The Theremin - Just Strange Noises

I hear it. A high pitched tone that increases in volume for a second and then stops abruptly.

Yeah, I hear it..

But I dont think its the theremin - I think its some reverb / delay oddity - Its not only the theremin which "glitches" about there IMO.. Might be a glitch in the DAW or something like that..

When you were playing, did you actually hear the theremin do it? - I presume you were playing the theremin while listening to the track.. Did you hear the ghost in the preview?

Fred.

I cannot find a way to download that file - If you email it to me, I will run it through analysis and see what it really is, even if I must use the Tardis to do so! ;-)

"What is too short? THe pice I posted? It is originally 7 mins long... But the theremin piano project we are doing is all improvs. what you heard was improv. It is pretty cool, i never knew I could do something like that ~ and we will do more since people react nicely when they hear the music .Did you hear the ghost sound though? It's just weird it showed up there." - Amey

The "ghost" piece is lovely - but no - I was talking about another track, "in Dreams" that I found on page 2.. That one just hit the spot! ;-) .. and should be a lot longer! - Particularly like the direction it takes in 2:20 to 3:20 - love all the other sections as well - but that 2:20 to 3:20 zone should come back again, and build up - oh hell - I have the whole thing running in my head - it explodes into a complex symphony.. LOL ;-) - perhaps thats why I like the piece, it fires up my inner composer and band - ;-)

I didn't hear the ghost in the preview and the reverb was added after. Heck, I was so concentrated on what I was doing that I don't remember if I heard it or not lol.

Fred, if you'd like ~ I'll send you In dreams and also the whole piece so you can check what that "noise" is... :)

Thank you for the lovely words on In Dreams. My husband will be pleased to hear that :)

Yeah, please send those , Amey -

Not sure how easy it will be to locate the ghost if the mix was post-processed extensively - The best place to find it will be on the masters - in particular, if you have a track that just has the theremin on it, then thats the first place to look -

I strongly (and I mean STRONGLY ;-) suspect something a bit 'unsavory' happened in the mixing or processing phase.. Right at about the point where the ghost appears (in fact, from about 1:00 to 1:06) it sounds to me like some manual "correction" has been done to something - Something has been spliced out or spliced in, and some lazy editing performed in an attempt to conceal it..

One thing I am sure of though, that was no "etherial" communication - that theremin sound ending abruptly was a sound from some other part of the recording, which got 'spliced' into the mix, either manually, or through some processing glitch... And this will be what I start looking for - I will grab that slice of "DNA", and see if I can locate the whole "genome" somewhere else in the recording.

Fred.

I could clearly hear the "ghost sound" at 63 secs, and then again at 69 secs. but I agree with Fred, I didn't get the feeling that it was associated with the theremin. In fact, I thought it was deliberate because it was a very high 'D' and blended harmonically with the composition which is in G minor. 

There is a lot of reverb in the mix, and I mean ALOTTALOT, the sound might have been an artifact generated by two persistent sounds interacting and producing a high harmonic or overtone of some kind. There were a couple of spots where I felt the sound was trying to come through again but didn't quite make it.

Ooooo.... Ido you think it could be due to this?: The last note's setting was on the upper register on the Pro and I then turned the knob down to a lower register...

I can assure you there are no manual editing on this as I was there when we mixed it. But as Peter said, there is a shitload of reverb. This is a VERY rough mixdown.

Next time I go to record more on the project, I'll have to ask my pianist friend and listen to the theremin line itself and then just the piano line. And if the sound isnt there, I will assume that the artifact/ghost sounds was produced by artifacts of the reverb used.

"...there is a shitload of reverb."  - Amethyste

I, for one, am a total sucker for shitloads of reverb.  When I owned the MPX100 there was a preset named "infinite reverb" which still wasn't enough (but was really fun to play with).

The 63 second glitch sounds like a compressor clamping down and then floating back up.

ugh... I LOVE reverb. Maybe a little too much :P

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Dewster wrote:

"...there is a shitload of reverb."  - Amethyste

I, for one, am a total sucker for shitloads of reverb.  When I owned the MPX100 there was a preset named "infinite reverb" which still wasn't enough (but was really fun to play with).

The 63 second glitch sounds like a compressor clamping down and then floating back up.

"One time I was facing away from the theremin at my computer and all of a sudden in a "booming voice" that momentarily terrified me, the theremin yelled…..Echo-FoxTrot-Charlie… Tower   This happened once and never again."

Maybe there was a pilot thinking "Who is playing the Theremin?"

Reverbs can cause undesirable glitches. I have taken to recording without reverb, and adding it in post-production.

I prefer to take an XLR feed (I bought the most acoustically neutral monitor amp I could afford, so miking it seems a bit pointless) by dropping a DI box into the effects chain before the reverb, which is typically the last effect in the chain. This allows me to hear reverb while I'm playing, but record a dry signal.

This, for several reasons;

Apple AU MatrixReverb is better than any hardware reverb I could afford. It is silky smooth, which is what I prefer, generally.

It's stereo. One of the uses of reverb is to put your performance in a place. I'm with the big-reverb crew here - I like playing in acoustically lively places - cathedrals and caves. :-) Stereo enhances this. Using reverb for this purpose implies giving the same reverb to every instrument, which is a lot easier to do in post.

I can fine-tune the reverb for the track. I may like a particular setting for my reverb when playing, but it doesn't mean it's the most appropriate setting for a particular track. I can spend a pleasant evening trying different reverb settings on my computer. It also means I can vary the settings throughout a piece if I want.

I often add faux stereo in post. It makes sense to put reverb after that.

I can have as many reverbs as I want, one after another, all cranked to max and 100% wet. (And some reversed!) This is one way of creating a gentle wash of sound as a backing track. I do that sometimes.