[Rick Powell]

I have PT 002.

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

RP

[Richard Crowley]

"Rick Powell" wrote ...
I have PT 002.
What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Budget?
One-off or recurring?
Quality required?
Recording both sides or just the far end?
Recording local using conventional mic, etc?

You could use anything ranging...
(low-end) one of those little rubber suction-cup induction coils from
RadioShack or several other telephone recording gadgets from RS

(medium) one of the interface units from http://www.jkaudio.com/, etc.

(high-end) something like the Gentner telephone hybrids (or equivalent)
complete with DSP echo-cancellation, etc. etc. I think Gentner is out of
business, but several people make those high-end hybrid couplers.
Check the places that sell equipment to radio stations, etc.
Or go to the NAB convention in LasVegas next month (:-)

[Scott Dorsey]

Rick Powell wrote:

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Do you need one side of the conversation, or both?

Is this just to transcribe it or does it need to be broadcast quality?

What is your budget?

The right way to it is with a hybrid, with an interviewer on a microphone
and headphones and tape recording the incoming and outgoing sides at the
same level. This is overkill for some things, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

RadioShack made an interface that connects to the handset and feeds a tape
recorder (or any similar input). It sells for around $15.

[Richard Crowley]

"Richard Crowley" wrote ...
"Rick Powell" wrote ...
I have PT 002.
What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Budget?
One-off or recurring?
Quality required?
Recording both sides or just the far end?
Recording local using conventional mic, etc?

You could use anything ranging...
(low-end) one of those little rubber suction-cup induction coils from
RadioShack or several other telephone recording gadgets from RS

(medium) one of the interface units from http://www.jkaudio.com/, etc.

(high-end) something like the Gentner telephone hybrids (or equivalent)
complete with DSP echo-cancellation, etc. etc. I think Gentner is out of
business, but several people make those high-end hybrid couplers.
Check the places that sell equipment to radio stations, etc.
Or go to the NAB convention in LasVegas next month (:-)

(medium-high?) send the far-end interviewee to a studio and
have them record the sound with a good mic and recorder and
have the studio send you the file. (Or hire a location-recording
provider to record it at the interviewee's location). Several of the
production-recording people over on the film-sound newsgroup
(news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound) have done these and
likely some of the people here in r.a.p , as well.

[Rick Powell]

On Mar 29, 7:13 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Rick Powell wrote:

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Do you need one side of the conversation, or both?

Is this just to transcribe it or does it need to be broadcast quality?

What is your budget?

The right way to it is with a hybrid, with an interviewer on a microphone
and headphones and tape recording the incoming and outgoing sides at the
same level. This is overkill for some things, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I think they want broadcast quality. It's about a 30-45 minute
interview between my next door neighbor and an interviewer in NYC, and
strangely, they want ME to record the thing out here in remoteland
instead of at the caller end, where there's probably 100 capable
places within a stone's throw of the interviewer. I have long agoo
ceased to question my potential clients' motives or methods.

As fate would have it, I am located about 40 miles from JK Audio in
Sandwich, IL which is one of the leading manufacturers of telephone-
audio interfaces, and I didn't even know they existed til today. I
would like to rent or borrow one of those Innkeepers from JK, but I
can't see buying it for a one-off. I suppose I could put it on ebay
after the project if I had to buy it.

http://www.jkaudio.com/assets/pdf/us...-1rx-1006p.pdf

I don't know what will be used on the other end yet, but I'm thinking
a Sennheiser 421 on this end. The Innkeeper has a built in mic pre
and XLR mix and caller feeds. Even if the other end is a telephone, I
think this would produce a lot higher quality audio than one of those
$20 Rat Shack gizmos.

RP

[Rick Powell]

On Mar 29, 7:13 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Rick Powell wrote:

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Do you need one side of the conversation, or both?

Is this just to transcribe it or does it need to be broadcast quality?

What is your budget?

