Ghost in my studio!!!

[CKK]

Hey all

About a year ago my wife and I moved to this 100+ year old house. I have been building my studio here and I am now up and running

A couple of days ago I did a first test with all mics in the drum/vox room open and recorded 24 tracks of dead air - or so I thought.

I spent an half an hour eating lunch and returned to the "session". And as the waveforms was building, I noticed a small sequence with something recorded? The signal was present on 3 of the recorded channels - 11, 12, 13 - with channel 12 as the strongest.

Playing back the sequence revieled a small humming voice - you know like the little sounds you do when you do the dishes or something like that. At the time I was alone in the studio so I know that no one has been in the drumroom while I had my lunch.

Have any of you guys ever experienced anything like this in a session?

[shaggseb]

that's spooky


<img src ="http://www.smilies-online.de/img/sm/Haesslich/sm1_419.gif"img>


one night, 4 years ago, I was smoking a cigarette around 2 o'clock in my living room.
And I heard the strings of my piano playing notes, without the keys moving.

Since it was during the major heatwave we had in France this summer, I assumed that the frame of the piano was expanded by the heat and when the temperature is gone down with the night, the frame is gone back to its first shape. So the strings too, what made them "play".

but who knows.....


cheers


Seb

[CKK]

Well, Im not so shure about that. I know how that sound and this is def. not it - this is a human voice!!!

I have posted the sequence for you to hear.

This is the strongest of the signals - channel 12.

I am a serious engineer - and this is what I do for a living. I am not trying to fool anyone!

Again - have anyone had signals on recordings that they couldnt explain?

[Ruphus]

Sounds like a mosquito to me.

I remember a scary night in an over 100 years old wooden house that my brother had bought in Connecticut though.
The funny point was that I had to stay overly cool, so that my girl frined wouldn´t freak out. So she fell to sleep in my arms while I remained awake.

Ruphus

[rectifier]

hmm that sounds more like a mackie than a soundcraft to me..

what??? oh cmon..

[Midlandmorgan]

Never heard a mosquito do that....on pitch even...

If you think you have a spirit residing in your studio, ask him/her what they want...and see if you can arrange it so they don't interefere with your work (seriously...)

We live in an old house as well...I have only seen the peripheral glimpses, but the animals...man! I have seen the two dogs and the cat setting in the living room, side by side, all starting at the same spot....of course, I don't see a thing, but they apparently do, and are listening....I've seen one of the dogs get up, walking into that room, tail wagging, like he was going to greet a friend before...

Spooky indeed.

Originally Posted by Ruphus

Sounds like a mosquito to me.

I remember a scary night in an over 100 years old wooden house that my brother had bought in Connecticut though.
The funny point was that I had to stay overly cool, so that my girl frined wouldn´t freak out. So she fell to sleep in my arms while I remained awake.

Ruphus

[Ruphus]

Mosquitos vary their tone to demand when seeking for partners or communicating with others from same gender. And they can keep a defined pitch, especially when they match to each other.

Also the bigger specimens have a darker tone.

Ruphus

[synthoid]

Mosquitos don't use much vibrato, unless you get into the Amazonian varieties.

-synthoid

[StudioTinPanAll]

there is a serious click just when the sound starts so it tells me it's something in the audio path
(it sounds like a digital tick)
but my guess is somewhere in the computer or convertors
something that crossed-jumped 3 tracks
i don't think it was really on the mics

hope it helps

grtz,

wim

[blaugruen7]

it sounds like an indian "shaman" song or something on that line. a women or teen.
we are not alone. the universe is full of life...

[knightsy]

Originally Posted by Midlandmorgan

If you think you have a spirit residing in your studio, ask him/her what they want...and see if you can arrange it so they don't interefere with your work (seriously...)

Or try and have the object (or "contact") that is keeping them in that location removed from your house. This may be difficult.

[simonv]

Damn ghosts... the second you got one, it has to sound like a bug and you can't claim the million dollar Randi.org challenge.


If it were my ghost, I would ask it to sound like something I can't confuse with a bug and retrack it.

[Ruphus]

Originally Posted by synthoid

Mosquitos don't use much vibrato, unless you get into the Amazonian varieties.

-synthoid

With global trade there occures immigration of strange species.

In the summer of 2003 I think it was there occured an invasion of unusually big-sized mosquitos here in Germany / Berlin. Really strange. They were definitly no locally occuring species, over 1 cm in length and incredibly loud. Whole hosts gathered under my ceiling that summer, starved after a while and their carcasses been all over the floor.

