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Would like to have community's help on identifying the dominant instrument (obviously apart from purcussion, guitar) playing in this clip. It does seem to be synthesized sound, and heavily modulated. What kind of equipment might be used to product such sound ?

PS> The clip is extracted from a youtube video of this Indian movie soundtrack (Note that I've placed a time-marker that starts to coincide with the clip in question). The information section has all the other details (“Khamoshiyan” featuring Gurmeet Choudhary, Sapna Pabbi and Ali Fazal which is sung by Arijit Singh & composed by Jeet Gannguli).

Chris Sunami
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bdutta74
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    It's almost certainly a synthesizer of some kind - nicely articulated programming / playing. Unfortunately unless someone recognises the exact preset being used, it's going to be hard to identify which synthesizer - there are thousands of them, and there are probably many that could produce a sound like this. I know this question has just come from music.stackexchange.com, but if you wanted to know how to get this particular synth sound in terms of what settings to use, it looks to me like that would be on-topic over there (as opposed to 'identify this' questions, which aren't.) –  Jan 22 '16 at 21:58
  • (but you could always leave this question here in case anyone does recognise the actual piece of equipment) –  Jan 22 '16 at 21:59
  • I agree with topo, probably a synth. That volume swell is a good sign for that. However, with the right squaring of the waveform with some kind of synthbox/auto wah, you can get close with just about anything. Listen to Satriani's lead line here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TmL9kXydWes – user6591 Jan 23 '16 at 23:58
  • What is the source of this clip? Where did it come from? Did you upload it to SoundCloud yourself? The guidelines of this site say that a question such as yours is off-topic and should be closed if you fail to provide useful information as to the source of the clip. –  Jan 24 '16 at 14:49
  • @WheatWilliams can you point us to the guidelines you mean? –  Jan 24 '16 at 23:36
  • @topomorto, When a person with moderator privileges clicks on the "Close" command, one of the choices in the dialog box says "Off-Topic: Questions seeking to identify a song/sample/artist/etc need enough objective detail to be answerable. Please if possible add more detail." That's the one I selected when I clicked on the Vote to Close button. –  Jan 25 '16 at 00:42
  • @icarus74, So if it's extracted from a YouTube video of an Indian movie soundtrack, then you need to give us the link to the YouTube video and tell us the name of the movie and any other information you have on the movie, such as its year of release and whether or not it has an IMDB.com listing, etc. –  Jan 25 '16 at 00:43
  • This might lead us to information about the name of the soundtrack composer and the name of the musicians who played on the soundtrack, and many other helpful things. –  Jan 25 '16 at 00:46
  • @WheatWilliams Although more details definitely can't hurt, that close reason isn't saying that you have to put as much detail as humanly possible - just enough to make an identification possible. Surely including the actual audio to be identified alone meets that criterion, in most cases..? –  Jan 25 '16 at 01:24
  • There is a community here on SE dedicated to sound design. Why don't you try the Sound Design SE? They can probably tell you what equipment is needed to produce that sound. I would suggest this question be moved to Sound Design SE. – Avatrin Jan 25 '16 at 09:22
  • @Avatrin... SE is amazing and vast. Learnt about 2 new specialized sites in last 2 days. Since this question was moved from music.SE here, I am wondering if posting the question there would be flagged as spamming. Thanks for the suggestion, I might do that, but in that case would frame it differently. – bdutta74 Jan 25 '16 at 10:44
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    You should. This question is clearly about synthesizers, so they are the most qualified to answer it. The only answer you will get here is "it's a synthesizer". – Avatrin Jan 25 '16 at 11:26
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    Do a little googling on a Haken Continuum. Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater plays one, and it sounds like it may be related. Possibly just using a different synth sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW1KeRNaP-Q – Johnny Bones Jan 25 '16 at 14:29

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I think maybe it's just a synth version of an old instrument called the "theremin" (since it's, well, too old to be used for such a modern sound clip). Still, I searched around a bit and was surprised to see a more high tech version of the instrument - Moog Theremini. Not sure if this is accurate info but it could start off your research.

  • Thanks for the answer @Flowmarch. I've known about Theremin. Unless it is indeed using the spatial input mechanisms of Theremin to produce synthesized sounds, which BTW is not impossible. In all the demonstrations of Theremin that I've seen, I've never heard such sound produced. – bdutta74 Jan 22 '16 at 16:23
  • The Theremin is not "too old". Lots of people play Theremins today. The Moog company sells several models of Theremins, not just the high-tech Theremini. http://www.moogmusic.com/products/Etherwave-Theremins –  Jan 24 '16 at 14:46
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    And this clip has no Theremin on it anywhere. I am very familiar with the Theremin. The obvious pitch-shifting/modulation effect on this clip does not sound like a Theremin at all. –  Jan 24 '16 at 14:50
  • the pitch gliding sounds to me more like a portamento effect than the manual glide you get with a theremin... –  Jan 25 '16 at 01:25