The Steel Guitar Forum

For my day job I need to record lots of telephone interviews, and have been doing so for years with a little device from Radio Shack that the phone plugs into, and from there into the mic jack of my little tape recorder. I'd like to go digital and record straight into my laptop, in mp3 or some other digital format on my hard drive, instead of having thousands of analog audio tapes cluttering up the place.

I've tried going from the Radio Shack device into Goldwave software, and while I can hear the conversation faintly in the background, mostly all I get is white noise.

Does anyone out there know how to solve this problem? Do I need some kind of signal attenuator, or something else? Different software? HALP!

Thanks dudes and dudettes,
Jimbeaux

Jim, due to my day job, I use a digital phone recorder all the time, even on my cell phone. They can be purchased for as little as 100 bucks with all the software. I use one very much like this one: http://www.crimebusters911.com/DPR-10.htm

I can store the conversations to the hard drive or put them on disks and save them...James

Jim:

Sounds like a job for total recorder products. They make several software products to record phone conversations. They have been around quite a while and the stuff works pretty well. Take a look at both transcription buddy and dictation buddy and give them a call. I think they generate Wave files which can be converted to MP3 if you want to do that.

You would also need a hardware piece, such as the CRD-110 recording adapter which they sell also. It connects into your phone line.

The package is a bit over 100 bucks.
http://www.totalrecorder.com/

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Mitch Drumm on 28 October 2005 at 02:47 PM.]</p></FONT>

We just had the same problem last month at our studio. We bought the little radio shack thingie, but we never got it to work because of the noise. We settled on using the speaker phone in the recording room for that occassion. But in your case, you might try investigating if the modem in your computer can be used as a phone (most can). It shouldn't be hard to find one of those programs that allow you to "virtually" patch the output of your computer to Goldwave.

I can only recommend audio hijack, but it's a mac only program. hope this helps.

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Jim, you didn't say if you are recording standard area code #'s , 800 #'s or ..

uhhh..

900 #'s...

we need more detail....<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 29 October 2005 at 04:52 AM.]</p></FONT>

Jim, I've got this one and it works fine. http://www.hellodirect.com/catalog/Product.jhtml?CATID=15329&PRODID=16653

Tony, I bought the Digital Logger through Hello Direct on your recommendation, and it seems to work fine. Thanks!
Jim

Yeow! Today I went to use the Digital Logger and upon program startup, got a message box saying that I had a Runtime error and that I should contact the program manufacturer for further information! Well! They don't have very good or prompt customer service, so I'm stuck!

Anybody know what this could be about and what I could try to do about it? I've already tried reinstalling the software, but it didn't help a bit: same error message.
Thanks!

Uninstall the program, restart Windows and then do a new install, if you didn't do that before.

Just uninstalling and then reinstalling without restarting Windows can result in the same problem.

Also check the Vendor's site for any program updates.

You didn't say what version of Windows. If you have Windows XP and the program is not specifically XP or fully XP compatible you may need to run that in a "Compatibility" mode (e.g. Win98 or WinME).

Thanks, Jack. I did restart Windows after reinstalling it; it required me to do so. But I didn't actually Uninstall the old one first; I just did the install program again, assuming it would just overwrite the old one. You think it might help if I actually first Uninstall the old one? Yes, I'm on XP.

Oh, now I see you're advising me to restart Windows BETWEEN uninstalling the old one and Installing the new one, right? Well, I can try that...
Thanks,
Jim<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 29 November 2005 at 09:16 PM.]</p></FONT>

Usually the "runtime errors" are Virtual Basic (VB) errors and either the program is not compatible with the version of VB on the PC or the program has an error in it's runtime routine(s). In most cases it's "buggy" software.

But, uninstall the program, restart windows and then do a new install.

Will do today, Jack. But isn't it odd that the program worked for the past 2 weeks just fine and then all of a sudden yesterday I get the Runtime error?

If it turns out to be the program, it probably never had the particular occurance (in the program) happen until it came up with the error. If that particular "routine" or "line of code" was never accessed then there would not be a problem.

One of the things program checkout should find. But, in defense of the software/programmers, there are many "Windows" PC's with a multitude of different hardware, software, versions of teh Operating System, etc and no one can anticipate every potential issue. b0b can chime in on this, since he is a programmer. Although I'm not a MAC fan, that is the big advantage Apple has - they control the hardware and the Operating System (and many applications) and thus do not have to account for anything execpt what they produce.

Jack, I've now deleted the program, rebooted, and reinstalled the program. Same error message. I've found a phone # for the company, so I'm gonna try to phone them later this morning and see if I can get to tech support. Will post any resolution that I might be lucky enough to find.
Thanks for trying.

I think I have it resolved. Called the company and they told me not to use the automated installation procedure but to manually install one of the other *.exe files on the CDR. Apparently that one works better with all versions of Windows whereas the automated installation uses one that requires certain versions of XP. I did as he advised and all my error messages are now gone and the thing works. Hopefully that will continue.

Thanks for your counsel, Jack.
jc

Jim, thanks for the feedback and glad to hear it is apparently fixed. (send steak subs )

Hey Jim,
Glad you got it resolved....I didn't have any problems like you did, but I did get good customer service from the company before I bought it (by calling with general questions), so didn't hesitate to recommend it.
On an unrelated note, here's another gadget I just love http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum11/HTML/007836.html