Audacity Forum

myhnews wrote:Thanks for your reply. I do not know what hiss stands for. In addition I do not have internet or DSL connection.

The hiss had to do with the DSL connection so that probably wouldn't be an issue for you. Since you don't need to record two way conversations, it sounds like the cheapest solution that would work for you would be one of the relatively inexpensive devices on the links provided by alatham & adiant earlier in the thread:

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/categ ... m=1&sort=1

http://spyville.com/record-phone-calls.html

Your mute button should probably work well in keeping unwanted, extraneous noises on your end from interfering with the recording.

For recording two way conversations on a landline I think the USB recorder would work well for you, but it would cost quite a bit more.

descriptions: http://www.usbrecorder.com/
prices: http://www.usbrecorder.com/catalog/

JeffB & Koz,

Thank you for all your suggestions. I'm back to work on my Audacity project and have got to figure out how to record phone interviews for podcasts on my blog and to transcribe for written articles.

I'm trying Gizmo. I've downloaded the software and paid $10 to get Call Out credits so I can call landlines.

However, I am still having the same problem... I called my home answering machine and Audacity recorded my voice saying "test, test, test" into the mic, but not the voice on the other side of the phone line (my answering machine message).

I think this might be a problem with my Audacity settings or the software itself. Anymore ideas? Anyone out there with a Gizmo membership that wants to help me practice?

Just wanted to follow up with the solution in case anyone is having the same problem.

I figured out how to use Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/index.php) and can now bypass the DSL noise by calling from my computer. The charge to call people who don't use Gizmo is still very reasonable. It works if I record the conversation using Gizmo (I'll have to edit the recording ping out later) and then open the file that is saved to my desktop in Audacity. Then edit in Audacity.

I still can't figure out how to record the conversation directly into Audacity. Audacity records my voice and not the callees. But this is workable solution. Gizmo makes a ping every once in a while to remind you that it is recording, but that can be edited out in Audacity.

Thanks JeffB!

roclark wrote:Just wanted to follow up with the solution in case anyone is having the same problem.

I figured out how to use Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/index.php) and can now bypass the DSL noise by calling from my computer. The charge to call people who don't use Gizmo is still very reasonable. It works if I record the conversation using Gizmo (I'll have to edit the recording ping out later) and then open the file that is saved to my desktop in Audacity. Then edit in Audacity.

I still can't figure out how to record the conversation directly into Audacity. Audacity records my voice and not the callees. But this is workable solution. Gizmo makes a ping every once in a while to remind you that it is recording, but that can be edited out in Audacity.

Thanks JeffB!

From what I can gather, it is possible to record EITHER your own voice OR the other party's voice with Audacity, but not BOTH at the same time.

That apparently can be toggled back & forth by selecting the different input options in Audacity:
I tried recording with Audacity while using Gizmo and was able to record incoming sounds when I used the "Stereo Mix" option. Ditto for "Mono Out" Neither option recorded my own voice, however.

But the other input options reversed that. "Phone", "Line In", "Microphone" & "CD Player" all recorded my voice, via the boom on my headset, but not the incoming sounds. I'm using my speakers, however, in conjunction with the microphone from a headset. Perhaps something might work if the speakers were unhooked and both jacks from the headset were plugged in.

In any event, it does seem to me that there might be some way to make that work by using something like alatham recommended to someone else in another thread (with a different problem:

http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1609

"or you can run a cable from the Line In to the Line Out on your sound card and record from them."

On other possibility might be using two different computers, one to record your voice, another to record the other person's part of the conversation. You could then import one track into the other project and merge them.

Thanks for looking into all that Jeff.

That's a bummer because a few years ago I used to use Cool Edit, an open source audio editing software, and you could very easily record both ends of the phone conversation. Adobe bought up Cool Edit, and now it costs a few hundred dollars.

For now, the Gizmo recording/Audacity edting combo will work. Maybe in the future, Audacity will be able to record both sides of the conversation at once without any manual fidgeting on the user's part.

roclark wrote:Thanks for looking into all that Jeff.

That's a bummer because a few years ago I used to use Cool Edit, an open source audio editing software, and you could very easily record both ends of the phone conversation. Adobe bought up Cool Edit, and now it costs a few hundred dollars.

For now, the Gizmo recording/Audacity edting combo will work. Maybe in the future, Audacity will be able to record both sides of the conversation at once without any manual fidgeting on the user's part.

I was hoping that one of the gurus here would have a nice simple solution, but perhaps not. There are a couple of work arounds that I can think of, but they wouldn't be the ideal and would require a bit of time & effort with each recording. Your easiest solution, if Audacity can't be made to work in its current iteration, might be to use other software.

Since Cool Edit was at one time open source, I imagine that the code that had been released under that license would forever be open source, regadless of whether or not Adobe bought up the rights. If you have an old copy around on another computer, and that copy had been able to do what you want, you could just copy it over to your new computer.

If you don't have a copy anymore, or don't know where to find it, you might be able to download a copy from someone else. Here is a site that has a couple of verisons. I don't think they charge anything for them, but I'm not sure:

Cool Audio Editor 2.3 http://www.safe-install.com/programs/co ... ditor.html

Cool Audio Editor 3.22 http://cool-audio.safe-install.com/

I suppose you could also experiment with some of the other free programs out there:

Kristal Audio Engine http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Source Forge has others that might work:

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trov ... rm_cat=115

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If they all have the same limitations and/or you just want to use Audacity, I think the best bet would be to use 2 different computers; one to record the interviewee's side of the conversation, the other equiped with just a microphone to record the interviewer's side of the conversation. You could then import the sound file from the 2nd computer into the audacity file on the other computer. You would then probably need to time shift it a little one way or another to synchronize them properly.

