I would like to know if you are able to set Audacity up to automatically record when the phone is answered. My husband is disabled and suffers from short term memory loss and is unable to remember to turn it on, etc. He also forgets the phone conversations (which sometimes are important) or the details. Also, it records both sides of the conversation, but the incoming recording is low. The voice on our phone is fine. How can I change the settings to make the other side louder? We are using Magic Jack for the home phone and it is hooked up to my lap top with Windows 7. Thank for any help you can give me on this.
Audacity has nothing like that. All it can do is record whatever the computer presents to it and the computer, as a rule, will not present both sides of the conversation. You’re not actually getting both sides in your tests. You’re getting the leaky side-tone which is not generally satisfactory.
So you need the software package between the phone system and Audacity. If you were on Skype, we would recommend Pamela Professional and Pamela Business for conversation capture and I don’t think either of them will automatically answer the “phone.”
Koz
I want to do something similar, i.e. record a voip conversation preferably with MicroSIP http://microsip.org.ua/ or alternatively with Skype. A few attempts with Audacity 2.0.2 have shown the same problem as experienced by Kimmi D: " it records both sides of the conversation, but the incoming recording is low". As I will only sparsely use voip recording, I would prefer not to opt for a paid solution such as Pamela Professional or Pamela Business if possible. What are viable alternatives?
I run Win 7 Pro 64-bit on a laptop with 3GB RAM and 2.1 GHz processor speed.
I replied to your same question on feedback@ a week ago, but you gave fewer details there.
So are these landline calls coming into a normal fixed phone line (not calls that are coming into the computer directly)?
There is no useful information on Magic Jack online (that I could find), but are you recording from an audio output of “Magic Jack” into the computer? And am I correct you are not connecting to the computer with a USB cable?
Depending how low the incoming party is, you might be able to use Effect > Leveller in Audacity to even both sides out, but it might cause some distortion too. You are much better to either buy an appropriate telephone recording program (or depending on what “Magic Jack” actually is) a telephone to computer adaptor. Audacity will be able to record landline calls properly with a telephone to computer adaptor.
Here are some phone recording programs
and here are some phone to computer adaptors:
Call Recording Hardware - Call Recording Adapters .
As I said before, the current Audacity 2.0.2 has a Transport > Sound Activated Recording feature. This starts recording when it hears sounds coming into the input, and it stops recording when it doesn’t hear sounds. Some people are able to use it for recording from a phone line, but obviously your computer has to be switched on all the time.
Gale
The symptoms may be the same but the cause is not, assuming Kimmi D is talking about landline calls.
Try http://voipcallrecording.com/ (free).
Otherwise it’s messing about trying to send the microphone input to the computer audio output and recording a mix of both with “stereo mix” (assuming your sound device has such an input). And you may degrade the recording and the call experience that way.
Gale