knobs! And the matte black finish – well you know my position on that.

Too bad it’s an “artists” 3D rendering.

And how about this awesomely cool-looking D16 Nithonat vintage-style drum machine:

Give me that thing! Put it in my hands! Take my hard-earned cash!

It’s not really a gorgeous retro-styled drum machine, though – it’s a 3D rendering of a non-existent piece of hardware based on the design of the virtual instrument Nithonat.

Here’s the new Audio Damage BigSeq2 effect and gate sequencer:

It looks cool enough to make you a little disappointed when you see that it’s “available for vst and au”.

What’s with the giant, poorly lit knob, then?

Finally, MOTU really confused people this year with their ads for BPM, their cool new MPC-style drum instrument.

BPM looks like a totally badass piece of hardware – even cooler than the BoomChik.

It’s got:

• 16 MPC-style pads
• knobs galore
• a very nicely placed pair of headphone jacks and
• a generous screen….

Unfortunately – MOTU brought sexy back with the BPM, but it was just virtual sexy.

These companies are by no means the only culprits, and their apps ARE actually pretty drool-worthy.

Next year, though, how about some ads that get us excited about working with software?

Dig the retro 3D visuals in this music video: MagicSpace – Sound Demo – Korg Analog Synthesizer.

via mediagateeisenach:

Korg Lambda Analog String Ensemble 1979

Korg 900PS Present-Synthesizer 1975

MFB 501 Drummaschine 1980

Recording: Samplitude V8 professional

Video: Autodesk 3dmax 9

Analogica – aka Jean Michel Jarre on LSD, at least according to I Have Synth – features vintage analog synthesizers animated in 3D Space.

via klangkombinat

Saturday Gear Porn, now in voluptuous 3D: wax78 has put together some short videos showcasing amazingly detailed Korg Electribe MX 3D models.

Click here to view the embedded video.

OT: Amazing Phonographantasmascope of Jim Lefevre.

Using the Zoetropes principle, Lefevre created a bunch of special 3D discs that he set spinning using an old fashioned turntable to create the illusion of 3D movement.

I’ve written previously about the idea of virtual worlds made up of ambient sound-objects.

The world of ambient music could use kick in the seat of the pants, and making it less passive might just do it.

Brian Eno’s template for ambient music – infinite soundscapes structured around asynchronous loops – has been explored for thirty years. While it’s still a fertile area for musicians, listeners are becoming more and more interested in the idea of interacting with musical creations, through things like remixing, mashups and music games.

Virtual 3D worlds offer a great opportunity for this. Check out the video above. It’s a demo video from Im3Labs that shows their AirStrike technology being used to allow “free-air” interactivity with 3D models.

Then consider Toshio Iwai’s Electroplankton – a Nintendo DS game that lets you interact with sound-objects and interact with ambient sound worlds that respond to your voice and touch.

An interactive 3D hologram could be even more compelling, allowing virtual environments with 3D sound-objects that react to your gestures. They could also include 3D instruments that you can play virtually.

Sound cool? It sounds far out – but it’s also within reach.

So throw your hands in the air, and wave em like you just don’t care;
Interact with a holograph, everybody gonna scream “oh yeah”

Let me know what you think of the possibilities.

Remember yesterday’s post about real-time 3D acoustic rendering?

I said:

Can you imagine entering into a 3D world of ambient sound-objects, where your perspective, and the location of the objects, affects what you hear?

This video, JumpBean Synth from Angry’s Tripping The Universe, appears to explore a similar idea, if on a basic level.

This is a demonstration video showing real-time 3D acoustic rendering, using the Phoenix gaming engine.

Developer David Rosen discusses this in depth in his paper Real-time 3D Acoustics Rendering:

Abstract

It is common for real-time systems to render 3D sounds by simply panning the sound from left to right and adjusting the volume based on distance. This is a good start, but ignores many effects that contribute to our perception of sounds and the acoustic environment. First, we must take into account the time it takes for the sound to travel from the source to each receiver (e.g. the left and right ear). Second, ears are not omnidirectional microphones; sounds can be occluded by the head and by the ear itself, and different frequency bands can be affected in different ways by this occlusion. Finally, sound sources can be occluded by objects in the environment, and the sound can reflect off of surfaces, or reverberate within spaces. In this paper we describe an efficient way to simulate all of these phenomena in real time.

If you’re interested in this stuff, give the paper a read. There are explosions involved.

Rosen’s a game developer, but this technology seems like it would be an interesting area of development for audio/visual synthesis.

Can you imagine entering into a 3D world of ambient sound-objects, where your perspective, and the location of the objects, affects what you hear?

via Califaudio

MIDI Navigator, below, is a Mac OS X MIDI driver for the 3dconnexion Space Navigator, right.

Usage is simple: download the application, launch it and select SpaceNavigator in your favorite MIDI application as input device.

MIDI Navigator can send relative and absolute CC commands. You can adjust the CC number, mode and sensitivity for each of the six degrees of freedom.

Rui Gato has created a demo video of this in action.

Requires Mac OS X 10.4 and a 3dconnexion Space Navigator.