VoIP Now: How To Record VoIP Calls

August 04, 2006

How To Record VoIP Calls - Reader Q+A

There are many reasons to record VoIP calls, especially in a business setting. But even for home use, it can come in handy. (Just have the courtesy to notify the person you're talking to that you are recording the call. In fact, in some countries, recording a regular telephone call without the other person's consent is illegal. Unless you're the government.)

On a previous post about recording VoIP calls, one reader, Richard, asked how he can record his calls using 3rd party audio recording software:

I have been reading your site about how to record VOIP calls. I have Nero Wave Editor and have tried recording. However, the speaker is a fair way from the microphone and I cannot hear the other person when I play back the recording. Would I have to place the speaker close to the microphone or is there another way where the recording can be done perhaps internally through the sound card. If so, would Nero Wave Editor enable me to do this or would I need something else?

Richard, you don't say whether you are using a softVoIP client, such as Skype, Google Talk, Gizmo Project, etc., or if you are using hard VoIP through some PBX device. Let's discuss both scenarios. Regardless of your setup, you want to combine the audio of both people at the same volume.

Recording From Soft VoIP Clients
If you're using something like Skype, there are 3rd-party plugins and overlays. I'm using HotRecorder. With most other softVoIP clients, such as SightSpeed and Yahoo! Messenger, etc., audio recording is built-in. You just have to activate it. So I'm assuming that if you are using a soft client, you do not have built-in recording. In this case, you'll need to employ an external mixer.

First, I don't recommend placing the speaker near your mic. If you do, you're likely to get screeching feedback. Instead, you'll have to send the audio output of your computer to an audio mixer. (I use inexpensive, good-quality Behringer mixers, but they're popular and sometimes hard to find.)

You don't need multiple channels or anything fancy. You're simply going to reroute the audio of your conversation by sending it out of your computer, to the mixer, and back into your computer's audio input, and thus into your recording software - in this case, Nero Wave Editor. I haven't used Nero, but I'm assuming that you will have to manually trigger it, when you start a conversation.

Recording From Pure-Play VoIP Phones
If you're using a regular handset and have VoIP via a service like Vonage, or are using a VoIP PBX, etc., this is a bit more difficult to answer. As I said in previous post on recording, there are special solutions. Otherwise, it depends on the specific phone you are using, but you might be able to output the audio of the conversation from the handset straight to your computer's audio input.

As before, you'd have to trigger your recording software manually. Unless your phone has a MIDI (Musical Instrument Device Interface) port, in which case you'd have to have a sound card on your computer with a MIDI port as well. This is a very unlikely situation. I haven't heard of telephone handsets with MIDI ports because they serve no existing need of musicians and composers. But in case they exist and you find one, the MIDI signal from the phone would trigger your recording software - provided it has MIDI sync capabilities.

But generally speaking, whether using soft or hard VoIP, you basically want to route the conversation's audio directly to your recording software, and this may require a multiplexer or a simple channel mixer as an intermediary device. If you're recording calls for podcasts and want to mix in other sounds, you're better off doing after-call sound editing.

In either case (soft or hard VoIP), you'll have to do a bit of planning to determine the most efficient way to record your calls.

Aside: For general audio recording needs, I use a variety of software. But for the price, you can't beat the free, robust, open source, high-quality Audacity audio recording software. It's supposedly written by industry insiders for garage/ basement/ bedroom musician, but can be used for any audio recording - up to 16 channels simultaneously, if your computer's RAM can handle it. It accepts Steinberg Cubase's VST plugins. (Cubase is a high-end music composing/ sequencing software package.) There's also a built-in programming language, Nyquist, in Audacity, with which you can write your own audio effects. Audacity runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/ Linux.

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August 4, 2006 in Phones, Software, Solutions | Permalink