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Randomized allophones as a raw audio source for EVP

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Posted: Mar 30th, 2008 05:16 PM

EVPfan
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Hi fellow researchers,

some members of the EVP-ITC YahooGroup are currently experimenting with the SpeakJet chip in order to construct a device which produces random babble for use as an EVP sound source. This method seems to hold great potential, as first tests revealed.

The SpeakJet chip has 72 allophones (speech elements) and a number of sound effects stored onto it which can be assembled to words and sentences. It also has a demo mode in which it plays all stored sounds over and over. Someone from the group who had ordered this chip posted an audio example of the demo mode recently. 'Just for fun' I opened this file in Audition, deleted everything except for the 72 allophones, and stored the boundaries of each of the 72 allophones into the cue list (this is a list of sample offsets and lengths, embedded inside the wav file). Then I opened this allophones wav file in EVPmaker and made a test session with it. At first I heard only babble, but after a few attempts I suddenly heard a clear voice which seemed to say:

"I little sir help you with it."

I posted my results in the group, and some of the members there made EVPmaker sessions, using the wav file with the SpeakJet allophones as a sound source. It turned out that this combination also seems to have a great potential. The voices were often responding immediately to questions, and often they could even be heard during the recording.

If some of you would like to experiment with this method, you can download the allophones wav file here:

SpeakJetAllophones.wav

If used in EVPmaker, it's important to check the "Use Cue List" option.

Happy EVPing!

Stefan

Posted: Apr 5th, 2008 07:27 PM

Slider2732
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Are these chips like the Texas Instruments ones from days of old, Speak&Spell etc ?
Or the answering machine ones perhaps, that announce messages and time of day ?

If so, i'm wondering if they can be driven by a square wave oscillator (simple 555 timer circuit) along with a white noise pair of transistors to 'dirty' the input and be made to produce random voice parts !
Or, maybe, drive them at a slightly less than ideal voltage and have them randomly sound...as happens to some electronics with near dead batteries.
I found that a 74161 binary counter would output random data if driven at 3V and thats the line of my thinking.

Posted: Apr 6th, 2008 03:39 AM

EVPfan
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Hi Slider,

I don't know the TI chips. Are they still available? I only know of the Votrax SC-01 which was popular in the Eighties. The SpeakLet chip is controlled over a serial line; the protocol is described the manual. In the EVP-ITC group there are some members who build devices to let the SJ chip generate randomized speech. Frank Sumption uses a random voltage generator and a schmitt trigger to feed the serial input with random pulses; Rob Fitzgerald uses a programmed PIC and an EMF receiver unit to control the chip.

Stefan

Posted: Apr 6th, 2008 06:53 AM

Slider2732
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Ahh yes, sorry Stefan..Frank's RoboBox sweep circuit. I hadn't seen the chip before and understand it all more now (should have clicked your link to the chip yesterday!).
5 oscillators with 4 waveforms including saw/square/sine/triangle...that there is enough for a small 18 pin device and that's beside it being able to talk as its main function!
I don't have the resources to get hold of one of these at the moment, but can see how useful they must be and will have a try with the SpeakJetAllophones wave file :biggrin:

:biggrin:

Intelligibility of course is much improved with using the allophones, your posted .wav was readily understood. Do we call such a thing a 'great catch' ? lol, but that's what it seems to be.

I have a Speak&Spell, have built a square/saw/sine wave sound shaping device recently and so might set about seeing what can be done with the audio from the speech chip in that too. A fantastic online emulator for the unit is here: http://www.speaknspell.co.uk/
The TMS chips themselves went on to be improved and incorporated into digital answering machines etc.

Last edited on Apr 6th, 2008 06:55 AM by Slider2732

Posted: May 24th, 2008 09:20 AM

Keith Clark
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Here are instructions for those of you wishing to experiment with the allophones and Stefan Bion's EVPMaker software.

