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Michael Esposito EVPs


Angel of Ioren

Friendly Skeptic
I just finished listening to the episode, and I have to agree with Gene.

Gene pretty much asked everything I was thinking as the guest was discussing his work.

Thanks for having that psychic connection with me Gene.
 
Hiya Angel. I'm holding off listening to the Esposito show until some of the guys make a few comments.

The EVP research 'community' isn't one that tends to attract my attention although the Gettysburg researcher is a very interesting guest in interviews. I guess Offut can also relay some interesting stories too. Lionel Fanthorpe is a great storyteller about ghosts also.

I'm not averse to the concept of ghosts, for a number of reasons, but most of the researchers in interviews can tell some extraordinary ghost stories that don't ring true...in my opinion.
 
Hiya Angel. I'm holding off listening to the Esposito show until some of the guys make a few comments.

The EVP research 'community' isn't one that tends to attract my attention although the Gettysburg researcher is a very interesting guest in interviews. I guess Offut can also relay some interesting stories too. Lionel Fanthorpe is a great storyteller about ghosts also.

I'm not averse to the concept of ghosts, for a number of reasons, but most of the researchers in interviews can tell some extraordinary ghost stories that don't ring true...in my opinion.

Well, that's kind of how I felt about this guest. The EVPs either sounded like nothing or they were too good to be true. Of course, the guest also said that skeptics of EVPs always say that. One problem I had was that the best sounding EVP was in his own voice.
 
One problem I had was that the best sounding EVP was in his own voice.


Maybe he was channelling. :)

I'm gonna check it out later. I am interested although "skeptical" of it. Still, I've heard (not this guy cause I havne't listened yet.) some interesting stuff. I also recommend Katherine Ramsland and a book called "Ghost" She did a "skeptical' search and atlhough neither a skeptic or a beliver she came up with an intersting story and incidents. :)
 
I don't know, I'm kind of open to the quantum physics explanation of EVPs, i.e., micro-wormholes and all.

What we think are ghost voices could be parallel universe over-lays.
 
sorry, from a technical point of view there were too many fundamental problems with the audio tech side of this for me to take this seriously. compression of frequency? frequency bandwidth limiting, yeah ok fine. vocorder? erm, vocoder yes, and the vocoder doesnt compress the audio it modulates. also, microsound deals with sound expansion and interpolation, sure it can compress but nothing ive heard so far in the podcast has mentioned this. But even by introducing granular interpolation (think about slicing up a picture vertically and spreading the slices out horizontally and you then hand drawing in between the slices to complete the image) you are still polluting the data according to the algorithms applied during the processing.

if mr.esperito was stating simple pitch changes (of however much % either way) i could see some technical means of recording other data that may be in the higher frequency ranges or lower frequencies.

anyway, i just registered to post this. this is too much like talking shop for me but happy to keep discussing...
 
sorry, from a technical point of view there were too many fundamental problems with the audio tech side of this for me to take this seriously. compression of frequency? frequency bandwidth limiting, yeah ok fine. vocorder? erm, vocoder yes, and the vocoder doesnt compress the audio it modulates. also, microsound deals with sound expansion and interpolation, sure it can compress but nothing ive heard so far in the podcast has mentioned this. But even by introducing granular interpolation (think about slicing up a picture vertically and spreading the slices out horizontally and you then hand drawing in between the slices to complete the image) you are still polluting the data according to the algorithms applied during the processing.

if mr.esperito was stating simple pitch changes (of however much % either way) i could see some technical means of recording other data that may be in the higher frequency ranges or lower frequencies.

anyway, i just registered to post this. this is too much like talking shop for me but happy to keep discussing...

Happy you registered and good to hear some professional audio input. I've recorded lots of music both in a studio and at home, but I'm not that well versed in all the technical aspects of audio recording.
 
sorry, from a technical point of view there were too many fundamental problems with the audio tech side of this for me to take this seriously. compression of frequency? frequency bandwidth limiting, yeah ok fine. vocorder? erm, vocoder yes, and the vocoder doesnt compress the audio it modulates. also, microsound deals with sound expansion and interpolation, sure it can compress but nothing ive heard so far in the podcast has mentioned this. But even by introducing granular interpolation (think about slicing up a picture vertically and spreading the slices out horizontally and you then hand drawing in between the slices to complete the image) you are still polluting the data according to the algorithms applied during the processing.

if mr.esperito was stating simple pitch changes (of however much % either way) i could see some technical means of recording other data that may be in the higher frequency ranges or lower frequencies.

anyway, i just registered to post this. this is too much like talking shop for me but happy to keep discussing...