( A somewhat funny picture. They´d drop before you on the table, computer keyboard etc. Like shot Fokkers.)

They occured the next summer again in much smaller amounts though, and weren´t seen again in 2005.

Just saying, to point out that it can occure to face a strange specimen in your local ambience these days. In fact there is some severe damage going on in diverse spots in the world currently where imported species are often being hazardous to existance of local ones.

Ruphus

[George Necola]

EXACTLY THE SAME HABBIT AS HERE..

everythime I run something trough my RNP/RNC / mercenary-edition / I hear a voice in the background (FLETCHER ) and the voice says: "BUY MORE GEAR FROM ME, BUY MoRE GEAR FROM ME"..




nope, maybe intereferences with radio??

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by Midlandmorgan

Never heard a mosquito do that....on pitch even...

If you think you have a spirit residing in your studio, ask him/her what they want...and see if you can arrange it so they don't interefere with your work (seriously...)

We live in an old house as well...I have only seen the peripheral glimpses, but the animals...man! I have seen the two dogs and the cat setting in the living room, side by side, all starting at the same spot....of course, I don't see a thing, but they apparently do, and are listening....I've seen one of the dogs get up, walking into that room, tail wagging, like he was going to greet a friend before...

Spooky indeed.

Or... maybe dogs and cats have much better hearing, sense of smell and a faster refresh rate on their eyes and they can see, hear and smell things that you can't? An old house probably has it's share of mice and other things in the wall that you can't sense but other animals can.

Come on guys, I hate when otherwise rational people don't take the time to think through things to come to logical conclusions.

Many years back I was doing a vocal overdub and clear as day in the middle of the take the talent and I heard "I want you to have more" in the phones mix. Yeah MUST be a ghost right? Everyone one in the room was freaked out but me.

I knew there must be a logical reason for this but I could not put my finger on it.

About a year later I had the same thing happen only this time "the voice" said something along the lines of "yeah I will meet you there" but at the same time I happened to be looking out the window and I saw a cop car slowly driving down the road in front of the studio.

Turns out the cop radio was keyed to something in the phone system, maybe a loose cable or something. Either way this ended up happening in this studio a few more times over the next year or so and it was always accompanied by a cop car out front (it was a bad neighborhood).

The first band is probably still talking about the "ghost" in the studio 11 years later....

[Midlandmorgan]

Come on guys, I hate when otherwise rational people don't take the time to think through things to come to logical conclusions.

I was skeptical of such things through most of my youth....very much so, went as far as to publically dismiss and often laugh in front of people claiming the existence of a (lack of a better word) paranormal....

Things have changed...believe what you wish - dismiss what I have experienced as paranoia, delusional, schizophrenia if you wish...

But like with a lot of things audio-related that fall outside our normal abilities of perception, just because you cannot see/hear them does not mean they are not there, having some sort of effect on the world....granted, its pretty easy to dismiss that which we cannot detect....

[Bryan Talbot]

It did sound like an insect to me, but I would not discount any residual energies in a one hundred year old house.

[warhead]

When I was around 8 and my brother 9 we used to record "comedy" tapes on small black handheld Panasonic recorders with the built in condensor mic and the plastic carry handle. Skits, goofy songs, stuff from the radio...didn't matter...we loved recording things.

One day we recorded a skit, and when we went to play it back we did not hear what we had recorded. We heard many voices, all speaking foreign languages, all clear as a bell. This was a new cassette tape also, we always used K-Mart brand cassettes to record (with the black casing and red or blue labels).

It sounded like the voices were not necessarily talking with each other, and there were many flavors of language going on. We were freaked out and did not understand, but eventually we got over it and most certainly...got rid of the tape or simply recorded over it.

I wish I had known better to let an adult hear it or kept the tape.

Just typing this out is freaking me out a bit, because I can tell you something(s) were in that room at that time and we could not hear them in the room.

War

[Knastratt]

Years ago I was in a free form impro band. No jazz - just picking up each others vibes, giving space, listening, no individual monitoring, rock-ethno yada,yada.

One pretty magical or present rehearsal some of the peeps had a heated up, yet focused and goose-bumpy discussion on how to achieve closeness and avoid repetition (one out of focus player can blow up the rest).

At some point one guy said something really important and delivered a breakthrough insight where everybody instantly froze.

At the same moment, at full volume a hair-risingly loud, dark voice came out of the monitor system like BWAHBABABA-UHM-NO!

Hell, we almost crapped our pants!

Never heard that in a system neither before nor after.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by CKK

Well, Im not so shure about that. I know how that sound and this is def. not it - this is a human voice!!!

