Recording Telephone conversation.

[Jeff Toogood]

The project I am working on needs to have some testimonials recorded over the phone.
What would be the best way to record this? Is there some sort of interface I could get to accomplish this? Or do I have to stick a microphone up the headset of the phone?

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Jeff Toogood

The project I am working on needs to have some testimonials recorded over the phone.
What would be the best way to record this? Is there some sort of interface I could get to accomplish this? Or do I have to stick a microphone up the headset of the phone?

Jay Rose's book "Producing Great Sound for Digital Video" has instructions for building a "phone patch" device that couples the phone line to your mixer. Parts are a couple of bucks at Radio Snak.

[Michael Fossenkemper]

A lot of people I know are using Skype.

It's an internet telephone program that sounds quite good. It's free if both parties are talking via the internet or you can pay a small fee to call a land line. The nice thing is that you use your computer which would allow you to capture the audio.

My setup is

Powerbook G4, Using Skype software. I use the internal mic on the computer and plug in some headphones. I call the other person via Skype, Can be a land line or another Skype'r. I use Audio Hijack to grab the audio and record it on the laptop. I can record in any format. After I'm done, I end the capture and I now have an audiofile that I can import into any program.

[Jeff Toogood]

Originally Posted by Steve House

Jay Rose's book "Producing Great Sound for Digital Video" has instructions for building a "phone patch" device that couples the phone line to your mixer. Parts are a couple of bucks at Radio Snak.

Any idea what those parts are?? I have to get this done this week and don't have time to order the book.

[Jeff Toogood]

Originally Posted by Michael Fossenkemper

A lot of people I know are using Skype.

I use Audio Hijack to grab the audio and record it on the laptop. I can record in any format. After I'm done, I end the capture and I now have an audiofile that I can import into any program.

Any idea what a similiar application for the PC would be?

Thanks

[Michael Fossenkemper]

They make the program for PC as well.

www.Skype.com

[Jeff Toogood]

No, the Audio Hijack program seems to be MAC specific.

[Dan Brown]

I use my PMD221 cassette to record telephone calls and it works pretty well.

BTW, B&H has a whole section of telephone line audio adapters,
<a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=search&Q=&ci=8815">here</a>

I've not used any of them, perhaps others can comment.

[Stephen Schleicher]

I've written an article (podcasting 103 in the tutorial/other section) over at my website (www.stephenschleicher.com), that describes how to record a skype conversation on both the Mac and PC.

Cheers

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Jeff Toogood

Any idea what those parts are?? I have to get this done this week and don't have time to order the book.

Here you go:

600 ohm, 1:1 transformer (273-1374)
0.1 microfarad capacitor (272-1069)
phone cord w/ modular on one end and bare wire on the other (279-310)
audio cable w/ plug for mixer or sound card line-in

Connect the red wire of the phone cable to the red wire on the transformer.
Connect the green wire of the phone cord to in series with the capacitor to the yellow wire on the transformer.
Connect the center conductor of the audio cable to the gray wire on the transformer.
Connect the shield on the audio cable to the black wire from the transformer.

And that's it. Connect to the phone line with a Y-adapter like you use for an answering machine. Sends a line-level unbalanced mono signal to the mixer audio. Jay note's that your voice on the local phone will be about 20db hotter than the person on the other end so be sure to mute the phone to keep breath noises etc from intruding and be prepared to ride gain.

For a more sophisitcated system, check a ham radio or broadcast supplier for a "hybrid phone patch"

Here's one I just spotted with a quick google ... http://www.jkaudio.com/inline-patch.htm

[Hsien Yong]

Rolls has a nifty phone adapter with rca outputs. Phone Patch II
http://www.rolls.com/new/pi9.html

[Glenn Chan]

Radio Shack (now The Source) probably won't have those parts.

Active Surplus has the 600:600ohm / audio isolation transformer you need.
List of electronics stores:
http://www.repairfaq.org/ELE/F_surplus_ca.html

2- I tried Jay Rose's schematic, and it worked (some buzz in the audio though). And then I did something else (tried a more complicated design) and then couldn't get Jay Rose's schematic to work again (tried to solder it instead of hot wiring). I think I destroyed the capacitor when soldering it, since I used a soldering gun and not a soldering iron. So watch out for that.

Capacitors are cheap, so you might as well buy a second or third just in case.

What I actually did was get a handset cord from Active Surplus and cut it open and connect the telephone tap in parallel. I had to guess and check which of the four wires did what (not particularly hard).

All in all I wasted a lot of time on this because I don't know how to solder.

3- Or just go to The Source, they have a phone recording adapter for $30. It doesn't work in mixers, it does work with consumer equipment. No idea why, but that was my experience with it.

It also picked up more unwanted stuff than Jay Rose's design, so I don't know.

4- The hybrid boxes for a few hundred dollars is probably better.

[Peter Wiley]

Take a look at this:

http://www.jkaudio.com/that-2.htm

Cheaper than the time you building something from scratch unless you are very good at it.

I have one of these and it works fine.

[Laurence Kingston]

I've been using one of these ultra-cheap Radio Shack models with a standard wired telephone headset. It works great and sounds as good as anything:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...D855&hp=search

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Jeff Toogood

No, the Audio Hijack program seems to be MAC specific.

Any wave recording program can capture the audio on your pc. It's the nature of the operating system. You just start it recording and then switch to the other app that is going to be generating the audio (Skype in this case). Personally, I use the Open Source freeware program called Audacity.

-gb-