Recording audio over the phone?

[Guy Cochran]

I use the JK Audio QuickTap on land lines, they also make a celltap.

Here's a quick demo I made for someone that needed to use an Edirol R-09 and the QuickTap. It gives a pretty good idea of the quality you can get. Fast fwd to the end to hear the actual recording.
YouTube - Edirol R-09 with QuickTap for Phone Recording

As Jon mentioned, JK Audio has some higher-end solutions for live radio station style interviews. Markertek carries these and more.

[Reed Gidez]

Guy

Thanks for the link to the demo. I will definitely check out the JK gear.

Reed

[Bob Hart]

If you are really blunt-broke,you might try plugging your headphones, mono preferably, into the mike input of your recorder and place one of or the active headphone cup hard against the ear outlet of the telephone handpiece as close as you can force it, mabye coming from the back of the telephone handpiece will get you closer to the voice coil in the handpiece. Older telephone handpieces with larger speaker coils may work better.

This hopefully will give you a mainly inductive, not acoustic couple to the telephone audio.

[Reed Gidez]

Not broke and I want to achieve the highest possible quality audio from this if I move forward on it. Right now my client is leaning towards having me come into their offices and record voices live. This might be the best way to go but I still want to explore capturing interviews over the phone.

[Bob Hart]

I think the live voices option might be best. Like putting the salt in the stew, it is very hard to take it back out again if you create the effect in a live recording.

My comment about blunt-broke might have been mistranslated from strine to amerenglish. It was in no way intended to imply you were actually broke and reduced to such desperate measures. Sometimes the most simple solutions can be the best.

There used to be for sale, sucker-cupped induction mikes for recording from telephone handsets. They have probably been supplanted by more modern and tidier "record out" facilities provided by the likes of the Gentners suggested above. I haven't seen one in years since I bought one ages ago to record ground-to-air and air-to-air radio traffic before the modern generation of handheld scanners came along with record-out jacks.

[Reed Gidez]

Bob

No offense taken at your previous post. I fully understood the spirt of your suggestion. I actually have one of those phone suction-cup things. Dug it out today and tried it. Then I remember why I put it away in the first place!

Going to go the live route.

Reed

[Michael Nistler]

Hi Bob,

Since your emphasis is on call quality, I'd say the four options are:

1. VOIP, i.e. Skype on both ends using "record what you hear"

2. VOIP/Skype on your end, dialing out of the network to a POTS line on the distant end

3. Digital telephone hybrid, as the Telos One and a mixer to split "aux send" (eliminate feedback loop)

4. Double-ender, recording both ends of the calls at the source, having them send the distant end file to you and you mix them in post

Obviously, #4 would be best if the distant end had good equipment and competent technical staff. #1 is great when both ends have good Internet bandwidth, high quality mics, etc. #2 is acceptable, assuming the distant end is not on their cellphone. #3 is okay but a bit pricey and requires some technical expertise to setup and adjust the levels properly.

And me? I started with #3 but prefer #1 or 2. I can't do #4 since my interviewees aren't tech-savy and don't have the proper gear.

Good luck, Michael

[Philip Howells]

Skype also has a recorder add-in - I think it's free for recording up to 30 minute files. The beauty of it is that it tends to level out the difference between the local voice level and the distant one.