Audacity Forum

Hi,

I wish to record phone calls using Audacity 1.3.12 on my Vista computer. I have a modem on my PC that works perfectly well when I use it to receive or send FAX.

If I edit the preference recording device setting to "Modem #0 Line Record" available in the pick list, I CANNOT record anything. I receive an error message when I try to record. Note however that I can record if I use my LifeCam microphone.

Can anyone indicate if I can record a phone call via my modem and how ?

Thanks,

YvesB wrote:I wish to record phone calls using Audacity 1.3.12 on my Vista computer. I have a modem on my PC that works perfectly well when I use it to receive or send FAX.

If I edit the preference recording device setting to "Modem #0 Line Record" available in the pick list, I CANNOT record anything. I receive an error message when I try to record. Note however that I can record if I use my LifeCam microphone.
Can anyone indicate if I can record a phone call via my modem and how ?

Alleged motherboard sound card input options for "modems", "telephones" and "CD player" are almost always spurious and not implemented. If you actually have a built-in voice modem (not just a fax modem) and you looked, you probably wouldn't even see a cable connecting the modem to the sound card.

If you only have a fax modem, then your simplest options are probably to buy either an external telephone to computer adaptor, or a USB voice modem. You will need to look at the specifications of a USB modem carefully, but some will act as computer playback and recording devices (meaning you can record from them in principle using Audacity) or they may come with call management software that includes a recording function.

Telephone > Computer adaptors are more straightforward and normally connect to the line-in or microphone port on the computer, but adaptors can also be obtained which connect to the computer's USB port. Then you set Audacity to record from the appropriate device (and input in the case of an adaptor connecting to the mic or line-in).

Here are some examples of telephone to computer adaptors:
http://www.telecomaudio.com/voice_port.html
(this device also allows audio to be sent from the computer to the telephone)

http://www.nch.com.au/hardware/callrec.html
(this site has a wide range of devices with differing features)



Gale

"The audio output from Voice Port contains a nice mix of audio from both sides of the conversation."

In other words, it's monitoring the earpiece complete with telephone sidetone which is a portion of the transmit voice fed back into the earpiece. So if the person at the far end mumbles, you're going to be hard put to correct that because you can't separate the two conversations. It's an interesting idea tho...


"NCH Software/Hardware"

These people are scary. They make both handset and telephone line recording hardware. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but people have been making tiny voice couplers for years (Radio Shack had at least two) and the only people who managed to put a dent in the market for multiple hundred dollar Pro units...

http://www.d-r.nl/dnrsite/products/tele ... brid-2.htm

...is Skype and the associated capture software. Skype and Pamela Pro/Business are not a dreadful way to make and capture telephone conversations for later production. If you're careful with echoes, it can work very nicely. There are other software packages that can be used for Skype capture like Total Recorder and

MP3 Skype Recorder v.1.9.0
http://voipcallrecording.com/

Koz

kozikowski wrote:People have been making tiny voice couplers for years (Radio Shack had at least two)

They don't seem to have much now. This in-ear adaptor (so a "solution" for cellphone calls as well as landline) was a good seller and some people seemed to think the quality was good if recorded to cassette or digital recorder, not so good if recorded to computer.


Gale

Cellphone calls do don't have to squeeze through a single pair of wires and then be "broken out" again to bidirectional conversations. That's what kills you on a land-line and that's exactly what's missing on a digital voice system. That's why Skype and the others work so well. The two directions are already separated and it's a mere piffle to record each on its own audio track.

Copper land lines have the seemingly magic trick of two conversations on one pair of wires and not have them interfere with each other. Decoding the two directions depends on perfectly defining the highly complex electrical characteristics of the phone line. Oh, and it all changes each time you make a call. So the call-in talk shows all use Automatically-Nulling Hybrids and other tricks and if they do it right, you never notice all the tricks.

Given that neither you nor I are Doctor Laura or Rush Limbaugh, we can usually put up with a messy subset of features or get along with a certain amount of leakage between the two directions -- some of my voice is still audible in the receive show. The solution is to shut up while the interviewee is talking. It's pretty cheap to do that.

Radio Shack seems to keep the successful products. If the phone couplers aren't there any more, they must not have been barn burners.

Koz