How do you do EVP Experiments

Because of the low cost of recording equipment it is now easy to do this type of experiment. There are several pieces of equipment which are needed.

1) Recording device - Usually a dictaphone or cassette recorder. This can be digital or analog. Analog were the item of choice up until the last few years as it was cheap and readily available. This could come in the form of either a small tape/cartridge based Dictaphone or a personal tape recorder. Digital recorders are becoming more and more popular due to its cheap price tag and also its ability to easily transfer digital recordings to PC for evaluation). However Cass and other researchers found that the quality of the recorder played no part in the results found.

2) External microphone - This was a must for the analog devices mentioned above. The older style analog devices used motors to turn the tape whilst recording. This caused hum on the tape. Using an external microphone away from the actual device alleviates this problem. It is not needed for the digital devices but is still recommended as the microphone incorporated might not be as sensitive as an external microphone. You can easily hold the microphone to the radio speaker if you are doing 'Inter Frequency EVP'.

3) External Speaker/Headphones - Once you have your recording you want to immediately play it back for anomalies. Usually the speakers built into recording devices are not that responsive to frequencies and therefore may not allow you to hear the full recording. Using headphones is an ideal way to listen to the recording. An external speaker allows other members of the team to listen.

4) Preset Questions - It is may be a good idea to have a list of questions that are relative to the environment. There is no problem at all to simply go in and ad lib but being prepared is a much more controlled approach. It also helps when you do get clear EVP responses. A response to a question means more than a random word received.

5) Control - Having control of any investigation/experiment is paramount. If something is heard on tape you need to be 100% sure that there is no one else situated around the building who might be making a noise of some sort.

6) Sound Software - Its good to have the capability to analyse sound patterns using tools such as Cool Edit. This allows you to look at noise patterns and see as well as hear anomalies. You can also use these tools to remove some hiss and other anomalies. Of course once you mess with a recording you loose some of the validity of the evidence. Also some work was carried out by sound engineers in the 70s/80s who found that when you start to clean up the signal the voices become less clear.

Remember, in the words of Raymond Cass 'You cannot buy voices!'

 

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