White Noise

[the stranger]

I watched this flick and thought EVP would make for a cool topic.

 

Anybody seen it, yet?

[Alndln]

Yeah,I was a bit dissapointed.Myself and Deanmass both brought this up a few months ago but nobody really replied to either one of our posts.Anyway,the topic itself(EVP)does interest me in a curious way.I'm especially interested to know if anyone from the Pro Audio community was ever involved rather than amatuers and obviously amatuer recording techniques,that's my main interest here.Oh,I though the movie was boring and strayed from the reality of EVP,at least in that context.

[KenElevenShadows]

My friend is absolutely fascinated with EVP, but felt that the movie really did it a disservice since that's not the way EVP works. I haven't seen the movie, so declined to comment about it.

 

Never experienced it (knowingly) myself or participated in it in any way, but hey, if I ever get strange voices on my Edirol R-1 (whenever I get it) while wandering around a graveyard, I'll let you guys know!

[Chao]

Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

My friend is absolutely fascinated with EVP, but felt that the movie really did it a disservice since that's not the way EVP works.

EVP doesn't "work" any way, unless you're counting

 

1) Obvious Frauds

2) Artifacts introduced by "noise reduction" plugins

3) The morons who actually believe that rot

 

Anyone with a basic understanding of recording techniques quite coincidentally also understands why people get "ghostly" sounds that approximate voices.

[offramp]

Certainly opinionated, aren't we?

[Chao]

Originally posted by offramp:

Certainly opinionated, aren't we?

Sorry, I have no reason to believe in supernatural twaddle practiced by amateur recording "technicians" who lack the most basic understanding of their recording medium (in the case of people who process their own recordings), or credulous twits who believe internet prankery (in the case of those who take the obvious overdub-fakes as "proof" of otherworldly interference).

 

Unless you'd like to tell me in detail about how recording on the lowest end equipment and using "noise-reduction" software repeatedly until the phase distortions sound almost like the human voice is actually a conduit to the great beyond

[Alndln]

Well,I'm skeptical for a lot of the same reasons,but at the same time I won't pretend that I know that much about the EVP community as far as what level of audio teqniques were attempted and by whom.It's a big world out there.

[philbo_Tangent]

It'd be easy to run a whispered voice into a vocoder with a white/pink noise carrier to produce this sort of effect.

 

Of course, getting the ghost to stand in the vocal booth and whisper would be the tricky part...

[theblue1]

I don't know what "EVP" stands for and don't know what the movie "White Noise" is... but I can make a stab from this thread.

 

Whether its freshly spilled chicken entrails, tea leaves, or whatever, folks have been trying to divine the future, the past, communications with lost souls, etc, since somewhere around day one.

 

I think this says a lot more about the human brain and emotions than about possible avenues for communicating with the dead, etc.

 

Now, I don't rule anything completely out until it's proven it can't happen -- but I also look at the arc of previous human behavior and what I know of the natural world before I accept a highly unlikely interpretation of events (given what is known of the physical universe) that is only one and pernaps one of the very least likely of many possible explanations.

 

 

It's still a big, mysterious world... but we insult its complexity and beauty when we settle for explanations that don't seem to rise above hoakum, worn out wives tales, or wishful thinking.

[theblue1]

I should probably rush to say that, though I am by training quite skeptical -- I do believe that we know far from everything about our natural world. I have had experiences which others might deem "supernatural"... I just think those experiences reflected a part of the natural order that we haven't sorted out yet.

 

 

At any rate, if I understand this "EVP" thing correctly, it should be very easy to test.

 

Send out a number of teams to graveyards, or other locales deemed to be "haunted" in some fashion as well as control groups to other randomly selected environments with a similar level and type of backgorund noises.

 

Then do a "blind listening test" on the lot of them and see how it sorts out...

[GY]

You guys have been listening to way too much Art Bell.

[KenElevenShadows]

Skeptics\' Dictionary article on EVP:

 

Electronic voice phenomenon is the alleged communication by spirits through tape recorders and other electronic devices. The belief in EVP in the United States seems to have mushroomed thanks to Sarah Estep, president of the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, which claims to have members in some 40 states and publishes a newsletter. Estep claims that in the 1970s she started picking up voices on her husband's Teac reel-to-reel recorder. She is sure that the voices are spirits, proving there is life after death. Estep also claims to hear voices of aliens on some of her tapes. She says she has taped some 20,000 ghosts and aliens. Aliens don't speak English, however, so she is not sure what they are saying.

 

Interest in EVP apparently began in the1920s. An interviewer from Scientific American asked Thomas Edison about the possibility of contacting the dead. Edison, a man of no strong religious views, said that nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere but

 

it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication. (Clark 1997: 235)

 

There is no evidence, however, that Edison ever designed or tried to construct such a device. And he probably did not foresee spirits communicating with our tape recorders and television sets.

 

While it is impossible to prove that all EVPs are due to natural phenomena, skeptics maintain that they are probably due to such things as interference from a nearby CB operator or cross modulation. Some of the "voices" are most likely people creating meaning out of random noise, a kind of auditory pareidolia or apophenia. And now that the phenomenon has a number of devoted followers (a recent Google search for "electronic voice phenomenon" yielded 12,200 hits, with this article coming up number one!), some hoaxers have probably entered the fray.

 

Here's some more information on EVP:

 

http://aaevp.com/

[theblue1]

I heard a ghostly voice on my fillings once... it kept saying "Breaker, breaker..."

 

I'm pretty sure it was my dead Aunt Tillie.

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by GY:

You guys have been listening to way too much Art Bell.

So that's possible to do?

[theblue1]

Have you ever played a tape of an Art Bell show during the daytime?

 

It's so out of its element. There's just something about listening to an AM radio at 3 in the morning that gives even the silliest stuff a little extra edge.

 

But if you play the same thing at 3 in the afternoon... unh.

 

It's like seeing a full-dress scary-ass punker out on Main Street at midday. What's compelling and intimidating in some dimly lit underground club just looks weird and pimply in the broad daylight. You know?

[Bill Roberts]

White noise is the sound that happens to all high frequencies, when a mstering engineer decides to push the level into abusive clipping.

 

Say "no" to levels above -15dbfs "whole track avereage"

[Bill Roberts]

thats right!

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by theblue1:

Have you ever played a tape of an Art Bell show during the daytime?

No, only in the evening, but even then, it seems...well, silly. Entertaining, sure, but a little silly.

[deanmass]

It is funny..The threads AlnDln refers to died quickly, but then again, I am the master thread killer.

 

I think this stuff is interesting, and one of the ones I heard that really creeped me out was the one recording new the old civil war spot ( cannot remember, but thinking S.C. or N.C.) and it was done by the discovery channel. Pretty interesting. I also think the human mind, or rather, some, are tuned into this stuff and some are not. I really believe it is a left brain/right brain correlation. Instinct is instinct, and sometimes I get 'vibes' at places. There are too many things that are not explained to discount, but I would not bet on proof any time soone either.