The right way to it is with a hybrid, with an interviewer on a microphone
and headphones and tape recording the incoming and outgoing sides at the
same level. This is overkill for some things, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Oh, budget? I think the client is willing to pay my rate, and any
reasonable expenses. Couple hundred bucks, maybe.

[Rick Powell]

On Mar 29, 7:21 pm, "Richard Crowley" wrote:
"Richard Crowley" wrote ...





"Rick Powell" wrote ...
I have PT 002.
What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Budget?
One-off or recurring?
Quality required?
Recording both sides or just the far end?
Recording local using conventional mic, etc?

You could use anything ranging...
(low-end) one of those little rubber suction-cup induction coils from
RadioShack or several other telephone recording gadgets from RS

(medium) one of the interface units fromhttp://www.jkaudio.com/, etc.

(high-end) something like the Gentner telephone hybrids (or equivalent)
complete with DSP echo-cancellation, etc. etc. I think Gentner is out of
business, but several people make those high-end hybrid couplers.
Check the places that sell equipment to radio stations, etc.
Or go to the NAB convention in LasVegas next month (:-)

(medium-high?) send the far-end interviewee to a studio and
have them record the sound with a good mic and recorder and
have the studio send you the file. (Or hire a location-recording
provider to record it at the interviewee's location). Several of the
production-recording people over on the film-sound newsgroup
(news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound) have done these and
likely some of the people here in r.a.p , as well.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think they want "interaction" not a canned interview where the
responses are dubbed in. But that is a possibility.

RP

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 30, 3:05 am, "Rick Powell" wrote:

As fate would have it, I am located about 40 miles from JK Audio in
Sandwich, IL which is one of the leading manufacturers of telephone-
audio interfaces, and I didn't even know they existed til today. I
would like to rent or borrow one of those Innkeepers from JK, but I
can't see buying it for a one-off. I suppose I could put it on ebay
after the project if I had to buy it.

So call them up, tell then you have a potential project, you're doing
a pilot, and ask if they can lend you one for a demo. As you say, you
never know what a client might want.

[Scott Dorsey]

Rick Powell wrote:

I think they want broadcast quality. It's about a 30-45 minute
interview between my next door neighbor and an interviewer in NYC, and
strangely, they want ME to record the thing out here in remoteland
instead of at the caller end, where there's probably 100 capable
places within a stone's throw of the interviewer. I have long agoo
ceased to question my potential clients' motives or methods.

Ahh! Throw up an RE-20 on the neighbor and roll tape. Send them the
recording and have them edit in the interviewer's questions. There is
no read for the telephone to be involved at all.

As fate would have it, I am located about 40 miles from JK Audio in
Sandwich, IL which is one of the leading manufacturers of telephone-
audio interfaces, and I didn't even know they existed til today. I
would like to rent or borrow one of those Innkeepers from JK, but I
can't see buying it for a one-off. I suppose I could put it on ebay
after the project if I had to buy it.

http://www.jkaudio.com/assets/pdf/us...-1rx-1006p.pdf

To be honest, if you only care about the far side of the conversation,
there's no reason not to just use a straight transformer interface rather
than anything fancy. Record the phone line to one channel, and the
mike to the other, and they'll probably just use the phone feed as a guide
track anyway.

I don't know what will be used on the other end yet, but I'm thinking
a Sennheiser 421 on this end. The Innkeeper has a built in mic pre
and XLR mix and caller feeds. Even if the other end is a telephone, I
think this would produce a lot higher quality audio than one of those
$20 Rat Shack gizmos.

421 is fine. But, I suspect it doesn't matter how high quality the phone
line signal is, because it'll only be used as a guide track. The $20
gizmo will be fine, and what is important is that you get a good track
of your neighbor.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Steve King]

"Rick Powell" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 29, 7:13 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Rick Powell wrote:

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Do you need one side of the conversation, or both?

Is this just to transcribe it or does it need to be broadcast quality?

What is your budget?

The right way to it is with a hybrid, with an interviewer on a microphone
and headphones and tape recording the incoming and outgoing sides at the
same level. This is overkill for some things, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Oh, budget? I think the client is willing to pay my rate, and any
reasonable expenses. Couple hundred bucks, maybe.