Microsoft Word file

Some of you will also find that a slowed down version of the file may be easier to work with.

Slowed down 15%

Slowed down 20%

Keith

Stefan, thanks for the heads up and the experiment idea.

Attachment: Allophone Experiment Instructions.doc (Downloaded 1746 times)

Last edited on May 24th, 2008 11:00 AM by Keith Clark

Posted: May 25th, 2008 05:46 AM

Vicki Talbott
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Thank yo Keith and Stefan, for providing what we need! Vicki

Posted: May 25th, 2008 06:14 AM

Vicki Talbott
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Hi Keith,

I tried this the other day and was able to save my EVP file. This time I can't remember what I did to stop it and save it. Can you or anyone else help? I was using the allophones. When I stop the EVP recording, it does not give me the option to save it. Thanks, Vicki

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Posted: May 25th, 2008 05:13 PM

Keith Clark
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Hi Vicki,

I don't know all the ins and outs of evpmaker, but I do know that you won't get the export button functionality until you have:

Opened a file, clicked on the lower left record button, clicked on the make evp button, then clicked on stop. Then the EXP button will appear.

I haven't read the manual yet, but hope it helps.

Keith

Posted: May 26th, 2008 10:38 PM

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Hi all,

@Keith: Thanks for providing a slowed down version of the SpeakJet file and the instructions. You're right, whith the slow version of the allophones file, the zero cross option should be selected to avoid the clicks between the allophones. In the original allophones file this isn't necessary since the cues are already aligned to zero crossings of the waveform.

@Vicki: To be able to save the EVP file, you must create an EVP session (click the "Rec" button). Keith had explained it very well.

@ParanormalAnalysisLab: Sorry, but I can't hear "prepared to"; I always hear "little sir"... :biggrin:

:biggrin:

Stefan

Posted: May 27th, 2008 06:28 AM

Vicki Talbott
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Thanks Keith and Stefan for helping me. I tried it with some pretty amazing results. Will share as soon as I get back from work and convert the files. Vicki

Posted: May 27th, 2008 12:56 PM

Vicki Talbott
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Hi Keith, Stefan and all,

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I decided to use this thread so that you could listen to my first attempt using EVPmaker and the 72 allophones. I asked what I was looking at (You can hear me say this over the allophones). I was recording using a quiet digital recorder and having the sound come out of the computer speakers through EVPMaker. I could hear:

EVP: "Kobi" said right as I finish my sentence, then

EVP: "Braden, it's near Braden's, something about Lake Padden."

I was looking at a picture of my son Braden, doctored in Photoshop to include a backdrop or layer of a photo of his dog running down at Lake Padden, which is very near our house! His dog's name is Kobi, and as I said I can hear that just as I stop speaking and before the "Braden" part begins. What are the chances that the allophones would line up this way? Amazing. And I could hear it live. I got a few more too in the same short recording. Sheesh. Vicki

Attachment: bitsnearbssomethingaboutlakepadden.mp3 (Downloaded 1717 times)

Posted: May 29th, 2008 07:18 PM

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Hi Vicki,

I could hear most parts (not all) of your EVP. However, the reference (the picture) is intriguing.

Stefan

Posted: May 30th, 2008 05:19 AM

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Hi all,

at the bottom of the EVPmaker page, there's now a link to an article, "Using EVPmaker with SpeakJet Allophones". It's meant as an introduction or a "how to" for interested persons who heard about this method in various radio shows, and who are now looking for more information. On the web page, there's also a download link to the allophones file, and some EVP examples yielded by various experimenters.
Please let me know if anything is unclear in this article.

Stefan

Posted: May 30th, 2008 06:19 AM

Keith Clark
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Hi Stefan,

It's very clear, and I think the presentation of examples was excellent! Definitely intriguing, makes a person want to know more. Certainly fulfills the task of inspiring others!....

People don't often present varying examples of good samples from different people, and I know why - it's a lot of work!

