Paranormal - EVP Howto

Page Title: Paranormal - EVP Howto
Last Modified: 2026-07-07 14:46:33
Current Date: 2026-07-22 11:30:42 UTC

Paranormal Investigators depict electronic voice phenomena (EVP) as sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices which one does not hear at the time of recording.

These are my thoughts on how to record EVP’s properly with at least some sort of controllability.

I believe that you should have a minium of 2 recorders (one for recording environment and the other as your main investigation recorder).
You should place the environment recorder about 5m away from you and leave it running whilst you do your EVP sessions. This is to record the ambient noise in the local environment so you can use this later to help identify any erroneous sounds (like cars, animals or people talking/shouting). This way if you get something which you think might be an EVP on your main investigation recorder(s) you can then double check on the environmental ambient recorder to see if this noise voice appears or not. This way you can discount any erroneous sounds.

I personally have 4 voice recorders now. I have 2 high quality Olympus DM-770 8GB recorders and 2 cheap Chinese 8GB recorders.

I use the following recorders for....
Olympus DM-770 8GB recorder as my environment recorder
Olympus DM-770 8GB recorder as one of my main EVP recorders.
1 cheap Chinese 8GB recorder as a secondary EVP recorder.
1 cheap Chinese 8GB recorder as a white noise player

With the “White Noise Player” I have it loaded white noise, pink noise, brown noise, chrome noise and Spirit Box Sweeps in various durations from 1 minute to 1 hour.

These recorders have the ability to listen live to what is being recorded by plugging in to the speaker socket which is great for live monitoring.

Doing things this way is a bit more work but does help to rule any erroneous sounds, record the same session but from different recorders and also live monitoring.

One of the things people don’t know is how an EVP is actually left on a recording device. Most people just guess and say it’s the microphone that records the EVP, yet EVP’s have supposedly been left on devices with a disabled or null microphone. Some EVP’s have been supposedly left with the recorder under water, or in a vacuum chamber. Some people guess it’s done through the electronic circuitry, some guess it’s only possible to get EVP’s when white noise is playing nearby.

The thing is NOBODY actually knows, not me, not you, not anybody. This is why I am testing each different way but to be honest I have not recorded a single EVP on any equipment so from my perspective EVP’s are not real but I am a optimistic skeptic and I shall keep researching and trying things.

When asking questions make sure you keep to some rules.

How to ask questions for EVP.

1) Only have 1 person ask the questions and make sure everyone else there don't speak as there is always someone who will chip in after the question as ask something else before you had a chance to hear a potential response and mostly if there was a response that person would of spoken over it preventing you from hearing what it says. Reminds me of these times when...
a) we heard this strange music and I quickly pull out a recorder and the my son goes "what you doing, why are you recording that, why do you want to record that, why why why" but which time the strange music had stopped and all I had on the recorder was about 1 second of music followed by "what you doing, why are you recording that, why do you want to record that, why why why" all over the top of the recording.
b) I am asking if our past father-in-law was here in his old house and then alive mother-in-law starts asking me "why you do that, what do you hope to get, is he here, what did you say, i can't hear anything, blah blah blah do you want a cup of tea" and alas I don't know if I caught anything as it just a recording of mother-in-law blah blah blah.
So always ask everyone to be still and quiet.

2) Try to ask a single question and then wait for a response. So many people will ask a double ended question. A person who asks a double-ended question is often called a “leading” question asker (or sometimes they’re said to be asking a “loaded” question), since they are trying to nudges the respondent towards one of two outcomes. So ask "Did you work here" instead of "Did you work here or somewhere else".

3) Always leave at least 30 seconds for a response. Don't ask a question and then 5 seconds later ask another. Give the spirits a chance to answer. Also if you get a reply how do you know what question it pertains too if you don't leave suitable response time.

4) The spirit box is a radio. Sometimes you will hear coherent words because it's scanning through these actual radio stations broadcasting actual content so make sure if the response is an "intelligent response" that aligns with the question asked. This doesn't mean every spirit box session is explainable but it does mean you need to be extremely cautious before declaring that you havee made contact with the dead through a device that is, fundamentally, just radio scanning radio frequencies.