Need advice about recording phone interviews

talkshoe.com is the best for podcasting and phone interviews.

You have a couple of options, you can use a telephone recording device available at most electronics store to tap the phone line and send the output to either a digital voice recorder or right into your computer where you use free software like Audacity to do the recording.

There are two challenges with this approach (they may be acceptable to you) - 1) The voices sound like they are on the phone, not as a personal 1:1 interview and 2) You are subject to the volume differential of the phone on the other end - sometimes this is not an issue, other times it is pretty significant where your voice comes across as strong and you can barely hear the caller on the other end.

To overcome #2 you can get a device called Inline Patch from JK Audio for about $275 US (perhaps less on eBay) which will patch your line and split both ends of the conversation into different channels so you can adjust them separately to get a more equal volume

To overcome #1 you can use the approach of the less costly recording device, but also share instructions on how your interviewee can record using their own USB MIC right into their computer. Then, you do the same and you combine both audio tracks to make it sound like you are in a studio

Finally - one last service I have used is to go with freeconferencecall.com where you both dial-in and record the call for free, then edit it using the free Audacity editing software I mentioned earlier.

Jeff

I'm also doing this at the moment and I've been using a teleconference service which is free and is really good called Powwownow. It's easy to use and I've done 3 recordings on it so far with no problems. You can download the recordings as an MP3. It costs 4.5p a minute to dial in from the UK so less than £3 for an hours recording. You get a phone number to dial in and a personal pin number, you don't have to pre-schedule a call, you and the person you are interviewing just dial in whenever you are ready to do the call.

On Skype I use Pamela. Also, good not had any problems with the recordings but Skype can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes and refuses to connect! So I always have the teleconference line as back up.

I have made several of the same type of products. I always use Free Conference Call, Phone Conferencing, Teleconferences - FreeConferenceCall.com. It's free and simple. I highly reccomend it for what you are doing.

I am about to have some interviews via skype as well. I'm happy to find this thread where some people already shared some ideas. Thank you!

You should have two systems running at the same time.

1) The good system. That's the skype one, or whatever direct-to-record setup you are trying to use

2) The failsafe. This is a through-the-air analog to digital recording. Completely separate from the good one. You conduct your interview on speakerphone. Or if you are using something like skype, have the other person's voice go out to some computer speakers. Then you place a high quality omnidirectional microphone between yourself and the speakerphone/speakers, but closer to the speakerphone/speakers. You record this into a completely different system.

The main idea is you want two systems. So if your good one is not working well, you at least have the other one.

You should also, before the interview, record the other person saying it's o.k. for them to be recorded (for legal purposes). Then edit that out of the finished interview. Some regions have different laws, so you want to have something like that. If I were doing this, I would say something like "For clearance purposes, I need your approval that it is o.k. to record this interview. Are you o.k. with our phone conversation here being recorded?"

I would do that even if they "know" they are being recorded.

In any event, always check the legality of the recording, and comply with the legal statutes.

I use SkypeOut to dial people's home phones from Skype, paying a pretty great long-distance rate, and I think the recording program I use is called Call Recorder.

You can download a screen recorder so when you are on skype or using your webcam use your screen recorder to record whats happening, also make sure the screen recorder you download recognizes sound and audio.

You can also use a normal mobile phone and when your callign someone or videocalling them click options and record

I use Pretty May for Skype (not free but reliable) and I use skype out to pay for the calls.