RECORDING TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS:
Instructions for the Seminar Room (511A) and Annex (504H)

These facilities let you record questions and answers separately: your mic in isolation on one track, your guest’s answers in isolation on another. This is known as “split-track” recording and offers several advantages. For instance, if a colleague loudly barges into the room during a particularly good answer from your guest, you don’t have to ask him or her to start over. It’s much easier to adjust the relative levels of questions and answers after the fact, and to improve the sound of bad phone lines without adversely affecting the questions. Here’s how to do it:

1. Make sure the Mackie mixing board is set up properly. Look closely at the knobs on each of the following channels from top to bottom to make sure they’re set as follows:

MIC channel:
AUX 1 at “12 o’clock” (i.e. straight up)
EQ knobs all set at ‘12 o’clock”
PAN knob all the way to the LEFT
GAIN knob set to give a good level when you speak into the mic

GUEST or PHONE channel:
AUX 1 all the way to the left! Off! TURNING THIS UP CAUSES
EARSPLITTING FEEDBACK!
EQ knobs at “12 o’clock”
PAN knob all the way to the RIGHT
GAIN knob set to “12 o’clock”, adjusted once the guest is on the phone.

ALL OTHER CHANNELS:
AUX 1 all the way to the left
GAIN all the way to the left

Finally, find the AUX 1 MASTER knob towards the upper right-hand corner
of the Mackie. Make sure it’s set between “12 o’clock” and “3 o’clock”.

2. Make sure that the speakers are OFF!

3. Now turn your attention to the ProTools computer. Go to the PHONER TEMPLATE folder on the Radio share drive and open the ANNEX SEMINAR PHONER template. Immediately save it under whatever name you want on the Studentwork drive. Close the session and reopen it.

4. Prepare to record on both tracks by clicking on the “R” button on each in the ProTools session.

5. Dial your guest’s number on the phone. After he or she answers and you’ve said your hellos, explain that you’re going to transfer the call to the mixing board and ask your guest to be patient for a moment.

6. Press the ON button on the Gentner phone unit. (In the Annex, it’s one of two small buttons on the right. In the Seminar Room, it’s the large green button on the right.)

7. Hang up the phone and put on the headphones connected to the Mackie mixer.

8. Speak into the microphone to determine whether or not your guest can hear you -- and whether or not you can hear your guest!

If your guest says your voice is too quiet, find the AUX 1 knob on the MIC channel on the Mackie and turn it up until your guest can hear you. If you turn it up all the way and your guest still can’t hear you well, find the AUX 1 MASTER knob towards the upper right-hand corner of the Mackie mixer and turn it up.

9. Ask your guest a throwaway question (e.g. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”) so that you can set a good level on his or her voice with the GAIN knob on the CALLER/PHONE channel on the Mackie mixer. Make sure the level doesn’t “slam” into the red. The meter in ProTools should be “lit up” about halfway when your guest is speaking.

10. Click on the red record icon in the ProTools “transport” window (the one with the play, rewind, and stop controls), then press the space bar. As soon as you’re sure that both tracks are recording, you can begin your interview.

11. When you’re done, stop ProTools, thank your guest, and when you want to hang up, press the OFF button on the Gentner box. (In the Annex, it’s the small button next to the ON button; in the Seminar Room, it’s the large button marked OFF.)

12. Save the ProTools session, close it, and finally copy it to the Radio share drive so that you can edit it elsewhere.

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