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Voices In The Headphones

C

captainwack

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Messages
17
Hi guys,
This is my first time posting a story so I'll try and keep it short.

This incident happened around the summer of 2000 and I still can't believe this actually happened even though I'm positive it did.
I was unemployed at the time and and I used to spend most of my days making music in my flat and trying out different ways of setting up my equipment to get interesting results, sometimes running drum machines through guitar pedals into eight tracks, 'know, that sort of thing. One afternoon I'm running a loop into a multi effects pedal, which allows you to add vast amounts of reverb. You can also shift the pitch up or down of the piece of music in question. Now, the beat I'm running is sounding quite full and it's kinda looping back on it's self but not completely in time because the kick and the snare are now being played nearly at the same time, but just slightly out of sync. It's a bit hard to explain but if you can imagine a house record's main beat but with a snare on top, this is how it sounded plus there was the reverb and the pitch-shifter AND some extra snares here end there! So it all sounded pretty interesting and this is where things went completely strange. I took off my headphones and got up to make a drink, which means I left the song running for maybe 2 to 3 minutes. when I returned and put the headphones back on, the first thing that came into my mind was that I could hear whispering! Not like one person, but a room full of people, all whispering at the same time! As I listened more intently to music, I became more convinced that I could hear voices in the headphones. I was so sure I could hear something, I could almost make out individual words but not quite. Now's here's where it gets really strange. After about a minute of the whispering, I heard something which terrified me and and made me turn completely cold. The next thing I knew, a strange and horrible roar came out of the music. The best way to describe it would be to compare it to someone playing a record of backwards of someone singing, very very slowly but incredibly loud. I can't really describe how scary this was. Without thinking, I threw off the headphones and switched off all the equipment and started pacing up and down saying "that didn't just happen, that didn't just happen!" I was completely in shock at what I just heard. I decided to go for a walk to clear my head and calm myself down. I ended up at a friends house just going through it over and over again in my mind, and the one thing I couldn't get out of my head is that I'd accidently summoned some kind of unearthly monster and if I'd have been out the room for a few minutes longer, something serious could've happened. It even sounds crazy even to me as I'm typing this but that's what I truly believed.Well, on the way back home on the bus , this christian lady gave me a number for a christian discussion group, saying I should come along. The thing is she kept asking me if I was alright. I must have still looked a bit shook up from before. I ended up selling that guitar pedal not long after and secretiy feeling better for it. I've seen and heard strange things on a number of occasions but that was something I will truly never forget. Thanks for reading and if anyone has heard of anything like this, I'd love to hear about it.
 
Have you come across EVP,electronic voice phenomena, your story sounds very much like a case of evp, if you google this you will get plenty of informative hits. 8) 8)
 
EVP via musical instruments, that's quite cool.
I assume from your post that you weren't recording anything when the voices/roaring was going on?
 
No, there was nothing recorded. Even though it would have been interesting to have some evidence, I'm kinda glad I don't! Thanks for the replies, I'll check out the sites on EVP.
 
Sorry, silly question, but were you doing any drugs at the time? I've noticed that the after effects of certain substances involve voice hallucinations, at least for me.
 
Using reverb or delay on loops can mean that the effect builds up more and more as the loop repeats. The longer you leave the loop going the more built up and distorted it gets as the effect carries over onto the beginning of the loop again, getting louder all the time. I've almost deafened myself a few times by doing this with fairly simple drum loops. High frequency sounds such as high hats and snares can sometimes take on an alomost human voice-like whispering sound when a lot of reverb is applied.
 
It does sound like it could have been something in the technology you were using as the previous guy says. Were you using a loop station or boomerang or similar? These have the ability to "stack" loops over each other and so build up sounds. Digital storage in a loop unit may also retain whatever was previously recorded on it.

Mind you, it sounds like you knew what you were doing and that this was a one-off and not down to the obvious...

Did you think it was related specifically to that guitar pedal? So what pedal was it?
 
Nope, no drugs and the pedal I was using was a zoom 707. I've been making music for a while now and I know about tracks cycling round on themselves and this definitely wasn't that. I remember not long after I saw a clip of hellraiser (i might be getting this wrong cos i can't remember the film too well) and there was a scene with a girl in hospital and I think the wall started to open and what I heard was very similar to those weird monster sounds.
 
