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Author Topic: Ghosts of Compass Point  (Read 31881 times)

compasspnt

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Ghosts of Compass Point
« on: March 31, 2005, 11:23:47 PM »

Stories abound from Compass Point Studios "old timers" about strange happenings around this place.  People such as Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club) Steve Stanley, Wally Baderou, Chris Blackwell, Sue Palmer, and others have related some odd things to me.  I was told, for instance, that soon after the chicken-blood-dripping incident, and while Lee Perry was still here, that people would sit on the balconies of the apartments behind the studio (and also higher up the hill) at night, and look down upon strange glowing globes of light dancing around the studio and adjacent property.  Also, there were many tales of sightings of Bob Marley inside the studio hallways and rooms, starting soon after Marley's untimely death.  There have even been those who claimed Marley sightings since I came here in '92.  Some people would not even stay alone in the studio building at night.

Now, I spend a lot of time in this place, and very, very often I am here all by myself, working late into the night.  I have never really believed in ghosts (nor disbelieved), and I have never been afraid while alone here at night.  And once, about two years ago, I THOUGHT I saw someone, out of the corner of my eye, walking down the hallway when the building was supposedly empty.  But if they were there, they walked right on through a concrete wall into the studio room...

...but just this past week, I got another, more definite taste of it all.

I was working in our Studio A (the bigger room, closest to the front, with the Neve, for those who are familiar with the facility), and it was about 12:30-1:00 am.  I always keep the control room doors open when I'm here alone, just so I can get a sense of what, if anything, is going on in the building, (sometimes one of our engineers or assiatants will pop by, and I like to know when someone else comes in).

So there I was, listening intently to some recent mixes, preparing them for release.  Control room door is open.  The song ends.  I hear singing in the hallway, just outside the control room door.  I think Alex or Osie must have come by (although neither is a singer at all, and this was some good singing).  The singing goes on, pretty loudly, for about 35-45 seconds.  I walk into the hallway to see who it is.  Naturally, no one is there.  I call out.  No one answers.  I search the entire building (now holding a cricket bat in my hands).  No one.  Anywhere.

I know what singing sounds like.  I know how to judge the distance of a singer by hearing the sounds, both direct, and reflected.  I make my living listening to people singing.  I sing myself.  I know the difference in singing and wind noise, singing and automobile noise, singing and airplane noise, singing and any kind of noise.  This was definitely singing.  Not really words, but consonant and vowel sounds, and a definite melody.  But absolutely no one was in the building.  Weather was fine, and quiet.  No howling wind or anything like that.  There was absolutely no doubt in my mind what I had heard.

But I must say that there was nothing threatening or evil feeling in this; things didn't suddenly "get scary."  I didn't run out of the front door yelling "I'll never go in there again at night."  The singing just stopped, and things went back to normal.

But I sure wish I had been recording with an open mic that night!
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Curve Dominant

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2005, 12:09:35 AM »

That was me, Terry.

I was vacationing in the Bahamas, and thought I would poke in for a chat.

I always sing to myself outloud. I saw you were busy, and so I ducked away.

Sorry if I spooked you.

djui5

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2005, 12:22:12 AM »

stalker.
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Randy Wright
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rankus

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2005, 12:16:25 PM »

Thanks for the great April 1st story Terry  Razz


Now, if it is for real:  My studio is in a pre-war building in a very old area of town, and I can relate.  There have been nights working alone when I felt "compeled" to run out the front door due to aborations.  But I feel they are freindly ghosts just passing through.  Several others have reported "voices" and "footsteps"  but no singing...

More likely some olde long dead cleaning woman, than Bob Marley over at my place though!

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RMoore

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2005, 02:02:00 PM »

Hey thats funny - another 'haunted' studio is supposed to be Mushroom Studios in Vancouver....

Sometimes late at night my mind used to play tricks on me over at Darryl Neudorf's  old Miller Block studio (RIP) next to Save on Meats on Hastings St...

I did quite a lot of work there '94-'97...

But then again, there was often some crazy stuff going on downstairs with brothels, Chinese triads, druggies and a boozecan, in operation at various times..so maybe some sounds voyaged up..
When the brothel was in full swing sometimes we could hear the girls getting slapped aroud, pretty ugly goings on...

The police finally raided the place one day, came into the studio & put guns to everyone's heads.. I heard it took a lot of persuading with the commanding officer that the studio had nothing to do with the activities downstairs..


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People's Republic of Ryan

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Bill Mueller

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2005, 08:20:10 PM »

So, one night I was all by myself at Sheffield, finishing up around 2AM and all of a sudden, a gospel song that I had mixed about a month earlier started coming out of the monitors at a very low, very spooky level. I looked around me an all of the machines were turned off! I thought, what the hell is going on? I looked to see if maybe a cassette machine was left on, but I had turned everything but the console off and was gettting ready to walk out the door.

I walked down the hallway and no one else was in the building. The skin on my neck started to crawl and I started to think bad thoughts about ghosts and such.

I walked back into the control room and it was still playing! Wow. I sat there at the SSL trying to figure out if I was finally insane, when the song ended and a commercial came on! I looked down and saw that I had a mic open. It was an old Neuman U67 and if you have delt with old U67's they can pick up RF sometimes.

The band had taken the song right to a radio station and the station had put it in rotation before even being mastered. I just happend to catch the right confluence of cloudy sky, magnetic environment, bad mic cable and ju-ju, and the song floated right into my brain pan at 2AM.

Explainable but very weird.

Bill
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JGreenslade

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2005, 05:45:26 AM »

Quote:


It was an old Neuman U67 and if you have delt with old U67's they can pick up RF sometimes.



