Sus Sounds

 As you may be aware, I have been recording the audiobook of A Sinister Love and I’ve been learning a lot of things about audio editing and recording, especially about Audacity, which is the free software I’m using.

But there have been a few kinda creepy things that happened. 

I use a Scarlet interface between my mic (which uses phantom power) and my computer. Now I was having trouble connecting my headphones to it (I needed.a 3.5 adapter). The day I got the adapter I needed, I was watching a clip from The Tonight Show on my iPad (which I use to read the book while I’m recording) while doing some chores first. Then I tried to hook up my headphones to the Scarlet, but I couldn’t figure out how to get sound. I still haven’t figured it out. But to appreciate what happened, I need to give my setup.

I use a Scarlet connected via USB to my Windows laptop. My headphones are connected via bluetooth to the laptop most of the time, but this time I had them connected to the Scarlet. The iPad is not part of this setup at all.

So I plugged the headphones in and couldn’t hear anything. I turned the volume up all the way… and suddenly I could hear, faintly and muffled, the clip from the Tonight Show that I’d been watching. I checked the iPad… it was no longer on that video or playing anything. My phone wasn’t playing anything. My computer didn’t even have that website open. If I plugged it into the computer, nothing. But I plugged it back into the Scarlet and I could hear it again.

It was a little freaky, but mostly a mystery.

However, after I had finished recording, I had to sit down and listen intently to every track to get rid of extraneous sounds and make it all sound good. I turned it up LOUD for this. There are a lot of mouth sounds to get rid of. I heard a conversation in the background of one of the tracks, but I’m always alone in the house when I record. I chalked it up to someone talking outside.

But late last night, as I was listening in where I heard some mouth sounds, I noticed a strange hum. I turned it up all the way.

It was a girl humming a song. She sounded young, 8 or less. There weren’t any words. But it was so quiet, it couldn’t have been from outside, not to mention there are no little girls on our street. It stopped a couple seconds after I noticed it (my voice would have masked any more of it before then), but I went back and listened three times.

I should have saved that bit of audio. I deleted it because that part of the recording was extraneous… and also because it freaked me the hell out.

It’s enough to make a guy believe in ghosts.