Do you listen to your music on a high volume a lot? I was wondering if the whispering you hear could be tinnitus (spl?) where the sufferer hears whistling, or ringing in their ears as a resault of nerve damage. If so, as in simulcara, the brain does try and make logic out of things so if this is the first time you noticed it maybe that's how your brain inturpreted the noise?
As for going to the discussion group, I'd say only go if you have a yearning, or leaning that way to start with and to find out more. Never rush in because of fear. All you find is doom and gloom, 'do this or you'll go to hell!', 'don't do that or you'll go to hell!' which can really f*ck you up more than what you first went for! Just my bit of advice anyway. :)
 
This reminds me of a story of when Genesis were writing their album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' , in 1974 or thereabouts. They were messing around creating weird noises and suddenly there was a clap of thunder and they all felt that they'd summoned up something bad. They referred to the music as 'The Evil Jam'. You can read about it here:

http://www.g2online.co.uk/lamb.htm
 
captainwack said:
...the pedal I was using was a zoom 707.
Click to expand...
What were you using to loop, a drum machine? You said it was "looping back on itself"?
 
Well, I never went to the discussion group but I thought it was just a bit of coincidence I guess. This definitly wasn't a ringing in my ears, I'm certain it was in the music. I even thought it might be the sound of traffic but it was just too loud. As for the drum machine it was an Alesis HR 16. Nice sounds but real basic.
 
I'm not discounting the possibility that you'd heard EVP, but the following also may be possible explanations:
You may have created some strange harmonics that produced a distortion effect in your ears, causing your eardrums to distort. Then, perhaps you interpreted it as something familiar, like speech.
There is another possibility - that one of the electronic gadgets you were using had an amplifier that was badly shielded, and was affected by radio frequency interference from some of the other devices - or someone speaking on a CB radio was picked up by the amplifier.
 
I wanted to suggest the first suggestion but couldn't put it as eloquently. Yes harmonics.
The second idea is probably not the case otherwise he'd heard thse things before and he is no newbie to his music.
Harmonics...tsss couldn't hink of that word.
 
Shamen use drumming to induce altered states. I know absolutly zilch about music making of any sort but you mentioned that you were trying out various drumming rhythms, perhaps you hit upon a particular one that facilitated your capacity to hear things within the music?
 
Could be you tranced out a bit, as Tilly said. Trance music is made up of loops and repitition and anyone who has been to a full on rave will testify to the effect of trance music. Ok, so the drugs have a lot to do with it but the music has a very powerful effect too. Doesn't sound like you were listening for a long enough time for that to happen though.
 
I have known old guitar pedals (eg. Wah-Wah, Rat overdrive) to pick up radio signals on occasions.
I have to say though, such a shame you didn't record it!
 
I'm pretty sure it wasn't a radio signal and I wasn't on any kind of drug or anything like that. As crazy as it sounds, I still honestly believe that I opened some sort of door. Maybe I should have recorded it, it would have been nice to have some sort of proof. A freind of mine was at work once and he was writing a letter to someone and he fell asleep but he carried on writing and when he woke up, he was so freaked out by what he'd written he threw it in the bin! I still think it would have been nice to have some proof and guess this is kinda the same thing.
 
You can get radio transmissions over your power lines too - I used to get garbled sounding sermons off my amplifier - I live next to a large seminary and I don't know if they just had a fault in their equipment or they were using their electric system for in house broadcasting and it was propagating over the local grid...

I think there'd be a lot more demons roaming around if all you had to do to open a door to another dimension was to hook up a few bits of music gear that came off an assembly line...
 
I agree but I think it was to more to do with the strange beat and the reverb. I think I stumbled across something by mistake and I'm very sure about what I heard.
 
captainwack said:
I agree but I think it was to more to do with the strange beat and the reverb. I think I stumbled across something by mistake and I'm very sure about what I heard.
Click to expand...

What words did you hear?
 
bundaweegian said:
I have known old guitar pedals (eg. Wah-Wah, Rat overdrive) to pick up radio signals on occasions.
I have to say though, such a shame you didn't record it!
Click to expand...
Point! I've inadvertantly picked up people talking on the radio through my amp/lead/guitar before.
 
I have spent many years experimenting with music much the same way you describe... in fact I still do. There have been several times I had an unusual setup of effects processors, microphones, synths, feedback devices, samplers, etc. where I had crazy effects similar to those you mention. Depending on my state of mind, I also was convinced I could hear sounds that could have been voices and other things that didn't seem to come from my instruments... In fact, most of the time that was the kind of result I was looking/hoping for.

