Connect Your Phone To Your Mixing Board!, By george, I think I've got it! Options

[Kurt_eh]

After doing some experimenting the other night, I was actually able to call out (and receive) over my land-line and cell phone!

I was listening via my monitor headphones, and talking through my mic, all through my mixing board.

The trick is, you'll need a phone with a 2.5mm stereo jack for connecting a headset.

It turns out that, on the stereo jack, the left channel is the mic, and the right channel is the speaker.

So, all you need is a 2.5 to 3.5 mm adapter (stereo), and then a 3.5 mm to stereo L&R either 1/4" or RCA coupler! (Or mix and match). The key is to make sure you pan each channel 100% Left and Right, respectively.

You'll only hear your guest in one year, but it beats trying to record with skype!

Here's a couple of pictures I shot of the setup, and the individual components.







I hope it's helpful.

Kurt

[dpeach]

Excellent! I will give it a try here in a bit and see how I do with this. I have had a rough go at it with Skype. I am a Linux user and there just is not an easy way to get a good Skype recording. The best way I have found gives me no control of the incoming volume and it overdrives my recording program (arecord).

Here is my solution that I did for an interview this week.

I will give yours a try today if I can make it all work out.

[Kurt_eh]

Looks like we came close to the same method. I suspect that even with my method, you'll still have "phone" quality for the guest, but at least you'll be through your regular mic/mixing board, and it'll all get recorded on one spot.

And it can still be separated into L and R for editing purposes!

[dpeach]

Soldering iron has gone through the heating and cooling cycle.

Ok, I have it working and it is much nicer to have the recording all in one spot. Thanks!

As I pointed out in the blog post, I still get my voice coming through on the telephone channel. Do you know of anyway to cut that out? Do you get that?

Each step gets me a bit closer.

Please save me before I put too much time getting my Asterisk PBX all set up.

[Kurt_eh]

As I pointed out in the blog post, I still get my voice coming through on the telephone channel. Do you know of anyway to cut that out? Do you get that?

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

With the method I tried above, the speaker is the Left channel, and the receiver is the right channel (that's the way they set up the headsets). So I took advantage of this on my mixing board, and by panning the mic left, and the line in from the phone's receiver to the right, as long as I've got a stereo recording, I can keep meself and my interviewee on separate tracks (or at least R and L).

Or, one can take complete advantage of the setup, and record each voice on a different device (2 irivers, for example).

And since I've got the mic out from the mixer to the phone, I just lay the phone on the desk and use my mic/monitor-headphones for the conversation.

[dpeach]

What I get out of the speaker channel in my phone is the caller's voice as well as my voice at a lower volume.

When you "unhook" your phone and talk into it (without dialing) can you hear your voice coming through the speaker? I do. That then gets fed back through the speaker line in my setup. So I cannot completely isolate the person on the other end. I am in both the left and right tracks. If I don't have the phone turned on, I am in just one track in the recording. So I know I have isolated my microphone in the mixer, but it gets mixed into the output of the phone inside the phone.

Maybe it is just a matter of getting a different phone to use for this setup. We are getting pretty close to where I want to be and would be willing to buy a new phone if this will get me there.

Thanks for posting this. It has been a help.

[Kurt_eh]

Now I see what you're saying!

Not sure how to aleviate that problem.

I'll have to do some further testing tonight.

[Kurt_eh]

Well, damn.

Looks like my phone had the "monitor" effect too. I suppose it could be edited out, but now, I'm just not sure...

[dpeach]

http://www.mythoughtspot.com/recording-phone-interviews/

Here is my write up about it. I hope it helps someone else.

Thanks Kurt_eh. We will figure out something for the monitoring problem. Even if the soldering iron has to come back out.

[dpeach]

Well, I was dissatisfied with that solution. I could not isolate the two channels.

Here is what I am doing now. I am using Skype and going out of my sound card into my mixer. I then go from the mixer into my digital recorder (iRiver 890).

By doing the same setup as above (using Skype instead of the telephone) and having my mic input panned left and the Skype output only going into the right channel, I am able to get a good stereo recording.

For me, this fits what I have needed all along. It means going into the iRiver which is probably not as good of quality as recording straight to Audacity, but Skype and Audacity conflict and I am not able to record while on Skype.

[Achilles]

dude! props for the tutorial! i gotta try this out

[lucky_groom]

but Skype and Audacity conflict and I am not able to record while on Skype.

I've never had an issue with Skype and Audacity conflicting.

