Telephone Voice Sound

[gatorhaus]

I'm working on a Radio Style format CD. On it I have a few telephone interviews, that were not done over the telephone.

How do I get a spoken vocal track to sound like it is on a telephone.

thanks,
larry

[longsoughtfor]

Telephone is usually heavily compressed and is really just midrange bandpass filtered i.e. no highs and no lows.

Cheers
Kevin.

[faderbug]

it's relatively easy with an EQ, CUT BASS AND HIGHS AND BOOST THE MIds - i don't know how this happened - most editing software has a EQ preset to do this.

[faderbug]

exactly exactly

[masteringhouse]

A slightly more elaborate but more realistic-sounding method is to unscrew the receiver of your telephone. Using alligator clips connect the line out of your original recording to the telephone. Then call your answering machine and play back the interview as a message. From there you can take the recording off of your answering machine and run it back into the DAW or what you are using to mix.

[gatorhaus]

Tom,

Thoe only problem with that is I don't have a old style phone, lol. But thanks for all the replies. I got a good idea of how to do it now. I like the answer machine approach. I might can work that in with a cell phone.

larry

[jazzrich9]

you're a crazy guy Tom

That's some of the most creative lo-fi advice I've seen on these forums, seriously, like it was straight out of Tape-Op... I usually don't post useless replies, but that was so useful, it warranted this drivel.

One question, just for fun... could this be done any better with two phones, and reversing the process on the second phone, so you could get a real time feed with that sweet sweet RJ11 sound not to mention limited record time on an answering machine?

anyhow... I'd go with the multi-band compressor myself... if you're working 'in the box' there are several cheap plug-ins that will do the trick...

For some actual settings... set up a Band-pass, Center Frequency = 800, Band Width = 2, Amount = -25dB, and Output Gain = 0dB. -- this gave me something like the sound of listening through a phone. (found the settings on the web, tested them for accuracy, you may have to fidget with them a bit)

hah... not totally useless.

Good luck

Regards,
Rich

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by jazzrich9

you're a crazy guy Tom

That's some of the most creative lo-fi advice I've seen on these forums, seriously, like it was straight out of Tape-Op... I usually don't post useless replies, but that was so useful, it warranted this drivel.

One question, just for fun... could this be done any better with two phones, and reversing the process on the second phone, so you could get a real time feed with that sweet sweet RJ11 sound not to mention limited record time on an answering machine?

Hey Rich,

Sure, another way to "skin the cat".

Yet another option was used I believe by John Cuniberti on a Joe Satriani album where he plugged a telephone directly into the board. But you don't get the compression and bandwidth filtering supplied by Ma Bell...

[jt93]

quick and dirty, cut everything except 1khz, and boost the hell out of it. real close

[Jimbo Jones]

I like masteringhouse's idea a lot.
but as far as numbers go, i was taught that the telephone signal had nothing
below 300Hz and nothing above 3000Hz. And when I say nothing, I mean
nothing, no slopes.
I experiemented and it's definitely true, but you need a filter that will do this,
a plugin would work well.

also, compression/distortion usually plays a part too.