Recording Telephone Interviews

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We've been doing interviews with famous photographers for Shutterbug Magazine ever since our Jay Maisel interview in 2001. Being a tech person, I used the equipment that recorded our telephone interviews and then had to do the transcriptions myself, which sometimes took up to six weeks fitting it in with all the other work I was doing. At some point I realized that it was a tremendous waste of my time and for a reasonable fee (sometimes upwards of $150) I could have the first draft of the interview transcribed into a Word document. The first time I tried converting an audio cassette into an MP3 file, I set up my tape player and iRiver MP3 player in a quiet room so the built in microphone of MP3 player could record the voice recording. The result was a recording that I was charged extra for because of the poor sound quality. In doing some research, I purchased a few devices that lets me record high quality mp3 audio from telephone conversations.

I use the Edirol R-09 audio recorder. It's designed to record high quality MP3 audio files of live music. I use Radio Shack part number 17-855 (pictured below but no longer available) Wireless Phone Recording Controller ($25) to connect the headphone jack from either my desk phone or cell phone to the recorder. And I connect my telephone headset to the input jack on the wireless phone recording controller.

Update Dec 2009
The Radio Shack Wireless Phone Recording Controller is no longer available. Fortunately I do have a backup unopened one because I learned long ago to purchase backups of things that work well. I've ordered an Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device and will be experimenting with it.

edirol r-09 high quality audio recorder

radio shack Wireless Phone Recording Controller 17-855
Radio Shack 17-855
no longer available