Thanks for your work & help! I'd like to get some intimate experience with this method this weekend, will try these experiments.

Have you posted this on AAEVP?

Keith

Last edited on May 30th, 2008 06:20 AM by Keith Clark

Posted: May 30th, 2008 06:35 AM

EVPfan
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Hi Keith,

thanks for your feedback. For a tech freak like me it's sometimes difficult to write comprehensible user instructions... :biggrin:

:biggrin:

No, I didn't yet post it on AA-EVP, since I don't have access to the forum - but I asked Tom Butler for a password.

Good luck for your experiemnts!

Stefan

Posted: May 30th, 2008 12:47 PM

Vicki Talbott
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Thanks Stefan and all,

I have been getting relevant results, albeit not exptremely clear upon first listen, especially the longer ones. I have found if you break them up, you can hear them more clarly, especially since some random allophones will appear, but not enough to mess up the main message. Will post more soon. They seem to come very quickly after the questio is asked so as to rule out false positives. Vicki

Posted: Jun 3rd, 2008 09:55 AM

Slider2732
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Vicki...i'm a waste of time with these allophones and I do apologise. I keep hearing it as so similar to Josh Wink's - Higher State of Consciousness dance track.
But, think about it, what a great title for a music track and the research !
The sounds come out like a Roland TB-303 to me...take a YouTube listen:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y9gWA491H4U

I'll go back to my corner now :blushing:

:blushing:

Last edited on Jun 3rd, 2008 09:56 AM by Slider2732

Posted: Jun 3rd, 2008 10:41 AM

Vicki Talbott
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Hey Slider,

You can come out of your corner. Man that video could drive anyone crazy, just like trying to listen for EVP with this and other similar methods. If it's not right after my question or clear to me, I'm out of there. And I don't put myself in the corner, either! :blink:

:blink:

Vicki

Posted: Jun 3rd, 2008 12:32 PM

Slider2732
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hehe, tainted by my fascination with those little silver bleep boxes I tell ya !
The allophone recordings can only become clearer with the research going on...am really looking forward to more successes by folks using them. I'll get hold of a SpeakJet as soon as I can and hopefully deconbobulate myself away from the sound associations

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Posted: Sep 7th, 2008 07:52 AM

Vicki Talbott
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Hi Estee
Looking forward to your results. I haven't had a lot of time to record lately, but will be able to start up again soon. I also enjoy the EVPMaker. Vicki

Posted: Sep 20th, 2008 06:32 AM

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Hi Estee & all,

glad to read that of your success with EVPmaker. Such "field reports" are also very intresting and encouraging to me.

It's weird - usually I don't remember my dreams very well, and often enough, some "great ideas" I have in dreams turn out as absolute nonsense after I wake up. But last night it was different. I had a very vivid and detailed dream which I could remember after I woke up. In this dream I explained to someone a possible new feature for EVPmaker while drawing a sketch with a pencil on a sheet of paper. (The following image is a reproduction of the sketch from the dream.)

This new feature which I called "auto-cut" was thought to divide the source audio file into sections at the points of the volume minima. For this, an adjustable threshold value could be defined, and markers (M) are set at points where the volume envelope of the audio signal crosses this threshold. In the middle between two of such markers where there is a "volume envelope valley", a cue point (or cutting mark) is set. These cue points are used by EVPmaker to cut the signal into pieces and play them back in a random order.

Since these cutting marks are at points of the lowest volume, the pieces represent the natural rhythm of human speech. Perhaps this is easier to use for our EVP partners to form new words...

Actually an interesting idea ... or maybe an inspiration?

Stefan

Posted: Sep 20th, 2008 09:29 AM

Keith Clark
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Hi Stefan,

When I think of live evp, I always think of rising and falling amplitude. I don't know the technical terms, but I feel as if the natural rise and fall of the energy expressed in a sound wave are better for communication - versus a rather consistent background sound source.