Another possibility is to take the beeps out of the Gizmo recording. Doing so manually would be quite a hassle, however, and if the beep occurred while someone was talking, you couldn't just delete that portion of the recording without also deleting that portion of the call as well. IF you could get an EXACT copy of the beeps, however, you might be able to "erase" them with a few minutes or so of your time. That's a pretty big IF as it has to be almost a perfect duplicate, but if that is possible, you can import, then invert that track, line them up perfectly, and presto, it's like the beeps were never there in the first place.

Here's a thread on that subject: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1476

If Gizmo uses some sort of system in which the beeps are exactly and perfectly timed and use the exact same beep each time, I think that may well be possible. If you could make a call and mute the microphone on each end of the line and record it, you should be able to get a copy of the beeps alone, ideally without any other background noises etc. If the beeps are always an identical time period apart (ie. every 12.532 seconds) you should be in business. You would need to record for as long as the longest recording for the podcast you want to use.

It sounds like you would need to leave them all in uncompressed format (ie .wav file or audacity file) as a lossey format like .mp3 or ogg vorbis etc. would make them no longer identical.

You could then invert the file of beeps. From the menus at the top: Effect > Invert
Save that file.

Import it into any recording where you want to remove the beeps. You will then need to "time shift" the inverted beep file to line up PERFECTLY with beeps in the recorded interview. The time shift tool is circled in red in the above Audactiy screenshot. After selecting that tool drag the track you want to move back & forth until you get it lined up as you like.

When I experimented with that (see earlier thread) I couldn't get it to work until I had zoomed way in and got them exactly lined up. Real close didn't work. Don't forget too, that since the "beep track" is inverted it will be upside down with respect to the beeps in the file you are trying to clean up. It will be as if you are looking at a mirror image, with the mirror being upon that center line.

If the beeps are generated at random times or each beep is unique it won't work correctly. But if they are identical and are identically spaced one from another it should work like a charm. If you can line up a beep on the inverted line exactly with a beep on the recording, all of the beeps on the recording should disappear.

You know you can open two Audacitys, right? I don't mean 1.2.6 and 1.3.3 although that might work, too. I mean click on the launch icon twice. I get two control panels. I don't know if they will record like that, but it's worth a shot.

This may be where the Linux and Mac installs have it over the Windows people. Windows doesn't like two different applications poking at the same driver.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:You know you can open two Audacitys, right? I don't mean 1.2.6 and 1.3.3 although that might work, too. I mean click on the launch icon twice. I get two control panels. I don't know if they will record like that, but it's worth a shot.

This may be where the Linux and Mac installs have it over the Windows people. Windows doesn't like two different applications poking at the same driver.

Koz

Yeah, I had thought of that this morning before logging on, at least trying 1.2.6 & 1.3.3. I had remembered that they were supposed to work ok like that as long as they were in different directories. I got a warning that it could cause loss of data etc. and after I hit the OK button I think it logged me out of 1.3.3 automatically.

I thought I'd try to open up a second project in Audacity 1.2.6 but it would not allow me to use two different inputs simultaneously. If I selected "microphone" on one, it was a microphone" input on both. To make it work, we'd need "microphone" on one & "stereo mix" on the other.

I would love to use Linux but have never gotten past using the "LiveCD" version. I was wondering, though, if someone couldn't run Audacity in a Windows "virtual box" with one input and in Linux using a Linux flavor of Audacity with a different input. That's way out of my league, though, and it sounds like your idea of just doing it all in Linux would be a lot simpler and more likely to work correctly.

kozikowski wrote:You know you can open two Audacitys, right? I don't mean 1.2.6 and 1.3.3 although that might work, too. I mean click on the launch icon twice. I get two control panels. I don't know if they will record like that, but it's worth a shot.

This may be where the Linux and Mac installs have it over the Windows people. Windows doesn't like two different applications poking at the same driver.

Koz

On my Windows (XP HE SP2 etc.) I can only open one Audacity in 1.2 - but in 1.3 multiple Audacity's will open fine. Haven't tried mixing them though ....

WC

waxcylinder wrote:

kozikowski wrote:You know you can open two Audacitys, right? I don't mean 1.2.6 and 1.3.3 although that might work, too. I mean click on the launch icon twice. I get two control panels. I don't know if they will record like that, but it's worth a shot.

This may be where the Linux and Mac installs have it over the Windows people. Windows doesn't like two different applications poking at the same driver.

Koz

On my Windows (XP HE SP2 etc.) I can only open one Audacity in 1.2 - but in 1.3 multiple Audacity's will open fine. Haven't tried mixing them though ....

WC

Thanks for the idea. I was able to open 2 copies of 1.3.3 as well, but I couldn't get the second copy to record anything once the first one is started. Still can't figure out how to record from two separate sources -- the "microphone" and the "stereo mix" at the same time on the same computer. That appears to be necessary to record both sides of a phone conversation with Audacity while using a softphone like Gizmo.