Fear-Inducing Frequencies?

So I heard Lustmord used "fear-inducing frequencies" on some of his albums. What's that about, is that just some bullshit-PR-claims? Is there really such a thing?

Sure, there's certain deep sounds that make you feel uncomfortable or that creep you out, but that's probably all down to conditioning and pop-culture-associations with movie-soundtracks, games etc. I wonder whether there is an archetypal "sound of fear", and if so, I'd like to know how I can create it/where I can get it from ...

I think fear in music is very subjective, even more so than other emotions. For example, I got kind of spooked the first time I heard 'Lonesome Tears' by Beck. Something about how it gradually transforms from a simple folky violin riff to this dense, emotional monolith of sounds.

i used to get a creepy feeling listening to old plasticman (plastician) dubstep (Griiiiime) . i dunno why, just did.

I got various creepy-associations with particular tracks as well, of course. E.g. "Shadow" by Brian Eno (On Land), that flute (?) stuff is killing me every time.

But I'm looking for archetypes, something that would be equally as scary for some business man from New York and an Aborigine from the outback. Something that is rooted deep in human psychology, like Fire = Hot or something similar. I'm not even sure such a thing exists. It might all be "learned fear".

The reason I'm asking this is of course another project of mine. I'm trying to put something together, I got my own ideas already as far as the sound design goes, but I'm always taking myself as a unit of measurement and hence am creating something that would scare ME but might leave others unaffected, which I'm trying to rule out. Best case scenario would be a sound that somehow frightens people without them even realizing they heard it ... not so easy I guess.

a higher midrange shrill type sound is always unnerving like the scream in come to daddy

also ambulances when they drive by: high pitch but phasing in and out like that.

High-pitched, dissonant glissando-type noises work rather well, I think.

  Quote

Infrasound has been known to cause feelings of awe or fear in humans. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place.^[16]

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound}

  On 9/26/2011 at 3:17 AM, logakght said:

  Quote

Infrasound has been known to cause feelings of awe or fear in humans. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place.^[16]

 

 

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound}

brilliant! now all I need to do is create infrasound ... but let me guess, it'll be impossible on regular speakers, right?

the answer is no. It's more about phrasing and structure that create suspense, not singular frequencies. That's like asking if some particular word could instantly strike terror in a human's mind. no.

Edgar Allen Poe stories are not scary because of the words. They are scary because of the story.

Good point. Although the Infrasound-stuff does sound good.

Last year I used a very high pitched sound for Halloween to make people feel uncomfortable. Out of 15 people, only 1 consciously noticed the sound (and he's experienced with Reason and stuff, so he wasn't really neutral to begin with). It worked, but a high pitched noise is rather unnerving and painful. This year I'd like to go for the paranormal fear thing. If I can't get infrasound to work (I'm not really noticing anything when listening to the sample-clips from the Binaural Beats wiki page?), I'll mix something myself and am going to rely on my "usual scare tactics". All additional creepy shit is welcome of course!

some binaural sound patterns can have pretty psychotic effects. they are tasty

ah so it's for a halloween installation? Makes more sense now. Ya some binaural stuff on a widely spaced multichannel system could be really rad. Do you have that option?

378hz is the scariest frequency.

I believe infrasound is the right answer, as Logakght said. I was talking to someone about infrasound the other week, and he gave me a free copy of Namlook VII which has something similar. Bonus! ^.^ Anyway, yes, it looks like a real phenomenon that genuinely makes people nervous / anxious without them consciously perceiving a sound. Breaks the ice at séances!

i was watching a show on history channel, don't remember what it was but thy talked about police using these sounds on protestors and such that are very low sounding and cause people to get quite sick. that's all i know, so they exist...

That sounds like acoustic weaponry. On a related note, I gather any given human skull, along with anything else brittle, resonates at a particular frequency, so try not to make any loud, persistent sine waves. It's not something you really want to be messing around with.

What's a much more interesting possibility is that our senses of sight, smell and sound may all be different forms of resonance: electromagnetic, molecular and acoustic (air pressure) respectively. I gather the jury's still out on smell, but it'd be pretty neat if it really was based on molecular vibration rather than shapes as had been previously supposed.

It'd probably require too much time I don't have right now to REALLY get into this frequency shenanigans, but I already put together my alternate scare tactics ... if I can't go archetypal, I'll do the opposite and work up all typical human fears culture brought on. I think it's gonna work just fine. But thanks for all the replies!

I heard this last year and thought it was up there as some of the "scariest" stuff I've ever listened to. They seem to draw on a lot of methods: drones, tribal drums (in some tracks), odd phrasing, etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuRMu_Q6g1A&feature=related

  On 11/17/2011 at 4:08 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I heard this last year and thought it was up there as some of the "scariest" stuff I've ever listened to. They seem to draw on a lot of methods: drones, tribal drums (in some tracks), odd phrasing, etc

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuRMu_Q6g1A&feature=related

sounds straight off a Zoviet France album circa 1988, pretty cool!

  On 11/19/2011 at 12:12 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 11/17/2011 at 4:08 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I heard this last year and thought it was up there as some of the "scariest" stuff I've ever listened to. They seem to draw on a lot of methods: drones, tribal drums (in some tracks), odd phrasing, etc

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuRMu_Q6g1A&feature=related

 

sounds straight off a Zoviet France album circa 1988, pretty cool!

Yeah... I wouldn't be surprised if that was an influence! I think this is from the early to mid-90s. It's really just eerie ritual ambient with vocals and imagery to associate it with rituals and witchcraft and such. I came across it when I read that one of the members is the ex-wife of Fenriz, the Norwegian black metal musician. In fact, I dug around online some more and found out they recorded it using his equipment, and he's a big fan of electronic music, even had his own side-project called "Neptune Towers" that was synth-driven dark ambient.

  On 10/4/2011 at 5:50 PM, chimera slot mom said:

378hz is the scariest frequency.

Will check out later.

Sorry, this is like asking what the saddest key is (everyone knows it's D).

  On 11/22/2011 at 10:44 AM, chimera slot mom said:

Sorry, this is like asking what the saddest key is (everyone knows it's D).

"People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don't know why."