While frantically trying to sample everything in my cupboard before leaving Australia, I came across this old ‘Ghost Tube’ toy, which I used to enjoy swinging around like a lightsaber as a child. I decided to try to sample it to see if I could create an interesting synth or percussive sound. While sampling, I also experimented a bit with singing and other noise-making into the tube.

Unfortunately, the direct samples of the tube noise didn’t really work as an instrument. The ‘experimental’ sounds, however, yielded some unexpectedly good results, which have found their way into this library.

‘Aether choir’ is made up of recordings of me singing various notes, vowels and velocities into the tube – no digital processing/effects, just the sound of my voice coming out of the end of the tube, but yielding a vocoder-like, ethereal choir sound.

‘Whispers of the Damned’ is from recordings of me attempting death metal growls into the tube; again with no post-processing beyond EQ and the adjustable reverb. The result is a dark, airy ambient pad. I like to combine it with Sage Reynold’s Cymbal Atmos for some depth and low-end and a dark, mysterious sound.

Both patches have inbuilt modwheel velocity control to increase the intensity of the sound.

Instrument Demo:

Contributors

Eamon

Performance, Sampling, Editing, UI design