I run my audio out into my mixer and run my mixer out back into my PC mic or line-in and set Audacity to record that. Then I just monitor the conversation using the PC headphone jack.

I don't know if you can isolate the tracks that way - never had a need - but you should be able to record that way.

I'm curious to know if anybody has recorded calls placed through a voice modem. You can get them for under $20 on Ebay and there is lots of freeware that will let you record the calls. I'm planning on trying it at some point but don't have an immediate need right now.

[dpeach]

I've never had an issue with Skype and Audacity conflicting.

It's a Linux specific issue. It has to do with both Skype and Audacity needing to use the same resources. I am not entirely sure what the issue is, I have just read it can't be done.

I was very pleased with the sound quality of the latest recording I did with the digital recorder setup. Unfortunately the connection into Argentina was not that great and there were some dropouts. But as far as a better sounding interview, it was a great solution. That is what I will continue to do for the time being.

[Steve/EndGamePR]

Phone interviews are always a problem, due to the audio going in the phone and the mic at the same time. One gadget with promise that I found was at Radio Shack. It lets you hook your cordless (cordless land line or mobile cell phone) up to a recorder. It's a little box with a jack on one end to go into the headset jack on the phone, and another that goes into the record input on a recorder (or in this case perhaps a mixer). There's also an input jack on the box where you can plug your headset. I haven't attempted it yet, but I've been wondering if I could plug a mic into the place intended for the headset. If I could still hear the other person over the handset, I could talk into the mic and the sound might be good. I'll report back if I get a chance to test it.

[Steve/EndGamePR]

I've been using that Radio Shack hookup I mentioned, and the quality is pretty good recording the other person. It's phone sound but, honestly, listeners don't mind it. There is that problem of my voice looping through both channels, and that is an issue. About half of the time I end up re-recording my end of the conversation.

Here's the doohickey from Radio Shack:



While searching for better solutions, I found THIS:



Here' a link to more info. Basically, it looks like you plug you phone into it and it splits the signal, so you can turn down your half of the conversation. It seems to me that if you turn down your end, and run audio out of it into your mixer, that would work like a charm. Unfortunately the problem is that the thing is $240, which is pretty expensive. It might be something for the future for me.

[Steve/EndGamePR]

I picked up my wires and connectors at the store today to make my own version of what Kurt described above. It appears to work better than the Radio Shack doohickey I pictured in my previous post. I was getting some static through that and I don't know why. Also, the sound in the new setup just sounds better both through my mic and from the phone. Finally, Kurt's system doesn't require batteries ... the Radio Shack thing does.

I'm curious -- can someone tell me the reason for panning the channels left and right? It didn't appear to make a difference in sound in my tests. I haven't conducted a full interview yet ... I just called my cell phone voicemail and left a message to check levels, make sure my mic was going into the phone, and make sure I could hear the phone output okay. All seemed fine.

[techtalkforfamil...]

I did a (now podfaded) 'cast through a modem. It worked well. In fact, I routed it through my cell phone via 3-way calling so I didn't have big phone bills. I just use Skype now. The old system did work, though. Just a pain to do.

[Kurt_eh]

I picked up my wires and connectors at the store today to make my own version of what Kurt described above. It appears to work better than the Radio Shack doohickey I pictured in my previous post. I was getting some static through that and I don't know why. Also, the sound in the new setup just sounds better both through my mic and from the phone. Finally, Kurt's system doesn't require batteries ... the Radio Shack thing does.

I'm curious -- can someone tell me the reason for panning the channels left and right? It didn't appear to make a difference in sound in my tests. I haven't conducted a full interview yet ... I just called my cell phone voicemail and left a message to check levels, make sure my mic was going into the phone, and make sure I could hear the phone output okay. All seemed fine.

The reason for the panning was to keep your direct mic sound on one channel and the phone sound on the other. With a little creative editing (as long as people aren't talking over each other) you can delete your sound from the phone channel, and keep the crisp mic sound in the file.

[Steve/EndGamePR]

The reason for the panning was to keep your direct mic sound on one channel and the phone sound on the other. With a little creative editing (as long as people aren't talking over each other) you can delete your sound from the phone channel, and keep the crisp mic sound in the file.

Interesting. I'll give it a shot.

[Steve/EndGamePR]

After taking a week off from podcasting due to having family in town for the holidays, I *finally* got a chance to test out my own recreation of this new setup that Kurt described. As has been mentioned, it's not without its problems, however the sound is MUCH better than that Radio Shack doohickey I was using. Thanks for the tip!!!