So do you think all of these instances of EVP are faked, or is just Esposito produces fakes?

It seems like a lot of work to me, but explain on..
 
also, i realise that was quite a negative first post! im not calling michael out or anything, im just interested in how exactly he achieving these recordings. i know how difficult it is trying to convey heavy tech stuff in plain language!
 
also, i realise that was quite a negative first post! im not calling michael out or anything, im just interested in how exactly he achieving these recordings. i know how difficult it is trying to convey heavy tech stuff in plain language!

Okay, fair 'nuff.

I would like to go on one of these EVP jaunts, just to see how Esposito and others do it.

From what I gather from the show however, is that he just sets up the equipment and then leaves it.
 
just relistening to them just now...

the maggots one doesnt appear to have any filtering on it, to my ears at least i cant detect any of the artifacts i would expect to hear although without the details of the filtering going on i cant be 100% definite. if there was a before and after then i could call it.

the blue and gold to my ears just sounds like a normal crusty recording. i'll keep posting as i go through it...

---------- Post added at 07:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:06 PM ----------

there's a few things that you could do to make a good recording, but there has to be some understanding of how much you can capture.

if these recordings are essentially hidden and only audible upon playback then there is no real difference in using low level gear and uber-expensive mics and convertors. heck, use your mobile phone in that case. if it is that the speech is hidden in the higher frequency bands i.e it is just normal speech that is essentially so sped up so that it falls outwith our hearing range, like someone spinning a record so fast that the pitch shoots right up to the bat frequencies, then it's a whole different ball park.

human hearing goes from 20Hz to 20kHz (theoretically, in reality though most people by the time they reach 25 the upper limits start to decline), in order to record digitally, due to nyquist theorem, we need to capture audio at a rate of 44,100 slices a second to recreate it without artefacts (this is a minimum requirement). if this audio is above 20kHz then we need to record at more than twice the max frequency we want to hear. also, you need to make sure that the microphones you are using are capable of detecting fluctuations in the air at those frequencies in the first place otherwise the whole thing is compromised.

so really, in terms of equpiment today you want to be recording at 192kHz in order to capture frequencies up to 96kHz, and you need a microphone sensitive enough to operate at that level. you can get mics like that but they are megabucks. 192kHz analogue to digital converters are easy enough to come by though. note that this will NOT compress the audio whatsoever unless you are recording mp3 which would negate you having spent a small fortune on the gear.

so if the voices when up in the 80kHz range for example, you could slow down the audio to the point where you MAY hear it at an acceptable pitch. sure the quality will be ropey but i would imagine it to be a lot clearer. also, with digital, the noise floor (i.e the sound of the devices and the inherent hiss) would be below the audible hearing range (at best -140dBFS) so background noise would not be an issue. we are heading into a hellbroth of technical stuff but if anyone is interested I'll either go on in this post or somewhere else if thats better? dont want to derail this thread too much haha
 
Very interesting fold4wrap5, I never realized how technical sound recordings could get.

Esposito mentioned that regular off the shelf mics could pick up these EVPs. In your opinion could they?
 
the files that he has presented in the podcast dont demonstrate anything that would need expensive equpiment, however they would benefit from it if they were to be presented for analysis to any great depth. if there was anything that was interference as such then it would mean that the equipment of extremely low quality or the user had unbalanced cables that, at worst, would pick up radio signals but even these would have to be very strong and/or close by. so yeah, off the shelf mics would be capable of recording this stuff but i am always suspicious when i hear these recordings as the quality is dire. ive heard tape based dictaphones that have better s/n ratio (signal to noise) than was is presented here. anyone who works with digital audio to a degree of competency should be capable of working a noise reduction filter or EQ to minimise the background noise. if you were to pick up a zoon H2 or H4 you would get very acceptable (that would crap all over the stuff ive heard in EVPs) quality of audio. there are a fair amount of processes that you can do to audio that can clean it up without disturbing the audio too much. *rant over * heheh.

in summary, i dont buy into this particular demo of EVP. there's no context of a before and after processing to be objective enough about it.
 