I have posted the sequence for you to hear.

This is the strongest of the signals - channel 12.

I am a serious engineer - and this is what I do for a living. I am not trying to fool anyone!

Again - have anyone had signals on recordings that they couldnt explain?

Is this a tape recording?

[CKK]

No tape - from room to my DC2020 into logic pro.

The reason I even noticed it was that little "click" that lighted up the else blank wave file.

Whats funny is that it apears on three channels 11,12,13. and the 12 comes out strongest.

I think something was in the drum room. If it was a mosquito, ragging bull or something completely different - I dont know. But in my ears, it do sound human.

Maybe I should try to do some boosting/cutting q, to bring it up.

[StudioTinPanAll]

ask yourself, what or why was the click,
i think that has to do with the rest of the sound
just my2p

grtz;

[excellrec]

I wish my studio was haunted.

[Flymax]

you're buggin'
it's a BUG!

[CKK]

Removed the "click" - did some low/high cut.

Boosted the whole signal.

Could be an insect - but I dont think so.

But I can tell you that sometimes I do feel uncomfortable in this house - you know just little things. The feeling someones looking at you, an instante urge to get away from an area in the house (random places). My cats love this house - they have both gotten their second wind after moving in (they are both 13 years old) behaving like kittens again

I know this is easy to produce specialy in a studio, but Im not trying to fool anyone. Just asking if any of you guys ever did record something like this - stuff thats weird/odd or even spooky.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by CKK

No tape - from room to my DC2020 into logic pro.

The reason I even noticed it was that little "click" that lighted up the else blank wave file.

Whats funny is that it apears on three channels 11,12,13. and the 12 comes out strongest.

I think something was in the drum room. If it was a mosquito, ragging bull or something completely different - I dont know. But in my ears, it do sound human.

Maybe I should try to do some boosting/cutting q, to bring it up.

Sounds like human humming to me. Maybe you are getting hard drive crosstalk.

[MX582]

sounds like its maybe one of your external hard drives making that noise? sometimes mine does that and some how it finds its way onto the track

[bgrotto]

Towards the end of last year, I was doing a late-night session at the studio I worked at. There was an annoying producer (not part of this particular project) that had a nasty habit of crashing sessions hanging around the studio, so I kept the dead-bolt to the control room locked so he wouldn't barge in. So, the clients had made a liquor store run earlier in the session, and afterwards, there was a mess of brown paper bags and forties scattered around the control room. I walked the guys out, confirmed that everyone had left the studio (including the aforementioned annoying producer), and went back to the control room to do a coupla overdubs and some edits on my band's project. Out of habit, I locked the dead-bolt.

So I spend another couple hours working on my stuff, do my backups, and start cleaning the control room. So I grab one of the brown paper bags, and start putting the empty forties and cognac bottles in it, and walk over to the control room's main garbage can, which is right next to the (still) dead-bolted door. It's about 4am, everything is pitch black except the control room, and there's absolutely NO ONE in the studio. So as I'm putting the trash away, the dead-bolt starts twitching, then fully unlocks! I'm pretty sure we're about to get robbed (which had happened before), so I throw myself against the door, pull out my small knife (which is little more than a box cutter), and grab this shiv-type thing we keep in the control room for just such an occassion. I'm pressing all my weight against this door for about 30 seconds, and then suddenly the dead-bolt closes again! So I catch my breath, throw the door open, and jump out into the hall, weilding these two ghetto-ass knives...

There's nobody in the pitchblack hallway (thankfully, as I probably looked really ****ing stupid), so I did a search of the whole floor; not a soul!

The next day, I tell the studio owner. He tells me that some of the previous engineers that had worked there had similar stories. Then, the other engineer told me that one morning he and his client were walking up to the CR, and when he stuck his key in the lock to open the dead-bolt, he was THROWN like five feet onto his ass by some kinda force on the other side of the door. Right in front of his client!

...Session cancelled. Heh.

About a week later, I was doing a VO gig, which started at 9am. I got to the studio a bit early to eat some breakfast and set up (in that order...). As I'm eating at the desk in the CR, the live room (which is pitch black), lights up, as though someone took a flash-bulb picture from the other side of the glass. I literally fell outta my chair. So I grabbed my trusty ghetto-knives, threw the live room door open, turned on all the lights, and there was nobody there.

Super creepy shit.

We also were consistently asked by clients about the young (mid-20s) black kid that worked nights for us (who the clients would see wandering the halls, looking for equipment). There was nobody that fit this description...