|
Recording: Phone Cutout
|
There you are, recording the killer vocal for your song. What you hear the background makes you want to cry - Some one called you on the phone, and the ringing stands out just enough to make you want to shoot the person who just called you. Your luck, it was someone selling aluminum siding - you could have done quite well without this happening.
Its happened to me far too many times - You can unplug all the phones, but you always seem to forget to plug them back in again and 2 days later you wonder why no one is calling you.
There is a simpler way - you could just disable your phones by shutting off the connections. The trouble is that someone may be trying to contact you with a money making gig - what do you do?
The above schematic shows how to wire a phone system cut out, and leave the answering machine active and always available. All the parts are available from your local Radio Shack. In my case, I have 2 lines going into the house - I could either use 2 relays, or get the 4PDT relay that Radio Shack sells (this is what I used). In the case of a second line, the wire colors are Yellow and Black. Not too difficult to work with.
How do you use this? Simple! Put an on off switch on the power to turn on or off the relay that controls the phone wiring in your house while you record. The default (and failure mode) for the relay is to connect your phone lines (we use the NC - Normally Closed relay connections for this). The only time that the phone lines are disabled is when you actually power on the relay. Since the relay contacts are totally separate from the power source to open the relay contacts, you never apply any voltage into the phone system - it all remains isolated.
While you are doing this, turn down the volume on your answering machine so that you don't end up hearing that instead of a ringing phone.
When you are done recording, re-enable the phones and check your answering machine. If done properly, this will be an on off switch right by your recording console (or computer, if doing direct to disk recording), and you'll never lose that perfect recording as a result of a ringing phone again.
Questions? Comments? .
Return to Shavano Music Online Home page
© 1997, Shavano Music Online