Not to discredit your claim (because I too, would have noticed a difference), but if it was me I would have recorded it. Most of the time I spend experimenting like that I record automatically in case I stumble on a great new or unusual sound...I would love to have heard what you discovered....
 
Greetings,

Harmonics. That is what I think you have there. I have been experimenting with music technology since 1972. My newest bit of experiment is to cue up two cellphones with walkie talkie feature and use the delay and feed back to make some interesting sounds and voice loops.
I have heard many strange things via my head phones over the years( the odd radio voice is always spooky)
The experience that springs to mind. 1995, I was in a band called ROACH in Cincinnati, Ohio. The drummer came to us with the lyrics to a song called "The children cried" that he had written, it was about Susan Smith (the white trash who drowned her sons)
Okay,
We wrote music to the song and recorded it in my cellar as a guide.
The longer we practiced this tune the more I kept hearing harmonies. It sounded on the chorus that two voices where vocalizing "ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh, ahhh. In tone with the chord changes. The thing is.........the lead vocal did a solo on that part.
We all heard it and just came to think of it as a happy vibe.
PEACE!
=^..^=217
 
Back during the days when when I regularly used reel-to-reel tape recorders for my radio programs I had one which I avoided using in the evenings because it then picked up Radio Canada International - a short wave radio feed. If this was "just a harmonic," it was a quite loud, clear and listenable one.
 
The longer we practiced this tune the more I kept hearing harmonies. It sounded on the chorus that two voices where vocalizing "ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh, ahhh. In tone with the chord changes. The thing is.........the lead vocal did a solo on that part.
Click to expand...
I do music recording too and I've had this happen. My theory is that when you get a couple of guitar tracks really well in tune, the notes can resonate with each other in a certain way and it makes a sound that your brain interprets as human voices singing.

I've sometimes experimented with crazy multi-loop setups and heard very weird things, especially after hours with headphones on when your ears and brain start playing tricks on you. Captain I like to hope this is what happened to you, as I'd hate to think one can open demonic doorways accidentally with effects boxes.....
 
A friend of mine is into some kind of acid electronic stuff which he plays live at gigs in South Yorkshire, he was telling me that he can play stuff on his electonic synthezisor that he can mess about with the acoustics to sound like evp voices.Try doing this, put on the radio in the bathroom with the tap running and at some point you will be convinced that you will either hear someone shout your name, or hear the telephone ring or hear a knock on the door.
 
I agree it's likely to be something to do with harmonics.

I make electronic music, and have had a couple of occasions where the exact combination of tracks playing at the right volume have produced human-like sounds, one which was so odd I spent hours taking it apart, changing all the levels, and so on, trying to work out which track this 'sample' of someone shouting was on. In fact, it was just the peculiar combination of all the tracks (about 10 of them) which was the only way to hear it.

Something else you shouldn't discount is that you were on headphones; listening to certain patterns on headphones, even for a short period, can cause alpha waves which affect how the mind works and cause auditory and even visual hallucination. I suspect this could be what you experienced, especially as you were using heavy reverb/looping - the 'brain interference' is caused by achieving specific delays between receiving the same sound in the left and right ear. This is why I tend to create my own music on loudspeakers, since a nasty incident a few years ago where I accidentally used a 'brainwaves' plugin which made me feel sick for the rest of the evening!
 
Just last night

I had voices over the headphones just last night.

I was using the new MacBook with the iPod headphones plugged in and AirPort Extreme running in the same room. I wasn't viewing a webpage that had either audio or video. But, I definitely heard voices: I think the AirPort must be retransmitting radio frequencies else I was listening to someone else's wireless network.

Don't use wireless, ever, for secure transactions.
 
On a similar but much less technical note, I thought I was hering some kind of music at night when all was quiet, so I took a small recorder with sound activation and left it on all night.
The next morning I noticed it had run through some tape, so I rewound it and listened.
What I heard was a wierd harmony of voices that seemed to be slowed down abit and sometimes would speed up for a moment and then back down.
No music ,just the vocal harmonies.
It sounded so bizarre it made the hair on my neck stand. I almost could not play it again but did for someone else to hear to get their opinion, and they too were freaked out by the sounds, although no real words could be made out it was definitley some kind of song, like sounds almost discernable as words but not quite.
We both felt so disturbed by it I erased it and have never tried it again.
I was afraid of what I might hear the next time.
 
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