Lately I've been getting alot of emails asking questions about EVP. Most people want to know what a genuine EVP is and if it is possible for a false positive EVP to occur even if they are the only person present when the recording is made and they get a "voice" other than their's on the recording. To be classified as genuine an EVP has to fall in a frequency range that a human voice is not capable of producing. The human voice can produce tones from 300 Hertz to 3000 Hertz. any voice recorded outside that frequency range is classified as a genuine EVP. Does this mean that an EVP cannot occur within the frequency range of the human voice? No, I've recorded quite a few EVP's that are in the same frequency range of the human voice but although i personally know they are the real deal a skeptic can easily dispute the validity of them simply by saying it is possible that someone else in the room or in an ajoining room said something and it turned up on the recording. Now to address false positive EVP's, yes, they can occur and there are several things that can cause them but it is easy to eliminate the potential cause if you take a few precautions before recording. One of the most common false positive EVP's is what i call voices in the wind. Finding EVP's in wind noise is pretty much like looking for faces in smoke, if you stare at a picture of smoke and want to find a face in it you will, the same goes for wind noise and EVP's. If you listen to wind noise long enough and want to hear a voice you will hear it. A simple solution to eliminating voices in the wind is do not record in windy conditions or if you do always place a wind screen on your mic to help eliminate wind noise. another way to get wind noise can happen even if there is no wind at all, it can be caused by walking around with a microphone in your hand while recording. Always place your mic on a solid, stable surface when recording, this will eliminate walking wind noise. Another false positive that can occur is when someone in your group whispers while you are recording, when recording everyone that feels the need to say something MUST say it in a loud/clear voice so it does not come up like a whisper on the recording and drive the person cleaning and processing the recording crazy. any number of sources can cause a false positive on a recording so always make sure you log and mention on the recording whenever something happens that produces a noise that the recording can pick up. well, that's about it for now, if you have any questions email me at berks_paranormal@yahoo.com =)

Thanks for the tips, Rick! I wasn't aware that wind so easily made false voices. One of these days, I'm going to start trying for EVPs around here.

Kell

I'm a former audio engineer. EVP is more or less my specialty. I have many more EVP tips and suggestions that i will be posting in the future. Wind is a major problem with EVP recording, i go to sooooo many websites and listen to their EVP's and hear nothing more than wind noise, i figure if i post a breif article on wind noise on several message boards people will become more aware of the wind when recording and try to rectify the problem. =)

Rick