EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) is the capturing of what some people consider "ghost voices" on a recording device. The "ghost voices" are not heard at the time of making the recording, but can be heard while playing the recording back. The use of headphones while playing back an EVP recording can help to pick up these otherwise silent voices more clearly.

I am simplistic and like to classify EVP recordings using the a system developed by Sarah Estep, founder of the AAEVP (American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomenon) because it offers an easy way to place the recordings into a few distinct categories. Some people like to further classify their recordings into even more subcategories.

Class A EVPs are loud and clear and easily understood by all who hear them. We have been able to capture two Class A EVPs since I began doing recordings. However, Class A EVPs are extremely rare and are the very type of EVP evidence we seek.

Class B EVPs can be heard but are harder to understand. When reviewing EVP evidence, those who listen agree that there is a voice, but they cannot always agree on what is being said. The words seem too garbled to make out clearly. This type of EVP seems to be the most common that is captured. The voices can usually be filtered and cleaned up by working with an audio editing program.

Expensive equipment isn't necessary, especially when first starting out. We have captured a Class A and some good Class B EVPs on a very inexpensive micro-cassette recorder without an external microphone. Later, we purchased a more expensive micro-cassette recorder and then a digital voice recorder.

We like to work with several different types of voice recorders. My preference is for a digital voice recorder, which is excellent at picking up even the slightest whisper from a great distance. Some digital voice recorders come with software to upload the recordings onto a computer and some do not. Recordings from voice recorders that do not come with software can still be uploaded with the use of an audio cable which can plug into the recorder and the computer and be uploaded as a sound wave (wav) into a software audio program for playback on a computer.

We still use the micro-cassette recorder and also a regular cassette recorder with an external microphone. We try to bring all the recorders along, just in case someone else may want to work with one. Some people recommend the use of a white noise or other background noise source when using cassette recorders because these types of recorders can pick up the sound of their own mechanics, like the cassette wheels turning.