I record telephone interviews frequently. Here are some questions for your
client. Does the client want the interviewee (your neighbor) to sound live,
which suggests that you use a microphone and record to an isolated track,
while the interviewer is recorded from the phone line? It sounds to me as
if that is what they want. Or, do they want both parties to sound like they
are talking on the phone? That is not as simple as it sounds, because the
local telephone instrument will provide a sound that is usually noticably
better than the remote participant. When I want that effect, I often have
to do post to EQ each speaker so that they sound similar. Sometimes I even
haul out the old-style (1950s) carbon-button telephone that I keep around
for an easy "telephone voice" sound. You may also notice that the
interviewer in NYC does not sound like the "telephone sound" we have come to
expect. The new digital instruments in office PBX systems sound better than
the old carbon button telephones that form the basis of our conception of
what a telephone sounds like. Also, the trunk lines nowadays do not impact
the audio in the same way as the analogue equipment of the past. Often post
processing is required because the remote participant sounds 'too good'.

I use a simple Gentner analogue Auto-Coupler. It works fine for what I do.
The digital hybrids work better at isolating the local participant, your
neighbor, from the telephone line recording. A hybrid is what I would
choose for ongoing radio station type interviews. For a one-off recording
such as you are doing, I doubt that you would see much benefit, except that
the hybrid might cut down on the post processing time a bit. I haven't
checked, but Chicago's film/television rental houses may have a rental
hybrid unit.

$200 is too cheap;-)

Steve King

[Walt]

Rick Powell wrote:
I think they want broadcast quality. It's about a 30-45 minute
interview between my next door neighbor and an interviewer in NYC, and
strangely, they want ME to record the thing out here in remoteland
instead of at the caller end, where there's probably 100 capable
places within a stone's throw of the interviewer. I have long agoo
ceased to question my potential clients' motives or methods.

Sounds to me like they're doing a tape synch. That is, you record the
interviewee's voice alone, meanwhile they're recording the interviewer's
voice in their studio. When they get the recording from you they'll
mix the two voices together and both will be studio quality microphone
recordings - the phone was only used for them to hear each other and
won't be heard in the final mix.

I've done these without anything more sophisticated than a DAT recorder
and a handheld mic. Simply position the mic near the interviewee while
he/she talks on the phone.

A better way is with a studio equiped with headphones and a telephone
hybrid. But concentrate your efforts on getting a good dry recording of
the voice alone, the telephone part of it will most likely be left on
the cutting room floor.

The old school method of tape synch was to record dry voice on the left
channel and the phone on the right. Both studios did this and if
everything worked perfectly they used left (dry voice) channels only.
If something went wrong ( one of the tapes got lost or damaged, or the
engineer didn't press record, etc.) there was still a version of the
interview with phone sound to fall back on.


As fate would have it, I am located about 40 miles from JK Audio in
Sandwich, IL which is one of the leading manufacturers of telephone-
audio interfaces, and I didn't even know they existed til today. I
would like to rent or borrow one of those Innkeepers from JK, but I
can't see buying it for a one-off. I suppose I could put it on ebay
after the project if I had to buy it.

http://www.jkaudio.com/assets/pdf/us...-1rx-1006p.pdf

I don't know what will be used on the other end yet, but I'm thinking
a Sennheiser 421 on this end. The Innkeeper has a built in mic pre
and XLR mix and caller feeds. Even if the other end is a telephone, I
think this would produce a lot higher quality audio than one of those
$20 Rat Shack gizmos.

Phone hybrids are a subject unto themselves. I don't think you need the
world's greatest hybrid for this. You might not even need one at all.

//Walt

[Rick Powell]

On Mar 30, 9:04 am, "Steve King"
wrote:
"Rick Powell" wrote in message

oups.com...





On Mar 29, 7:13 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Rick Powell wrote:

What is the best way of capturing a live telephone interview, or some
alternatives I could consider? Any pieces of equipment that would be
helpful? Needs to be 30-45 min. long, want better quality than a
micro-cassette, etc. I do not have anything other than regular corded
and cordless phones.

