Finally, an instrument that never plays the note you want it to~

Ghost Tones is a simple synth that doesn’t ignore you, even though it seems like it is.

Ghost Tones takes a MIDI input, so you can play it like a normal synth, but instead of sounding the note you play, it plays two random notes that create a third note that only happens in your ear: the note that you wanted to play. Do a spectrum analysis and you’ll see that it never plays the note you’re playing, but you’ll hear it anyways.

This technique is quite sensitive – it only works at loud volumes, high frequencies, and if there aren’t other sounds happening. It’s very fragile, and exists primarily at the threshold of pain. But, it’s real, it’s fascinating, and it reveals something about how we listen and how our bodies work. 

This phenomena is called Otoacoustic Emissions or Combination Tones. Maryanne Amacher called it The Third Ear. Its actually your ears singing~ Learn more about it here.

How It Works

There aren’t many controls here:

A simple volume control.

An attack/decay envelope.

Since the synth is choosing random notes, you can select the general range that it chooses from. Otoacoustic Emissions require a specific (high frequency) range, but I figured I’d give you options for the full spectrum.

Up at the top right corner you can switch between hearing the note your’e trying to play or hearing the ghost tones.

Download the Manual

Specifications:

Faded Plugins are all 64 bit and run as a VST on Windows and an Audio Unit (AU) on Mac.
There is no Mac VST at this point.

Faded Plugins should run on all versions of Windows, and are tested to work on all recent versions of Mac OS.

Faded Plugins are not M1 native (yet!).

MAC USERS! Apple makes it difficult for developers who don’t pay a yearly “Apple Tax”. We disagree with this policy and don’t pay into this system… Which means that there are a few extra steps for installation. Check out this video showing how to place the installation files. There is one ‘authorization’ step after this – instructions in the included PDF.

Our plugins are tested on a few DAWs, but not all! Please get in touch if there are any issues.

Windows users may need some common support files called the “Visual C++ Redistributable Package”. Odds are you already have it, but just in case you don’t you can download them here.