I'm in no way an expert in audio or video tech stuff. :) But, I would think if you had a recorder and you said "Hey, uncle bob, it's me Dave." How's your back on the other side? Then you heard "Hey, Dave, it me Uncle Bob. My backs great over here." Well, then you know you got someting be you a techie or not. Otherwise, it's always open to speculation. This is one of those things I will keep an open although skekptical mind set on. :)
 
I'm in no way an expert in audio or video tech stuff. :) But, I would think if you had a recorder and you said "Hey, uncle bob, it's me Dave." How's your back on the other side? Then you heard "Hey, Dave, it me Uncle Bob. My backs great over here." Well, then you know you got someting be you a techie or not. Otherwise, it's always open to speculation. This is one of those things I will keep an open although skekptical mind set on. :)

yeah i totally agree with this, that's evidence that if the process is documented properly then you can't refute it. my whole beef with the whole EVP thing is that I know what the quality of recording can be these days, even at the lower end of the scale money-wise, and i've never heard a high quality recording. I can boost the levels of a room-ambience recording a helluva lot and the background noise would still be nowhere are rough as the majority i've heard. also dont think that you need super expensive software to analyse this stuff, there is plenty out there that will do the job.
 
There were a couple of people on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell some years ago. But, I never hear about them now. I'll have to look up their names. They had really clear evp's. So, clear in fact that it was suspicous. But, they didn't take a dime in donations and didn't sell books. They seemed sincere. But, like I said I would have to "hear it myself" to really beleive it. I wonder if a simple little 35 to 50 dollar digital recorder at Walmart would be any good. Any suggestions?

---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 PM ----------

tyder001 said:
There were a couple of people on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell some years ago. But, I never hear about them now. I'll have to look up their names. They had really clear evp's. So, clear in fact that it was suspicous. But, they didn't take a dime in donations and didn't sell books. They seemed sincere. But, like I said I would have to "hear it myself" to really beleive it. I wonder if a simple little 35 to 50 dollar digital recorder at Walmart would be any good. Any suggestions?


I looked it up and I think it was Barbara McBeath and Brendan Cook. I don't know if they are still active or not.
 
the files that he has presented in the podcast dont demonstrate anything that would need expensive equpiment, however they would benefit from it if they were to be presented for analysis to any great depth. if there was anything that was interference as such then it would mean that the equipment of extremely low quality or the user had unbalanced cables that, at worst, would pick up radio signals but even these would have to be very strong and/or close by. so yeah, off the shelf mics would be capable of recording this stuff but i am always suspicious when i hear these recordings as the quality is dire. ive heard tape based dictaphones that have better s/n ratio (signal to noise) than was is presented here. anyone who works with digital audio to a degree of competency should be capable of working a noise reduction filter or EQ to minimise the background noise. if you were to pick up a zoon H2 or H4 you would get very acceptable (that would crap all over the stuff ive heard in EVPs) quality of audio. there are a fair amount of processes that you can do to audio that can clean it up without disturbing the audio too much. *rant over * heheh.

in summary, i dont buy into this particular demo of EVP. there's no context of a before and after processing to be objective enough about it.

Thanks for the honest answer fold4wrap5, I learned quite a bit from it. From now on I'll listen to future EVP recordings with a more discerning "ear." 8)
 
im not in the states so i've no idea what the gear is you have over there. im listening to the final section about the gear on the podcast. the 'hiss' being heard on the recordings is the noisefloor of the device and/or the medium it is recording on. if the EVPs are only heard within the noisefloor does this imply that they are in the actual machine itself and not the airwaves surrounding it. if so then it stands to reason that if you get a device that is more sensitive (i.e it has a better signal to noise ratio) then the EVPs would be clearer. Under these rules, the EVPs are NOT in the hiss, they are just low enough in terms of volume that they are about -120dB in level and for most consumer grade gear the noisefloor is at best -105dB. For a real life comparison of dB, in terms of perceivable loudness, increasing something by 10dB doubles the loudness, vice versa would half the volume. so by a bit of maths you can see (bad pun i know) how quiet something would have to be if it is down at the noisefloor. Depending on which decibel (dB) scale you are using this can be different values (just getting that in in case someone tries to dig me up on my values ;) )
 
actually, this is complete misinformation this guy is spouting with regards to the equipment. the more expensive the equipment is, the LESS of an effect it has on the audio and the MORE transparent the device becomes. there is NO noise reduction unless you activate it, any engineer with half a clue would never touch anything that was as destructive to the audio.

the visual equivalent of this is only taking pictures of ghosts with a pinhole camera instead of a nikon D3s
 
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