Do you need one side of the conversation, or both?

Is this just to transcribe it or does it need to be broadcast quality?

What is your budget?

The right way to it is with a hybrid, with an interviewer on a microphone
and headphones and tape recording the incoming and outgoing sides at the
same level. This is overkill for some things, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Oh, budget? I think the client is willing to pay my rate, and any
reasonable expenses. Couple hundred bucks, maybe.

I record telephone interviews frequently. Here are some questions for your
client. Does the client want the interviewee (your neighbor) to sound live,
which suggests that you use a microphone and record to an isolated track,
while the interviewer is recorded from the phone line? It sounds to me as
if that is what they want. Or, do they want both parties to sound like they
are talking on the phone? That is not as simple as it sounds, because the
local telephone instrument will provide a sound that is usually noticably
better than the remote participant. When I want that effect, I often have
to do post to EQ each speaker so that they sound similar. Sometimes I even
haul out the old-style (1950s) carbon-button telephone that I keep around
for an easy "telephone voice" sound. You may also notice that the
interviewer in NYC does not sound like the "telephone sound" we have come to
expect. The new digital instruments in office PBX systems sound better than
the old carbon button telephones that form the basis of our conception of
what a telephone sounds like. Also, the trunk lines nowadays do not impact
the audio in the same way as the analogue equipment of the past. Often post
processing is required because the remote participant sounds 'too good'.

I use a simple Gentner analogue Auto-Coupler. It works fine for what I do.
The digital hybrids work better at isolating the local participant, your
neighbor, from the telephone line recording. A hybrid is what I would
choose for ongoing radio station type interviews. For a one-off recording
such as you are doing, I doubt that you would see much benefit, except that
the hybrid might cut down on the post processing time a bit. I haven't
checked, but Chicago's film/television rental houses may have a rental
hybrid unit.

$200 is too cheap;-)

Steve King- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I can rent a Gentner DH 20 (digital hybrid) for $80/week from Full
Compass - they are 2 hr. away from me. I'm sure there are other
rental houses in Chicago that have the unit. JK Audio (40 min. away)
wouldn't let me rent a unit - they only work through their dealers. I
will consider your advice when setting a price:-)

RP

[Richard Crowley]

"Rick Powell" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote:
(medium-high?) send the far-end interviewee to a studio and
have them record the sound with a good mic and recorder and
have the studio send you the file. (Or hire a location-recording
provider to record it at the interviewee's location). Several of the
production-recording people over on the film-sound newsgroup
(news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound) have done these and
likely some of the people here in r.a.p , as well.

I think they want "interaction" not a canned interview where the
responses are dubbed in. But that is a possibility.

There is nothing that prevents "live interaction" here.
The difference is that the interviewee at the far end
is ALSO being recorded on a high quality microphone
and recorder (IN ADDITION TO talking on the phone)

[Richard Crowley]

"Rick Powell" wrote ...
I think they want broadcast quality. It's about a 30-45 minute
interview between my next door neighbor and an interviewer in NYC, and
strangely, they want ME to record the thing out here in remoteland
instead of at the caller end, where there's probably 100 capable
places within a stone's throw of the interviewer. I have long agoo
ceased to question my potential clients' motives or methods.

So are they recording the interviewer at their end?
If so, this is exactly what I was describing previously
(where each end is recorded locally while on the phone
and then the dialog intercut in editing)

[Steve King]

"Rick Powell" wrote in message
oups.com...

I can rent a Gentner DH 20 (digital hybrid) for $80/week from Full
Compass - they are 2 hr. away from me. I'm sure there are other
rental houses in Chicago that have the unit. JK Audio (40 min. away)
wouldn't let me rent a unit - they only work through their dealers. I
will consider your advice when setting a price:-)

RP

I think you've heard some good ideas from several people. Some have
speculated on what your client wants. I think you need to determine from
your client the end result they expect: 1) Your neighbor sounding on mic,
while they record (on mic) the interviewer in NYC, as one poster suggested,
2) Your neighbor sounding on mic, while you record the interviewer over the
phone, 3) Or, both your neighbor and the interviewer recorded over the
phone, which is unlikely because they could do that from their end. Once
you have that information, you'll know whether to suggest the $80 rental or
simply pick up a Radio Shack device to use to record a guide track of the
interviewer.

