Telephone recording.

[boquist]

Hi.

I"m looking to use a telephone for some recording. I'd like that crappy phone-line sound. Does anybody know how to monkey with the phone cord to put a 1/4" or an xlr on the end? Is there an easier way to do this?

Help!

Thanks

Scotty

[EletrikGutar182]

i did this 2 weeks ago...you're in luck!

Pop open the headset of the phone. There will be 4 wires (generally white, green, black and red, all should be the same no matter what phone). Clip the green and white wires (or the ones connected to the SPEAKER of the telephone...very important step)

Next, take an XLR M connecter with about a foot of cable left on it. Pull out the RJ-11 Connecter from the phone, and run the XLR up thru the hole you now have in the headset. Combine the wires from pins 1 and 3. Those get soldered together to either lead from the speaker. Pin 2 goes to the other

Viola! That's it! sounds great, too(in a lo-fi, shitty kind of way)...i just got around to testing it this weekend. Sounds like im listening to a kit through the phone. Good luck!

P.S., remember to cover the solder joints with some electrical tape to prevent shorting., and to use a cable tie to add some strain relief on the cable so the solder joints won't break.

[ttaurisb]

you could get a telephone mic. it sounds like a telephone.

barring that, you could get one of those Ibanez 'radio' emulation pedals.

[jca83]

mine needs phantom power. anybody else?

[i hate your god]

sorry to bring this back up...
But ive been trying to build one of these for the past 24 hours with no luck.

The phone i am using doesnt have the wires stated (it has a red a black and 2 white)
The 2 white were conected to the earpeice(speaker?) and screwed on so i just unscrewed the wires and took that bit out.

leaving the red and the black wires coming from the MOUTH peice. I'm not sure if i am doing it right, first i tried to do it with an old guitar lead..i cut one end off and conected the wires to the phone wires and it didnt work.

Now ive tried an XLR cable as it says in the instructions above but it still doesnt work.

any ideas on what i am doing wrong?
Also i'm not so good with the "technical" terms (or as good as i used to be..ive forgtern most of it)

[theistheman]

I know this isn't exactly what you want to do, but for me it was an easy and flexible solution:

Buy one of these:
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?c ... =279%2D430

They're available at every single radio shack.

take two hook-up wires and screw them in to the red and green or the black and yellow parts sections of the phone wiring block. Then solder both of those onto an XLR jack.

Then simply plug the phone cord coming off of the block into the phone of your choice. If you're using a corded phone, you'll most likely need phantom power. For whatever reason, this won't work on every single cord phone. I've tried a few, and some work, and some don't. I don't know why, as I'm not really an expert on this.

However, if you use a cordless phone, you're good to go, no matter what.

So if I were you, I'd go get one of those phone blocks and a cheap ten dollar walmart cordless phone. Simple 20 dollar phone recording solution.

[i hate your god]

i forgot to mention that i would like to use this for live sound and not so much recording.

Also i am in australia so i dont know how readliy available radio shack stuff is????

[psychicoctopus]

mine needs phantom power. anybody else?

mine too. I was really underwhelmed with the output level until I hit phantom power. now it's ultra-f*in-hot!

[brokenbird]

did this for a recording five years ago. there was one person sitting in one town with the phone playing his harmonica where you talk and listening back where you listen and there was a microfon close to the "ear " of the phone in the studio where I was in another town

[theistheman]

i forgot to mention that i would like to use this for live sound and not so much recording.

Also i am in australia so i dont know how readliy available radio shack stuff is????

well, just about any electronics store would carry something like that.

Also, cordless is even better for live.

[segaface]

For recording, this might work okay.

andy