[78-L] recording off telephone

[Sammy Jones]

Eric Goldberg asked:

> I will be doing some phone interviews that I wish to record directly on
> my computer. Can anyone suggest an easy, but inexpensive, way to do
> this.

When I record from the phone for my podcast, I use a cable that has a 4 pin
(or ring?) 2.5mm connection on one end and two RCA connections on the other.
The four pins of the 2.5mm connector break out to + and - on each of the
RCAs.  One RCA is the send, and the other is receive.  The 2.5mm connector
plugs into the headset plug on most cell phones or cordless phones.

I patch the send RCA into an aux output of my small Soundcraft mixer, and
patch the receive RCA into one input channel of the mixer.  By using an aux
output instead of the main output, I can choose not to have the return audio
of the phone call sent down the line to the caller again (which is on the
main mix that is being sent to the recorder).

I use a normal microphone patched into the mixer to record my voice and to
send it to the phone caller (via the aux output of the mixer). The output of
the mixer is either sent to my standalone CD recorder or directly to the
input of my computer's soundcard.  Monitoring is done with headphones
plugged into the mixer.

I devised this system using equipment that I already owned; I didn't have to
buy anything special for it.  Hopefully this explanation has been clear
enough.

You can hear the results here:
http://thevortex.podbean.com/2009/08/08/the-vortex-episode-30/

I think it works very well, and have been pleased.  I'm sure professional
hybrid units do the job much better, but not cheaper!

Sammy Jones