Special FX Theremin

I have several software theremins, and I'd like to be able to imitate a special fx sound that I hear in a lot of movies. The sound occurs often associated with dark gothic industrial cities, dystopian underground factories, or huge gothic spaceships. It's a twangy noise that evokes dark electricity or radar. I can get something close by playing E and F repeatedly at low end of software theremin keyboard.

I have no way of capturing the sound, but I heard it recently during various parts of Daredevil, and as a ship sound effect in the Vision of Escaflowne movie. I hear this sound so frequently, though, it must be from a standard sound effects library. I would like to learn how to do similar sounds myself, though, so I can make variations.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Can you post a link to a mp3 or wav file?

I wish. I don't have enough space left on my computer to download a movie from which to take a snippet. :-(

I'm sorry the request is vague. It's a very, very, very common sound effect. It sounds a bit mysterious and spooky in a gothic industrial way. Daredevil has been on TV recently, so I'm hoping someone might see that. the sound is used combined with hospital noises, I think to represent radar hearing when Daredevil first gets his powers. It's used during other parts of the movie, too.

Maybe I will have to sit through Daredevil again to hear the sound.

Are there any other examples you can give us where it appears?

I'm keeping an ear out for more examples now. Nothing specific comes to mind, but I hear it very frequently. The next time I hear it, I'll rush back and post it here. I hear it in TV shows, too - a few days ago I heard it either in Star Trek: The Next Generation or Stargate. I can't remember which - possibly it was on both.

On a side note, I just heard a different, but classic, theremin sound in the 60s movie "Modesty Blaise".

Just looked up that film & added it to my Netflix queue. Sounds interesting. I hadn't heard that it used a theremin before, so I'll have to pay extra attention :)

It's very subtle in Daredevil and mixed with other sounds. It's definitely a theremin, though. You can hear it straight-up in the Escaflowne movie.

It sounds to me quite possible that your desired sounds may come from ordinary hardware or software synthesizers rather than a theremin. It is quite easy to produce simple theremin-like effects on typical synths by playing only a single note and modulating the sound with an LFO for example. Software synthesizers like Absynth have tons of such "atmospheric" presets. Maybe you should check that out...

I have Absynthe 2, but I haven't been able to reproduce the sound on that.

I think you might be right, though. I'm pretty sure the sound is made with a keyboard, but it sounds like a theremin. I've been able to get closest on the software theremin with the keyboard that's in your free software theremin's section.

By the way, I think I heard the sound again today. I caught the end of a movie called "The Hunted". The sound could be heard during a car chase - I guess it was supposed to make the chase sound eerie. It was mixed with other sounds like in Daredevil, though. :-(

Hey, I think I just heard it on Samurai Champloo. During the pirate attack at the beginning. It was mixed with explosion sounds, though, so it was hard to tell. A few minutes later, it comes back during the ocean scene.