Phone clips

[Shepherd]

Here's a new one... I'm working on some stuff and want to record some phone conversations. I've tried jacking a phone clip (phone jack to 1/8" mono male) into my Minidisc recorder (Sony RZ900) while talking on the other phone, and three things happen:

1. The conversation gets recorded;
2. I'm at least four times louder than the person on the other end;
3. There's a VICIOUS hum under the whole thing.

Has anybody had experience recording off phone lines? Any suggestions for techniques or equipment that will equalize our voices and eliminate the hum... that won't break the bank??

I'm a relative newbie, and I know an RCA jack from a XLR cable and can solder headphones back together without taking my eye out, but I'm not up for building electronics from scratch, if that helps with your suggestions.

Oh -- I'm recording in mono on the MD and tried putting a convertor on the phone clip so it enters the MD as 1/8" stereo. That gives me more volume overall, but the ratio of my voice/his voice/hum stays the same.

Thanks!

[Shepherd]

Incidentally, I did read the other threads on the subject, but I'm not wild about cannibalizing a phone, and I figure taking the feed off a headset wouldn't be much different than jacking directly into the line. Let me know if I'm wrong.

[DonF]

You might try putting a 1:1 isolation transformer (e.g. R. Shack Cat # 273-1374, $3.99) between the phone line and the MD input. If you have an unused modem lying around, it probably has the part you need.

[TexRoadkill]

I would take the feed from the head set and plug the mic line into a mixer output and the speaker line into a mixer input (not routed back to the phone mic line). Then you can record to two different tracks and mix the levels later. You would use a mic to talk on the phone.

[roman]

Why not just record the conversation with 2 mics, in seperated rooms and feedback on headphones.
Then use a little distortion and EQ with bass rol off untill about 1kHz and high roll of from around 3kHz then boost the 2kHz range in the mixing stage... sounds like a telephone to me.

good luck, ro

[Track Rat]

I'm with DonF. I've made phone interfaces out of the Rat Shack transformers and they work pretty good.