Software

Wasn't sure where to put this, but "Equipment" seemed like a decent place.
About a month ago, my ex-girlfriend got a new Macbook, so she gave me her old Windows laptop computer, and I have been loading it with stuff to use for paranormal research. I thought I would post some of the FREE programs that I use and that I love.

First of all is of course...Audacity.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Easily the best free program to use for EVPs. Once you play around with it and learn what you are doing, it's an *amazing* program. I actually have the $350 Adobe Audition 3.0 on my laptop too, but I still find myself using Audacity more than anything else.

Next up...ClearVoice DeNoiser.

http://www.speechpro.com/eng/products/noise-cancellation-sys/clear-voice/

On this page, scroll down towards the bottom. There are a couple of other programs you can download here, but I haven't tried those yet. You are looking for the link that says "Download DeNoiser Demo". Click that. You are actually going to be using the Demo version...not the full version, so click on "Demo Version" when you start the program and the menu pops up.
Because it's the Demo version, you can only clean clips that are up to 30 seconds long, but that's plenty long enough for EVPs.
I love this program.

Next is...EVP Assistant

http://www.evpuk.com/evp_assistant_software.html

This is a nice little free program that lets you play up to 30 minutes of different kinds of noises (white noise, pink noise, brown noise, etc). And even the Spiricom noise, which is supposed to give REALLY good results when trying for EVP, but listening to it for more than a minute makes me dizzy and makes my eyeballs twitch.
We've actually been experimenting lately on investigations with this stuff. Before the investigation, we put the laptop in a supposedly active area and flood the place with white noise, brown noise, and pink noise for about an hour. This supposedly "charges" the room with sound energy and makes it easier to get EVPs later that night on the investigation. It actually seems to work for us, too. If we already caught EVPs at the location, we loop those into the noises, too, since some researchers believe that playing EVPs out loud in the area where you captured them will increase activity in that area. The spirits hear their own voices being played and supposedly become more active.
Oh, and you download it as a .RAR file, so you will need some kind of unzipping program to open it. Luckily, there are lot of good free programs out there to use for this, too.

Next up is...KMPlayer

http://kmplayer.en.softonic.com/

This is basically a movie player, but if you right-click on the screen, you can see some of the amazing things you can do with it! You can go through videos frame-by-frame, you can lighten/darken video, you can take awesome screencaps of video, you can capture audio from videos, and a bazillion other things. It's great for analyzing video evidence!

And lastly is...FastStone Image Viewer

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

I've used Photoshop and many other photo-editing programs, but for most of my ghosthunting photos, I find myself using this program. I am addicted to it. It does take a few minutes to figure out what's going on (when double-clicking on a picture and it goes full-screen, moving the mouse to the 4 sides of the screen opens different options), but I absolutely love this program. On almost all of my photos, I move the mouse to the left side of the screen, then I click on "Enhance Colors", and then I play around with "Gamma", "Brightness", and "Contrast". Unlike a lot of other programs, you get to see full-sized how this changes the photo. I love this program.

So, hopefully some of these come in handy for you guys!

Thanks! I've got a program on our old desktop that is currently .. um. Dead. And I was fretting about this because I wanted to play with some EVP's I did around Christmas time.

Would you be interested in tutoring me on the progs if I have problems?

Of course! I am still learning some of them as I go, but I will do what I can!

That is an amazing list of software, Kurt! Thank you very much for going through all that trouble. I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate that!

Awsome! Thanks!

You are welcome!
I am a bit of a freeware addict, so I have lotsa nifty programs on my computer.
There's a lot of good stuff out there, but a lot of people don't realize it. It always boggles my mind when people go out and spend $50-$100 for software when there are free programs that do it just as well, if not better.

Yeah, or more even, depending on what you want. Like Adobe Premiere for video editing or Audition for audio editing. Anything Adobe really is pricey. I guess if you have the money! But yeah, free stuff is definitely a great option to have!

HPI-Kurt wrote:Of course! I am still learning some of them as I go, but I will do what I can!

.. well I'll be knocking on your PM's system if I can't figure something out!

Hey Jeanette and / or Tony - would it be OT if I added some other progs I use? They aren't really related to anything paranormal, just quick helps in clearing up and out the PC. Or would there be a better area for that perhaps?

HPI-Kurt wrote:You are welcome!
It always boggles my mind when people go out and spend $50-$100 for software when there are free programs that do it just as well, if not better.

Me too! I love the free stuff and I usually 'tip' at least once per year to the programmers paypal if they offer up a way. Especially those that run their own sites to help out others for free.

Two of my siblings (while I am NO guru by any means, at least know how to run defrag, and update my own progs, etc) pay people to clean up their PC's. Now I've sent them the sites and given them very detailed instructions - fool proof! - on how to d/l and install, than run on various items. But they refuse saying 'oh no.. that's why people go to school for this stuff'. Well to a point I agree, but I save them for when I get blue screen .. and it won't go away

Last fall, I went and cleaned up and out my bro's PC (I suspect he clicked on a loaded jpeg and downloaded in the background a PW sniffer and some other stuff) when he couldn't get on the net. The really sucky part was some of the stuff I updated for him, he had paid some lady to 'install' and they were all free progs. Then I went into MY email and showed him where I sent him the same stuff earlier - he was a tad ticked off.

SILLYGOOSE wrote:Hey Jeanette and / or Tony - would it be OT if I added some other progs I use? They aren't really related to anything paranormal, just quick helps in clearing up and out the PC. Or would there be a better area for that perhaps?

That's fine, Goose. If you'd even like to start a new thread for it, that'd be cool too.

Yeah, Goose, I've had friends who had the same sorts of issues. They paid someone to fix their computer and install antivirus programs, anti-spyware programs, and firewall programs, when I could have done the same thing on their computer for free in 5 minutes. It pisses me off when someone takes advantage of someone like that, so I enjoy helping people when they are having computer issues.
Two sites that I absolutely *LOVE* are:

http://lifehacker.com/

http://www.downloadsquad.com/

Both of these sites have GREAT freeware reviews and downloads, tech tips, and real-life tips. Definitely worth checking out.

I use audition not only for my investigations but also for my business, needless to say i'm very well versed in it's capabilities. If anyone needs a mini tutorial on how to use feel free to contact me.