I think your idea is great, and as you stated - the most obvious possible improvement could be in the ability for spirit to communicate in a more coherent and fluid manner........or maybe it could improve our ability to be able to understand what they are saying because the floor and ceiling levels of the amplitude would be more similar to regular human speech - rather than mismatched bursts.

On another note, I'm gonna say what anyone else would say to me if I told them that I had a dream about it. I'd say go with your feeling. Maybe you remembered it because you were supposed to. I mean, it's said that we do all kinds of things when we are "asleep" at night, right?

Lol, I just remembered to tell you something. I've had this crazy idea of using your software in a different way - not for ITC, but for random music generation. I wondered "what if I could record a range of notes at different durations, and put them all in a library in a cue list? Could I just click play and site back as the random playback generated patterns and musical combinations without me having to think them. Then I could just sit back and pause it when I hear somethig I like...."

Isn't that a little weird?

Keith

Posted: Sep 20th, 2008 12:10 PM

Vicki Talbott
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Hi Stefan,
Could you easily make this work with EVPMaker? That sounds fascinating. I say inspiration. Vicki

Posted: Sep 21st, 2008 08:17 PM

Regan
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We've had and owned the first speakjet box. Rob, from Deadscience, made it for our team. We're in the same ITC EVP board on yahoo.

Posted: Sep 22nd, 2008 03:34 PM

nerol
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wow this is really cool... one more thing for me to get obsessed with lol ... well i bookmarked the page, and hope to get into this when time permits (my list of to do things is a million miles long), but this seems much more usable than the simple radio sweep thing ... i'm hoping

Posted: Sep 30th, 2008 05:13 PM

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Hi all,

okay, a new EVPmaker version is out - V2.5 - which includes the new "Auto-cut" feature from my dream.

If you use it for actual EVP recordings, I recommend using a foreign language file instead of English (or whatever language you understand), since sometimes the cut-out sections are a bit long and may include several syllables or even words which may be misleading. Nevertheless, the output sounds interesting... (I'll have yet to play with it more).

Stefan

Posted: Sep 30th, 2008 05:15 PM

Vicki Talbott
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Thanks, Stefan! I'll download it now and try it soon. Vicki

Posted: Oct 12th, 2008 09:36 AM

Slider2732
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Hey Stefan, that's wonderful news about how the dream aspect worked into the program. The volume envelope valley would seem a natural method for a spirit to form chop points in audio or use as cue points. As we don't know how a spirit shapes EVP, if it makes sense to us, it could very well make sense to them.
The natural flow of human speech, pauses in particular, would create much better definition. Imagine Vicki's contact with the correct pauses in place and you can see that any sceptic would have a hard time rubbishing it!
The evolvement of EVPmaker has been a joy to watch and, it's suitability to the allophones is impressively slick...like it was supposed to go along with it.

One thought of mine, for a while, has been to use a speech chip of some type and have a similar output as your EVPmaker delivers, now including the dream fueled aspects too. Housed in a small portable unit, the device could be used out in the field during investigations.
Have you thought about using the code within a portable device environment ?
I know the PC is way different to solid state electronics, but the code, the methods, the adapability of the thoughts behind the program just screams at me to have this run as a portable unit. Sure, a laptop could be used and that's one idea, perhaps it could be ported to a PDA as a stepping stone toward a pocket sized device ?

Does the output feature variable speed output ? I think that was a great idea of Keith's and links with the popular scanning radio methods. While it is commonly thought that spirit messages can sometimes make more sense sped up or slowed down by distinct multiples...it seems very possible that starting with a speed and having it speed 'sensed' by spirit interaction algorithms could be another project direction

Last edited on Oct 12th, 2008 09:40 AM by Slider2732

Posted: Oct 13th, 2008 12:05 AM

joecioppi
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EVPfan wrote: Hi Slider,

I don't know the TI chips. Are they still available? I only know of the Votrax SC-01 which was popular in the Eighties. The SpeakLet chip is controlled over a serial line; the protocol is described the manual. In the EVP-ITC group there are some members who build devices to let the SJ chip generate randomized speech. Frank Sumption uses a random voltage generator and a schmitt trigger to feed the serial input with random pulses; Rob Fitzgerald uses a programmed PIC and an EMF receiver unit to control the chip.

