EVP recording sessions - techniques and equipment recommendations

I've been experimenting with EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recording for about six months, mostly in documented haunted locations around Yorkshire. I've had some interesting results and wanted to open a discussion about methodology and equipment.

Currently using: Olympus LS-11 digital recorder (£180 second-hand from eBay), a decent external microphone, and running sessions in silence for 20-30 minutes with minimal interference. I always do control recordings in non-haunted locations for comparison.

Questions: What's your preferred equipment? Has anyone experimented with frequency generators or specific types of ambient sound as a 'prompt' for communication? And - this is important - how do you validate whether an EVP is genuine anomalous sound versus audio pareidolia?

Would love to hear about your setups and findings.

Pareidolia is the real problem with EVP work, honestly. The human brain is pattern-recognition machine. Have you tried blind testing your recordings - playing them to people without telling them what you expect to hear?

I use a Zoom H6 recorder with a shotgun microphone. Bit more expensive but way better signal-to-noise ratio. The key is eliminating ambient interference as much as possible. Have you considered white noise or pink noise as a baseline instead of silence?

There's interesting research suggesting certain frequencies (around 19Hz) can induce feelings of unease and potentially enhance perception. Not saying it'll get you EVP, but worth experimenting. The frequency generator idea is solid.

I've done EVP work for years and honestly it's 95% pareidolia. But that 5% is genuinely unexplained. The control recordings are essential - good on you for doing that.