Nothing supernatural there then! Thanks for sharing Bill, very funny  Laughing  

Justin
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RMoore

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2005, 06:10:05 AM »

Thats great,
Makes me wonder how often RF is responsible for what people percieve to be ghostly voices,
Didn't Lucille Ball claim that her fillings picked up radio signals?
I think that was debunked as imossinble/ urban myth tho'..
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People's Republic of Ryan

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By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
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rankus

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2005, 12:27:47 PM »

Ryan Moore wrote on Fri, 01 April 2005 11:02

Hey thats funny - another 'haunted' studio is supposed to be Mushroom Studios in Vancouver....

Sometimes late at night my mind used to play tricks on me over at Darryl Neudorf's  old Miller Block studio (RIP) next to Save on Meats on Hastings St...

I did quite a lot of work there '94-'97...



Hey Ryan,  Good to hear from a Vancouverite! Small world! Darryl Neudorf:.... Grapes of Wrath, 5440.. etc. His studio was just a few blocks from mine.  5440 was threating to do some recording at my studio around christmas... fell through... Last I heard of him was when he was trying to sue Sarah Mclachlan for plagerism. (When your a small time producer, don't sue big stars... it tends to end your career....)

Sorry to everyone for hijacking the thread... we now return to regular programing.
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wwittman

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2005, 12:54:59 PM »

Can you autotune a ghost?
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William Wittman
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maxim

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2005, 07:19:15 PM »

i thought there were plenty of 'ghosts' on modern pop productions already (check out the zz top thread)

seriously, though, as a russian, i believe in all matter spooky

the best explanation i've ever heard about ghosts came an old scottish lady

she reckons that ghosts arise in places where there's been a tremendous discharge of emotional energy (studios would probably qualify)

my scientist side, however, baulks at this ideas and, in psychiatry, it never ceases to amaze me how much illusion the brain is capable of

interestingly, when they did a study on earworms, and they turned off the music suddenly, the people still heard the hooks in their heads

what's interesting is that when they scanned the brain, the sound was initiated in the auditory pathways

so in this case, to us the reality is indistiguishable from illusion

similarly, there are optic illusions that are also indistinguihable from the real thing

in line with terry's story of a person walking around, these illusions always occur on the side of the visual field ("corner of the eye") and disappear as soon as we centre our gaze

of course, another theory states that we don't see what we don't register to be real, until it's pointed out to us

and the classics tell us that there are many things in this world, horatio...

all fascinating stuff
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Tomas Danko

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2005, 03:21:17 AM »

Eric Vincent wrote on Fri, 01 April 2005 06:09

That was me, Terry.

I was vacationing in the Bahamas, and thought I would poke in for a chat.

I always sing to myself outloud. I saw you were busy, and so I ducked away.

Sorry if I spooked you.


But you forgot to drop that acetate I asked you to!

/Danko
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RMoore

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2005, 04:18:38 AM »

rankus wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 19:27

Ryan Moore wrote on Fri, 01 April 2005 11:02

Hey thats funny - another 'haunted' studio is supposed to be Mushroom Studios in Vancouver....

Sometimes late at night my mind used to play tricks on me over at Darryl Neudorf's  old Miller Block studio (RIP) next to Save on Meats on Hastings St...

I did quite a lot of work there '94-'97...



Hey Ryan,  Good to hear from a Vancouverite! Small world! Darryl Neudorf:.... Grapes of Wrath, 5440.. etc. His studio was just a few blocks from mine.  5440 was threating to do some recording at my studio around christmas... fell through... Last I heard of him was when he was trying to sue Sarah Mclachlan for plagerism. (When your a small time producer, don't sue big stars... it tends to end your career....)

Sorry to everyone for hijacking the thread... we now return to regular programing.



Small World! The Miller Block was great - it was more like a musician's collective / studio & some interesting projects got done there.
Unf it was no longer viable in the aftermath of the legal battle..
For info on that studio which COULD have had its ghosts...
I know I used to sometimes hear stuff late at night..Smile
http://www.abintra.net/info.html

BTW - the legal case wasn't an issue of plagerism , the claim was based on not being credited for alleged songwriting contributions on early SM material - Mr N had been hired by Nettwerk and flown to Vancouver to work with SM in lengthy  'preproduction' periods for her 1st and (I think) 2cnd albums...
Lawsuits should really be seen as a last resort & in this case thats what happened as there had been unresolved issues with the label concerning  royalties on production 'points' as I understand, for at least 10 yrs prior ...

Anyway - it was a VERY interesting case that many people were watching as it concerned the definition of 'what is songwriting?' & at what point does an idea, chord, beat, arrangement contributed etc constitute songwriting..
Interestingly the songwriting expert witness for the label himself said in court that in his opinion Mr N had contributed x% to ...song / x%...to another and so on, (read here: http://www.afn.org/~afn07339/c11.html)
but in his final verdict the judge dismissed the claims entirely saying that there should have been an agreement in effect BEFORE they'd started the work.
This set a landmark that dismayed songwriters associations in Canada as basically it means,
before 2 people pull out their guitars or you head into the rehearsal room / studio - the contracts and pens should come out..(!)..

And now back to our regularily scheduled program!

(Boo! - scared ya!)
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People's Republic of Ryan

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By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
We must never let up for a second. Work harder at every single thing - Terry Manning

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JGreenslade

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2005, 06:50:57 AM »

wwittman wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 18:54

Can you autotune a ghost?


Not sure about ghosts, but I regularly hear AT deployed on performers that are completely devoid of substance...

Justin
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Jonas as

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Re: Ghosts of Compass Point
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2005, 01:44:23 PM »

Aren't there a lot of people believing subsonic sound (<20hz) is the reason for a lot of "ghost encounters".

People feeling sudden depression, visual disturbance, suddenly feeling the presence of "something".

Cetairnly could be an issue in studios,
depending on your speakers, that is Laughing
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