Stefan
Stefan,

I believe that all EVP/ITC methods are based on randomness in this dimension. The signature of noise is its true randomness. Your randomizer code is producing intelligent messages in the same manner as noise input would. The closer to random nature the more accurate may be the conversion. Your parallel printer noise input is ingenius, but he code randomizer in EVP/maker is good enough, judging from the results using the alophone file.

If a true noise source, such as your bit external generator, could be analyzed for a characteristic that might act as a squelch gate for the binary data, the nonsense alophones might blocked allowing more words to be produced in context. Phase shift, noise amplitude, bandpass, might be detected to produce a gate signal. Since my weakness is programming, I would like to try some analog tricks on my clone of the bit generator. It will keep me out of the code.

Of course, the code randomizer might be filtered by the comparison of strings of code with a library of words.

What do you think about these possibilities?

joecioppi

Last edited on Oct 13th, 2008 12:10 AM by joecioppi

Posted: Nov 28th, 2008 06:15 PM

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Hi Joe,

I didn't receive a notification e-mail of new posts, so I didn't see your posting earlier.

It's my belief too that randomness is the basis for EVP/ITC as well as for most so-called Psi phenomena. And I too didn't notice any remarkable difference between true randomness and mathematical pseudo randomness.

I have a hypothesis for the origin of EVP which is based on synchronicity. Psychokonesis experiments in Psi labs have shown that although test persons were able to "influence" a display which was controlled by a random generator, no anomaly or fluctuation in the random signal itself was found. For this reason I don't think that it will be successful to use the characteristics of a true random signal as a reference to compare it to a second random signal in order to detect anomalies in it which may indicate meaningful EVP messages.

However, it's only my view; perhaps things are different -- it's surely worth a try...

Stefan

Posted: Nov 28th, 2008 07:56 PM

joecioppi
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Stephan,

I often thought that the sense a message stands out from background nonsense. The analysis of the generated vocal stream for literal content might be done fast enough to suppress vocals that are not related to the message coming through. Our minds can do this with focus on correlating the theme of the conversation if the message stream is slow enough.

Text readers can infer vocal qualities to the synthesized voice in relation to position in sentences, punctuation, etc. Something faster than the slow editing process using a sound processor program might approach a clearer reading. I'm not surprised that the random control in the lab tests didn't show variations since I also believe that we are dealing with an overall creation of things and events set in action by a creator. The intelligence is in randomness by design and not at our command.

The bible code investigations show messages related to past and future events hiding in a field of characters. The ancient text is unchanged but the meanings relating to current events become clear as events unfold. That may indicate that the random activity in the universe may be already established.

joecioppi

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Posted: Oct 1st, 2009 01:20 PM

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Hi Lindsay,

does it work if you right-click the link and save the file to disk? I had taken some precautions recently to prevent other websites linking directly to my sound files (as for instance this one). If saving the files doesn't work, I think I'll have to remove the referrer check.

Stefan

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Posted: Oct 2nd, 2009 01:49 PM

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Congratulations on your great results, Lindsay, and thanks for sharing! :thumbup:

:thumbup:

Posted: Nov 22nd, 2009 06:57 PM

Slider2732
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Hello all. Just tried this again after a long break and got mixed results. It seemed that with the slowed down 20% allophones, I was able to make whomever begin a chattering of the output. I asked several questions and would get a blippy stop to allophone output. In and of itself that was quite interesting.
But, they seemed to have trouble with the word 'coffee', several tries seemed to come through.

Quite absorbing.

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