Comments on: Help me put grandma's voice on the computer!

Question: Help me put grandma's voice on the computer!

misanthropicsarah — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:21:34 -0800

How can we get voicemail from the cell phone to the computer?

My partner has several voicemails from her grandparents on her cell phone. She'd like to forward these voicemails to our email/computer for more permanent storage, as they're special. How can we do this? Ideally for free.

Verizon cell phone service; Samsung SCH-a930 phone; Windows PC.

We don't want to get Skype or anything like that.

I see that got voice was recommended last year but it doesn't look like they have a free solution any more.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:28:52 -0800

Here you go.

By: reddot

reddot — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:40:29 -0800

Why don't you want Skype? It would be a pretty easy way to do it. It even comes w/ a plugin to record phone calls. Do you know any friends who use Skype that have either credits or a subscription? If so, ask them.

By: polexa

polexa — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:04:38 -0800

Reddot - How would Skype let you record an existing voicemail on the Verizon voicemail system?

By: Inspector.Gadget

Inspector.Gadget — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:09:13 -0800

GotVoice is still free, AFAIK. I use it.

By: misanthropicsarah

misanthropicsarah — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:11:36 -0800

inspector, how do you use it? according to this page, there are three plans, each of which cost money. am i missing something obvious?

By: mistikle

mistikle — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:11:49 -0800

Hm. I came here to suggest GotVoice, but it looks like I only get it for free since I've been a member for a while. I can't vouch for it, but you might want to take a look at YouMail, otherwise the Skype option does seem like the way to go.

By: dseaton

dseaton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:16:02 -0800

How would Skype let you record an existing voicemail on the Verizon voicemail system?

Call in to your voicemail remotely (presumably by dialing your cell number and pressing pound or whatever when the message comes on). Record the call and play back the messages. Voilà!

By: Inspector.Gadget

Inspector.Gadget — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:18:30 -0800

Apparently, after the 14 day trial you revert to GotVoice Lite, which is what I use. I'm having trouble locating any indication that this is still the case on their pages, though.

By: Manhasset

Manhasset — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:23:07 -0800

Record the call

Far as I can make out, Skype doesn't have a "record the call" button.

By: misanthropicsarah

misanthropicsarah — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:48:11 -0800

Far as I can make out, Skype doesn't have a "record the call" button.

yeah, that was what was confusing me as well while looking at skype. plus, we don't need skype. we have cell phones. and never talk on them anyway.

the solution that nitsuj posted seems spot-on, and i'll do that if we can't come up with anything else. BUT, i can't believe there isn't some techie way to do this. i mean, we're in the future people!

By: JFitzpatrick

JFitzpatrick — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:56:04 -0800

Is there a pressing reason for you to avoid using the simplest solution?

Buy a mini-jack to phono-jack adapter and plug the cellphone's earbud port directly into the computer's microphone input jack. I looked your phone up and according to the specs on the review sites, it should have a 2.5mm mini jack port. You'll be able to record anything on the cellphone to your heart's content using freeware audio editing software.

Search Google for 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter and you'll find tons of results, usually around $3-8 in price. If you don't want to wait, your local Radio Shack or electronics store should have the same thing just hanging on the shelf.

By: rfs

rfs — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:58:29 -0800

If your PC has a microphone, play back your phone message while you record it with some sound software like Audacity, then save the sample as an MP3. The fidelity won't be as good as a direct line input, but it should be OK.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:16:18 -0800

fwiw, Skype has a nifty little addon called Call Recorder which is what we use for the MeFi podcast but doesn't have a simple record option and the addon isn't free. Also for what it's worth, Skype itself is free to use for computer to computer calls and a call to your voice mail would be cheap, but it's probably not the easiest solution to this problem which I think JFitzpatrick has.

By: Manhasset

Manhasset — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:44:09 -0800

So I downloaded Skype and bought the Call Recorder thingy but, to me, it sounds terrible. The voices is barely audible and there's a tonne of hiss. That's with it set to no compression (tried aac compression also) and not recording video and audio quality set to its highest.

Jess, if you guys are using this to record the podcasts, does it first sound terrible and then you guys go clean it up or... ?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:57:30 -0800

We both use headsets and do Skype to skype recordings. In your case, it's going to sound only as good as 1. the original calls 2. your cell phone reception 3. your net connection (more crap with a slower connection), but if you use headphones and a decent mic it can sound a little bit better. I think cortex cleans it up a bit in Audacity [open source audio editing program] and you might want to get his opinion on whether you can clean up your recordings some.

By: Thistledown

Thistledown — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:10:17 -0800

If someone happened to have a PBX that did call recording, you could call into the voicemail from that PBX and check the messages. The call will be recorded, and then you can cut/paste/edit accordingly.

By: polexa

polexa — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:41:17 -0800

What I've heard for using Skype-to-Skype recording, is that you should use each recording of their own audio. That way, you get a "local" clear copy that hasn't been transmitted through the net.

Not sure how this works exactly, and I can't find the reference suggesting this method... I think it was on some podcasting tips blogpost.

Back to the original question...

I also don't understand the avoidance of "getting" Skype. It's not like when you say you "don't need it" that you're buying a monthly plan or something. Skype offers a la carte pricing. You just download the software program, sign up for an account/username, put $1 on it, call your voicemail, record the message playing, and then you're done. You'll probably even have like $0.80 left.

By: chococat

chococat — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:32:56 -0800

I did this exact thing last year with birthday messages from my kids' great-grandmother in Germany, after more than a year of saving them every week on the phone.
I did it via the land line, though. That way I could record the audio coming into the computer from the modem jack.
I'm on a Mac and I used the trial version of Ambrosia's WireTap but there seems to be lots of free or shareware apps if you search for "phone" "record" etc.
You just plug a phone cable from your computer modem into the wall jack, hit record and dial in to your messages. You can dial the number with another phone on the line or use a phone dialing app. Sounds convoluted but it worked pretty well.

By: schindyguy

schindyguy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:08:09 -0800

I would recommend using a program like CallRec or mVoice but the problem is they arent available for your phone. I used them on my Palm treo and it worked perfectly.

There might be a version of something similar for your Samsung, but I don't think so.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:30:07 -0800

Skype does have a prepaid option. Just spend $10, and you'll be able to get the call and have a backup service to call places should your phone die or get lost.

By: nmabry

nmabry — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:35:07 -0800

Here's your ultimate, easy solution. First off, sign up at Youmail.com (free) on a mobile (also VZW) phone that does not have the voicemails in its inbox/archive. Then complete the mobile setup via instructions on Youmail's site. Finally, log into your primary account's archived voicemail and forward the saved messages to the other Verizon account.

I've not tried this, but in theory this should send the voicemail to your Youmail account where it can be downloaded as an mp3. If this does not work, it does not jeopardize the status of the treasured voicemails.