Phone patch for home recording

September Day Leach · **Voice Talent** Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1526

Brian, I love you.

Stephanie Deis · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 38

Great story, Brian!

Josef-Israel . · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 14

Debbie Munro · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 12

There are some great ideas for phone patch here. I had an engineer take an old speaker phone....he cut in to wires that have a stereo plug attached. Each of those plugs into my mixer and it cost me 20.00 for the labor. ANY old speaker phone will do.

Some of you may not have access to an engineer (talk to the local radio station engineers, they will do it for you I'm sure), so there is another EXTREMELY easy solution.

Get a cordless phone, and a head set. I use earbuds, then place my headphones over my ear buds and bring in the cordless while I'm recording. It works perfectly. They hear you over the phone, you hear them through your ear bud. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you may want to verbally state on your recordings what their comments are so that you know what they want to keep, in case you have to edit it yourself.

Hope this helps

Great job everyone, way to help each other out. Wish I had more time to be involved on VoiceSavvy

All my best
Deb Munro
My Voice, Your Way!
info@debsvoice.com
www.debsvoice.com

Allen Brown · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007, 19:10 (GMT) Post subject:

Jamie H · **Voice Talent** Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 10

Wow! I had assumed ISDN was just their term for broadband. Guess I better change that!

Regarding "phone patches".. I've taken old ham equipment, an LM386N chip (for amplification) and a stereo-mono mix circuit (again, to send mixer output down the phone line)

The old ham patch worked via a rather complex transformer to split the sides of the conversation, there is typically a "null adjust" to match impedance with the phone line.

You can get one of these hybrid circuits off of ebay, they're pretty cheap. (look for HAM equipment) Be a pal and pay whoever it is that sold you the unit a little more for his/her trouble. Mine was $12.00, I gave him a little more because at that price, it really wasn't worth his trouble to ship it.

You just need a soldering iron and some stuff. I've "glued together" a patch for around $20.00 this way. (the LM386 chip came off of an old modem, it's just a cheap amp for driving the phone line) You could probably skip this step if you have an amp for driving it. (if you don't have a broken old modem, radio shack sells the chip, it's about $2.00 maybe, but I've seen them in catalogs for 50 cents.)

Unfortunately, the project I needed it for never went through.

The nice thing of it is, you can talk on the phone using the same microphone you record with, since it's out of the mixer.

Downside is that it is *extremely* tricky to adjust.

Colin Campbell · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007, 13:06 (GMT) Post subject:

Lance Blair · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007, 02:59 (GMT) Post subject:

I use a JK Audio Auto Hybrid phone-patch for $150. To make it work correctly you need a small desk mixer that has one AUX send to feed it. Or heck, just split the feed from your preamp...the mixer just gives you volume control, and the ability to playback recordings to your clients...so get the mixer too! Also with the mixer, I can run a talk-back mic in the recording part of my office (as opposed to my vo booth), so we can discuss edits and emails, etc. That way, I can engineer and perform.

Anyhow, the key is to experiment with the "Null" settings on the JK Audio. Call in to your studio line from a cell phone and see what works. Otherwise, it just won't sound right on your end or the caller's.

I live in Atlanta and I've been able to keep some of my old Boston clients thanks to phone patches. It's not for everyone, and it's definitely a mid-range solution, but it has its times of use.

Most recently I had a quick job come up for a Boston client who had several people on a conference call with me while I did the session. It was for a Dutch company, so they really wanted to hash out with me how Euro-sounding they wanted it to be. It's a fun challenge to bring the right voice and deal with numerous people you've never met in your headphones.

For corporate clients or remote clients, phone patch can be a good way to work. I don't mind them "not trusting" me to just send them the keepers as I see fit...measure once and cut twice. Phone patch sessions can be a good way to build trust with some clients.

Allen Brown · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007, 18:05 (GMT) Post subject:

Hey Lance,

I know a lot of people who use the JK Audio unit and they're quite happy. I have a Symetrix unit in my main studio and it's served me well for years. It also uses that "null" tweak you spoke about. The only problem is that I've had some clients complain about not getting enough level. I'm sending all I can but sometimes it's not enough.

So, in my "B" studio, which is still under construction, I've installed the JK Audio Innkeeper 1rx. Boy, does it have the send level! I'm really happy with it and I'm looking forward to using it.

I agree that interacting with clients on a patch (or ISDN) is a great service to clients who want or need to feel involved in the process. Plus, when they hear that we don't just lay down a take and ship it out in five minutes they gain a deeper appreciation of the value of our craft.