Recording a telephone conversation

[John Link]

I've been hired to record some interviews, one of which will be conducted over the phone. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to do this?

Thanks,
John Link

[roberts]

Radio shack sells ( or did) a device that starts to record when a phone anywhere in the house ( on the same line) is picked up. Almost any answering machine will do it as well but you must manually record each call.

[John Link]

I'm stuck with the lousy audio of the phone call but I don't want to add the lousy audio of the answering machine. Instead I'd like to be able to have a patch cord that has a telephone connector on one end and a 1/4'' or minijack connector on the other end that I would plug into my Edirol UA-3. Unless such a cord is available I guess I could wire it myself.

Or maybe I could ask the police, FBI, or CIA where they get theirs.

John Link

[John Link]

Is there any way to get the Sound Manager to listen to the modem? I'm on Cube with ProTools FREE.

John Link

[Park Seward]

The best way is to use a phone coupler (hybrid) that makes the phone sound better. It is like the systems used for radio call-in talk shows.

It lets you record the "host" on a seperate mic while reducing the sidetone that is heard on a regular phone. If you have tried to just tie in on a phone, you know that your voice will be a lot stronger than the person you are talking to.

I like the Telos stuff. "The Telos 100 Delta is our premiere POTS telephone interface, designed for mission-critical applications where quality audio and 24-hour reliability are paramount. Using advanced digital signal processing techniques, the 100 Delta produces the most natural sounding, two-way conversation even on the most difficult telephone lines."

http://www.telos-systems.com/

Also, check out Comrex. "Comrex supplies a full line of products designed to address the complex issues faced by call-in radio or television talk shows. Our products enable the audio from an ordinary telephone line to have the bet possible audio quality and clarity"

Comrex Couplers (Manual TCB-1A and Automatic TCB-2A) provide clean, transparent transformer connections from telephone lines to external audio equipment.

http://www.comrex.com/

Good luck!

[John Link]

Thanks, Park. Does anyone rent this sort of equipment? I'm in Manhattan.

John Link

[roberts]

Telephone voice lines carry only about a 3 to 4 khz bandwidwidth so no matter how you do it there will only at best be lo-fi over any analog phone system.

[MilesWonderland]

check out this link for $25

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as..._000&product_i d=43-2208

[Park Seward]

Originally posted by John Link:
Thanks, Park. Does anyone rent this sort of equipment? I'm in Manhattan.

John Link

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It can be rented in SoCal and I'm sure if you contacted some rental houses in NYC you could find some.

[GuitarEasley]

I am not sure if the program called "Advanced Call Recorder" works or not. I am not sure if it is of any quality either. I have never tried it and although I am skeptical take a peek at it here:

http://www.rayslab.com/

Title: Advanced Call Recorder 1.4
Description: Advanced Call Recorder records telephone conversations to your computer's hard disk. It stores calls as standard Windows sound files. Advanced Call Recorder can record conversations as long as your hard disk can store. The program is Caller ID compatible so there is no need to type numbers and names of calling parties.

Good luck & tell me if it works,

GuitarEasley