As far as your rate... I need to remind myself to keep my rates up, where a
profit results;-) I think that your gear rental should be around $100 to
$200 not counting the hybrid, plus a 1/2 day rate for your time and
expertise. The $200 you cited seems about right for that. Total of
$300-$400 would be fair. Of course, you'll want to cover this in your
conversation with your client so there are no surprises ("I'm not paying
that!!!"), when you send your invoice.

Steve King

[Steve King]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Rick Powell wrote:

I think they want broadcast quality. It's about a 30-45 minute
interview between my next door neighbor and an interviewer in NYC, and
strangely, they want ME to record the thing out here in remoteland
instead of at the caller end, where there's probably 100 capable
places within a stone's throw of the interviewer. I have long agoo
ceased to question my potential clients' motives or methods.

Ahh! Throw up an RE-20 on the neighbor and roll tape. Send them the
recording and have them edit in the interviewer's questions. There is
no read for the telephone to be involved at all.

As fate would have it, I am located about 40 miles from JK Audio in
Sandwich, IL which is one of the leading manufacturers of telephone-
audio interfaces, and I didn't even know they existed til today. I
would like to rent or borrow one of those Innkeepers from JK, but I
can't see buying it for a one-off. I suppose I could put it on ebay
after the project if I had to buy it.

http://www.jkaudio.com/assets/pdf/us...-1rx-1006p.pdf

To be honest, if you only care about the far side of the conversation,
there's no reason not to just use a straight transformer interface rather
than anything fancy. Record the phone line to one channel, and the
mike to the other, and they'll probably just use the phone feed as a guide
track anyway.

I don't know what will be used on the other end yet, but I'm thinking
a Sennheiser 421 on this end. The Innkeeper has a built in mic pre
and XLR mix and caller feeds. Even if the other end is a telephone, I
think this would produce a lot higher quality audio than one of those
$20 Rat Shack gizmos.

421 is fine. But, I suspect it doesn't matter how high quality the phone
line signal is, because it'll only be used as a guide track. The $20
gizmo will be fine, and what is important is that you get a good track
of your neighbor.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

This is what several of us have been saying. Unless I missed it, we still
don't know for sure what the client wants. Maybe the OP will chime in with
the answers.

Steve King

[Rick Powell]

On Mar 31, 8:48 am, "Steve King"
wrote:

This is what several of us have been saying. Unless I missed it, we still
don't know for sure what the client wants. Maybe the OP will chime in with the answers.

OK, I did nothing except record my neighbor with a 421 while he was
talking on the phone. The client did not want anything off his end
(not even a guide track for a cut-in) so I did not need to rent a
Gentner or JK audio hybrid, or even get a $20 Radio Shack gizmo.

FYI: Client and interviewer - Paul Chuffo, drummer from gutbucket

www.gutweb.com

Interviewee - Kim "Howard" Johnson, official unofficial biographer of
Monty Python

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...d%22%20Johnson

RP

[Steve King]

"Rick Powell" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Mar 31, 8:48 am, "Steve King"
wrote:

This is what several of us have been saying. Unless I missed it, we
still
don't know for sure what the client wants. Maybe the OP will chime in
with the answers.

OK, I did nothing except record my neighbor with a 421 while he was
talking on the phone. The client did not want anything off his end
(not even a guide track for a cut-in) so I did not need to rent a
Gentner or JK audio hybrid, or even get a $20 Radio Shack gizmo.

FYI: Client and interviewer - Paul Chuffo, drummer from gutbucket

Cool. Glad it worked out. Your situation reminds me that gigs are rarely
as bad/complex as our imaginations make them beforehand.

Steve King